We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mary Ann Vaeth a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mary Ann, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
After leaving my career in health care administration, to stay home with my newborn, I quickly realized that I still needed some sort of creative outlet for myself. I had always loved baking sweets and breakfast items for my friends, and one day, one of them suggested that I sell these treats! It was completely out of my comfort-zone, but I signed up to participate in a holiday market at our church. While it was not some amazingly-huge success, I still had the best time. This was November 2019! In January, one of my friends suggested that I should make cookie decorating kits for kids. So for Valentine’s Day, I created my first cookie decorating kit, and marketed it to my friends and on some facebook groups. Again, not widely successful, but I was super pleased with the number of orders that came in! And then…. Covid settled upon us. All of the sudden, kids were home from school, and parents needed activities for them. The idea sort of took off, and I was able to gather a large-core-base of customers over that next sixth-month period. My daughter and I would spend hours in the car delivering the kits all over Houston. I have loved figuring out new kinds of kits to introduce and am now re-adjusting our items based on a post-Covid climate.
Mary Ann, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Sort of explained in last question!
The main thing I am about is taste! While I do some decorated cookies and cakes, they are simple. I love giving children (and adults) the tools to create yummy and creative desserts. There are so many kits you can buy these days – honestly Walmart has some pretty creative ones – but I have to say I love excellent tasting kits and try to create an unique decorating experience – wether it’s a Bunny Bungalow cookie kit, a Spooky snack cookie decorating kit, or a Chocolate Chip Cookie Decorating Pie kit, all must be fresh and yummy first and fore-most!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
For me, I don’t think I could’ve started this business without having to trust someone outside of myself to help me with all of the unexpected circumstances. God has given me a very strong faith in Him, and since the beginning, I’ve had a small cross on my business card. This is displayed in a lot of my marketing, and I really had no intention of offending anyone or trying to push my beliefs on anyone, I just appreciate all that God has done for me, and it personally means a lot to me. I had one customer feel that I was trying to push my beliefs onto her, and she was not expecting to receive a cookie kit with a business card that had a cross on it. I was deeply upset, as this was my first unhappy customer. I apologized to her, explained that that was not my intentions and offered to bring her a kit without a business card – or she could tell me what would make it right for her. She accepted the kit without the business card, at no additional charge, and looking back on the situation, I don’t think I would’ve handled it any differently.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Word-of-mouth by far!
Contact Info:
- Website: my-site-108132.square.site
- Instagram: gottahavevaethboxes
- Facebook: gottahavevaethboxes
- Linkedin: Mary Ann Vaeth
Image Credits
None