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

Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

When I decided to launch Cheese Garden, I knew pretty much nothing about starting a business. I was simply an artist looking to monetize my art. I had been arranging charcuterie as a hobby since 2017 and honestly never dreamed of it being anything more than a skillset I tapped into when I wanted to entertain but didn’t feel like cooking. So when I decided to turn my passion into a business in the summer of 2020, I had absolutely no clue what the right way was to get my idea off the ground. My path to launching Cheese Garden ended up being a combination of online research and hopeful guesswork.

I started with the basics – brainstorming a business name and hiring a trusted graphic design friend to create a logo. From there, I made sure to secure an email address and social media accounts under that business name. After that, I threw myself into weeks of research and chaotic note taking. The charcuterie industry itself is rather niche, so there weren’t really a lot of readily available resources I could reference to learn about it. So, I had to resort to other methods. Through searching Instagram, I found like-minded individuals who had launched their own charcuterie businesses. I browsed a few dozen business accounts and took note of observations like: Do they have a website? How do people place an order with them? Do they charge a delivery fee? What is their service area range? How do they set their prices and what are they? What hashtags are they regularly using to drive engagement on their posts? I used these observations to inform my own decisions on these topics and took note of what I felt worked and what I felt I might do differently.

One of my major takeaways from this research was that I definitely wanted to design a user-friendly website for my customers. I would say I spent the better part of a month teaching myself how to build the website, writing the content, and curating a cohesive brand aesthetic. Every time I finished a page of my site, I would evaluate it from the lens of a brand new customer with no prior charcuterie knowledge and take note of any section that left room for questions so that I could revisit and find a way to make it more clear cut. Once I felt my website was customer-ready, I officially shared it on all my personal social media accounts to soft launch Cheese Garden.

I never ended up doing an official grand opening or launch party for my business and honestly did not expect it to grow beyond the people in my personal network occasionally ordering from me for some extra spending money. I launched without a marketing plan or advertising budget and there were a handful of important decisions I never even considered until I received my first orders, like how my product packaging should look, what my email signature should be, even where I should source my inventory from. Through my experience, I learned that there really isn’t a “right” way to launch a business. In fact, I think on my journey through trial and error, I found countless wrong ways. The most important thing is that I launched it. Because if I waited until I thought Cheese Garden was ready, I never would have left the idea phase.

Lauren, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Lauren Barker and I am the sole owner/operator of Cheese Garden, my charcuterie and woodworking business. Cheese Garden offers custom-designed charcuterie spreads in a variety of sizes, personally handcrafted wooden serving boards, private and public charcuterie classes, a cheese-pun inspired merch line, and grazing tables for large events. Something I want people to know about Cheese Garden is that I am first and foremost an artist. Every charcuterie spread I arrange and every board I woodwork I treat as an individual art piece. And I think it’s that excitement about sharing my art with others that keeps my passion fueled for this industry. Cheese Garden is and ever-evolving brand and I’m constantly experimenting with new flavors, designs, and business ventures.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think what has helped build my reputation the most is my open-minded approach to Cheese Garden. I started this journey knowing that I still had so much to learn about running a business. So I placed my trust in those around me to guide me through it as I learned. I like to say that Cheese Garden is a collage of everyone who has supported me along the way because that’s really how I’ve grow this business. I have jarcuteries on the menu because I once received feedback from a customer that she would love if I offered single serve charcuterie. I have a consistent aesthetic for my media because I once had a photographer friend give me constructive criticism about the way I edit my product images. I have an ecommerce platform on my website because people expressed that they would like an easier payment option for ordering. I’m constantly evolving my business because I know that in order for Cheese Garden to be the best version of itself, I have to be willing to listen to constructive criticism. And that willingness to listen and grow does more for my reputation than my art alone ever could.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I have had to unlearn in my years of running Cheese Garden is the idea of “hustle culture”. When I first started, business picked up quicker than I had anticipated and I sort of let myself get lost in it for a bit. I think I was just so caught up in the whirlwind of excitement that I forgot how important it was for me to maintain a work-life balance. For years, hustle culture had told me that I just needed to keep pushing myself farther. That pulling all nighters should be worn like a badge of honor and that I should constantly be creating content and if I fall off the hamster wheel that means I have failed. After months of operating under this mentality, I was exhausted. I no longer had the mental capacity to arrange boards for fun or experiment with new flavors and designs because I had poured all of my energy into getting as much productivity out of my day as possible. Cheese Garden began to feel different to me because I felt different to myself. And that’s when I decided to take a step back and recenter myself, even if it meant falling off that hamster wheel for a bit. In my time away, I realized that as the sole owner and operator of my business, it is only as strong as I am and that the best way to take care of Cheese Garden is to prioritize taking care of myself.

Since unlearning hustle culture, I have a much healthier relationship with my business. I have learned that it’s okay to say no when I’m feeling overextended. It’s okay to go a week or two without posting on social media if I don’t feel like sharing anything and it’s okay to post an away message on my website and fully step away from my work when I go out of town. I discovered that these expectations I had been setting on myself weren’t actually as important to the success of Cheese Garden as I thought they were. Now I focus on the parts that actually matter – creating my boards, communicating with my customers, and experimenting with new ideas that excite me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecheesegarden.com/
• Instagram: @cheese.garden
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cheese-Garden-120365996411834
• Other: TikTok: @cheese.garden

Image Credits
Hailey Bollinger Photo Echo by Design