We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Ford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I was taught how to bake homemade sweets in my early 20’s by my mother and my grandmother. As my grandmother was a pastor, she often had meetings and members fellowship at our home and we would cook and bake all sorts of great things to eat. Fast forward 30 years later when my wife and our children transitioned to McKinney, TX, I began to bake again and spend time in the kitchen with my daughters as a fun activity in baking cookies and cakes. My wife begin to see my passion and love for baking and asked would I consider selling the items. I pondered on this for about three years, not sure if anyone would like what I baked or if the business would be profitable. Once the pandemic hit and things slowed down, it gave me time to reflect on what I wanted to do next with my gifts, and Tell Me Something Sweet Bakery was born. My wife and I created a business plan in early 2020, incorporated the business, and spent that entire year testing and fine-tuning recipes. In early 2021, we signed up to sell our cakes, bars, and pies at a local farmer’s market and the customers loved it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am the founder and Head Baker of Tell Me Something Sweet Bakery. I credit my love for baking to being raised in a home filled with the smells of homemade pound cake, apple pie, and other freshly crafted creations. Tell Me Something Sweet is proud to be a black-owned bakery telling multi-generational secrets through the sale of handmade baked goods crafted with real ingredients and care. Our core products are pound cakes, freshly made pies, lemony lemon bars, brownies, and a delicious array of cookies.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

With this being our first two years in business we have experienced many ups and downs. When we launched at the Farmer’s Market we were able to build a consistent base of customers, but as the Texas summer months arrived, revenues slumped, so we quickly pivoted to joining other vendor events that were inside, allowing comfort to our customers and the ability to reach other areas and cities. By the holiday season, we knew it was important to rebrand our website and begin to ship our products so customers nationwide could experience our sweets and we could establish our brand outside of our local area. This was no easy fete, but we persevered, connecting with a great marketing firm, that helped us leverage our brand through social media advertising. The results were extremely successful. We continued to think of ways to scale our business and began partnering with Doordash and GrubHub to be able to deliver our products in slices to our local area. And here we are now pursuing a brick-and-mortar location that will allow us to scale our bakery. Daily we acknowledge that prices are on the rise and customers’ disposable income is diminishing but we are determined to weather the storm. We believe we have a great brand and offer an exceptional experience to our customers who love sweets and want to enjoy homemade baked goods.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe our story allowed us to build our reputation in our market. As my wife and I often tell customers, she is the brains and I am the baker and compliment each other well. My story is so similar to most of our clients who learned to bake at home with parents or grandparents when things seemed simpler, with no cell phones, apps, etc. to take your attention. Just an opportunity to spend time with those you love, doing something that you love, and partake in something that you love.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tmssbakery.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/tmssbakery
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/tmssbakery
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/c-kevin-ford-92381967/