We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nathan Duncan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nathan below.

Nathan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I came up with the idea to do something I REALLY ENJOY which is cooking! I wanted to turn it into a business because I felt and still feel that we could be in a niche all by ourselves and create something for people that they would enjoy! I was at a point in my working career where i did not like my job and felt I had more to offer than my job at the time, working in an assembly plant. I was tired, overworked, mentally drained and just felt like God had more in store for me. Knowing this, my wife asked me what my passion was and we put a plan of action in place. It was originally a release from the stress of work that grew into a reminding passion, that i have more to offer myself, my wife, my family and those around the world.

Allowing people to smile through food! That’s how I knew it was a worthwhile endeavor. Bringing people together and allowing them to have a childhood memory or temporarily forget about the day to day challenges life presents. Our recipe is an old family recipe that was passed down from my great Aunt Rose, to my grandmother’s brother, my great Uncle Pete. He passed it down to my grandmother Theresa “Kathy”, who passed it down to me. Three generations! I am adding my footprints to my family legacy by sharing a bit of my family with others around the world. These are key gems that inspired my wife and I to start Soul-Full Treats. My grandmother was a caterer for close to 50 years. I would watch her create some beautiful looking dishes.

My curiosity would always get the best of me as I would often go into the kitchen and sample some of her creations. I would always want to know (specifically) how she made a dish or dessert so I too could make it for myself. The joy that her food brought to so many people was always fun to watch. She enjoyed making the foods and desserts, just as much as friends, family, clients and total strangers enjoyed eating it. To see her gift touch so many people she shared life with or was freshly introduced to, was so inspiring to me. I want to do the same on a bigger scale and share that same gift of creating joy and happiness through food, around the world!

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

Soul-Full Treats is a “Flavored Pound Cake” business with 30+ flavors to date. At Soul-Full Treats, we like to think outside of the box and are unashamed of that quality trait. We serve the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex of north Texas. We got our start at pop-up events and have grown through expo’s, family and company hosted events. We have shipped cakes nationwide with the intent to one day ship internationally. Our motto “Family, Food, From the Soul” is everything to us because we’ve created a product that allows people to have a little slice of their childhood memories back!

We solve the issue of complacency. We create a space for our clients to do something different from what they are used to, by creating additional dessert options. At least, this is what some of our customers have told us! Being able to get away from the traditional boxed cake, birthday cake, wedding cake or even traditional celebratory cake; allows our customers to have some fun and do something different but unique.

What I am proud of is our perseverance. We didn’t quit. Even in those pockets where we were met with some challenges or felt like the order may be too big, we met the challenge head on and persevered. What I am most proud of, is sharing a bit of my grandmother with the world through our cakes. In one of our last conversations before she passed away, she said “Nace, I am proud of you because you are doing something I couldn’t. You aren’t scared to fail, you aren’t scared to be told “no”, and you aren’t scared to jump out there and succeed. Keep going”. That conversation will stick with me forever.

What I want potential clients, followers and fans to know about our brand is that we are looking forward to pleasing your palate! We look forward to bringing you along this journey with us, as we give you a slice of your childhood back and allow you to enjoy the love that is incorporated into every cake we make!

Have you ever had to pivot?

We’ve had to pivot since the pandemic because we were predominantly an event based company. With everything that took place during that heavy 2 year span, our company came to a screeching halt. We had so much product that we lost or donated because of the pandemic. We definitely took a loss during that time, and it was challenging to keep going in a time where we developed so much momentum with our business. We went from being booked 2 weekends out of the month, to nothing at all, and because its a actual person making each cake, no one wanted to risk the possibility of getting sick, so orders stopped coming in. We have made some decisions recently to make us relevant again in the Dallas/ Fort Worth Metroplex that I was initially against for various reasons. One of the reasons is that I lost my drive to keep going, I had all of these ideas on how to pivot in the industry but there was no action behind it. I let fear creep in and take over my passion, so the business suffered even more. My Wife/Business partner did what she could to keep us going, but when I let that fear creep in and take over, I allowed that to overwork her. That wasn’t the partnership agreement, that wasn’t fair to her, so she slowed down as well.

But after having numerous conversations with my Wife/Business Partner, we agreed to change things up, and I am excited with all we have in store for the community, state, country and the world. The passion and drive has been restored because I had to remember why we started this company in the first place. It was about the people and the stories, emails, text messages, smiles and pictures received from our customers. Letting the fear creep in was about (me), but the business itself is about the people and bringing my grandma with me as we grow. So I keep that with me. God has something HUGE in store for us, we have seen that here recently, so I give him all the credit for the journey we are about to embark on!

How did you build your audience on social media?

We built our social media presence so far by honestly showing the process. A lot of it was word of mouth when we started and grew on the social media platforms, but we have received a good amount of business from our social media presence. Finding different ways to be creative and learning from those before us has been positive building blocks for us. Getting that feedback from our customers online (good or bad) has been very helpful as well. We still have a very long way to go, but I know we are headed in the right direction. The best advice I can give anyone looking to build their social media presence is to stay as active as possible online. Make a point to make at least weekly posts to check in. Interacting with your followers, creating promos and creating content that your followers can be a part of goes a long way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.soul-fulltreats.com
• Instagram: SOUL_FULL_TREATS
• Facebook: facebook.com/soulfulltreatsflavors
• Twitter: @SOULFULLTREATS

Image Credits
Kristen Duncan Nathan Duncan Crystal Holbrook-Roseman Deja Roseman