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

Alright, Lesli thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

We had a customer recently who’s daughter had many allergies including one to latex. While we have encountered latex allergies in the past (usually relating to latex gloves) we learned that latex proteins exist in certain foods like banana, avocados and strawberries. After doing a lot of research for a few weeks on the products we use we were able to present a list of safe ingredients for a modified cake to her mother and doctor. Once the ingredient list was approved by her doctor we were able to make a safe cake and cupcakes for her birthday. We love being able to provide a cake or dessert for everyone if we can so they can be included in the celebration. We will do everything we can to be able to help those kids and adults who usually have difficulty finding something that will work for them, find a solution. We can’t always provide a solution but we absolutely love it when we can.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Lesli and I’m from Huntington Beach, CA and I have owned Two Birds Baking Company for almost 14 years. I started Two Birds the same way a lot of people start their own business. I hated my job and knew I could make something better. I grabbed my best friend Nycole, left the world of accounting and started a journey into what would be come this company. I worked full time for several years and did Two Birds on nights and weekends. Finally after a few years I was able to quit my job and make Two Birds my full time job.
Someone once asked me “if you could do anything for work what would you do?” My immediate answer is baking. There’s something so wonderful about baking for people. About being a part of their big moments, or lifting them up when they’re down or just filling someone’s need for a craving. A scratch made treat says, I care about you and I was thinking about you. When I first became vegan 15 years ago I realized that there weren’t many (if it all) vegan baked goods that didn’t taste like rocks or was a dry crumbly red velvet cupcake, so I was making a lot of stuff for myself. Having grown up in a baking/cooking family it was just sort of natural for me. I taught myself how to modify and create recipes to make desserts that tasted great and were up to par with standard baked goods and most of the time better.
A couple years after starting Two Birds we were asked to be on the first ever Vegan episode of Cupcake Wars. It was a great experience and although we didn’t take home the W it changed the direction of our business forever. We still get messages and calls to this day of people who have seen the show (now in syndication) and want to order. I am forever grateful for the experience.
We set out to change the vegan baking game and I can say 14 years later I think we have. Our goal was to make vegan desserts that taste just like “regular” desserts and we have definitely accomplished that. We’ve always been all vegan and along the way gluten free became a huge piece of the puzzle as gluten intolerances and allergies have become more prevalent. We adapted and have what we consider to be a line of really great vegan gluten free options as well. We’ve learned that as the world and business grows and changes so must we.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Something that we had to unlearn or learn early on was how to regulate pricing. When we first started because we were a home based business we priced our items at a price we thought was fair to our customers while creating a little profit for ourselves. We were not taking into account that we need to be adding cost into our total overhead for things like our time for things like writing quotes, supply runs, recipe development, customer service etc. We were also grossly undercharging compared to local brick and mortar shops which we learned is a big no no. We were also not charging for delivery which ended up eating up a chunk of our overall profitability in those first couple of years. When we partnered with a local small business we had to increase our price by almost 80% overnight. We were worried that all the increased costs and charges would cost us business but in all honesty no one even batted an eye. Now when we do the pricing for our products we take all our business costs and our time costs and factor that into the total number.

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

We started Two Birds with a mission to make great tasting vegan and eventually vegan/gluten free cupcakes and desserts because there just wasn’t very much on the market and what was there was limited and really expensive. We wanted people to have delicious desserts and to feel like they were getting their monies worth. We have always stood behind our taste and product from day one. As we grew into a bigger company we started dealing with things like allergies, dietary restrictions etc. we began to research and gain knowledge in many areas. We will always answer any question no matter how big or small and do our due diligence to research the answers when necessary. We’ve always believed in having excellent customer service and we go above and beyond for our customers and they know that. We’ve had some of the same customers for 14 years and I have to think that it’s not just because we make great cakes and cupcakes but also because they have a great customer experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.twobirdsbakingcompany.com
• Instagram: @twobirdsbakingco
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/twobirdsbakingco
• Twitter: @twobirdsbaking