We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Renee DuBose. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Renee below.
Renee, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later
Ironically, when I did decide to start my business, I was almost immediately forced to stop and wait until later. I’d grown up loving to bake and loving desserts, it was always my favorite part of the holidays. One of my most cherished Christmas gifts was the KitchenAid stand mixer that my parents gave me my sophomore year in college that I use until this day. In 2018 my sister gifted me a cake decorating class and all throughout 2019 I kept having people tell me to start selling my baked goods. So in 2020 I decided to start my home bakery business. It started out really well, I sold dozens of cupcakes for Valentine’s Day and even booked a baby shower and children’s birthday for the month of March. But soon after Valentine’s Day that year, everything came to a hault because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The baby showers, birthdays and other special events were cancelled. At first it was a huge disappointment to have my momentum slow down, but honestly being forced to stop and roll out my business later than I had planned was super helpful. I spent a lot of the downtime of that first year of the pandemic really honing my cake decorating skills, trying and perfecting new recipes and learning how to do cookie decorating. By the time Thanksgiving and Christmas came around in 2020, things were not as strict with the pandemic and I started selling again. I was producing an even better quality product.
Renee, 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?
I am Renee DuBose, owner of Renee Monique Desserts. Baking is my love language, if i bake for you that means I care. I took that caring sentiment and turned it into a home bakery. I got my love for baking from experiencing my grandmother’s baking, she was a caterer and made amazing cakes and pies. My specialties are cakes, cookies and other desserts for all of your special occasions. One of the things I take pride in is making sure all of my desserts not only look incredible but that they taste incredible too. I put a lot of detail into presentation and the quality fo ingredients I use.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
I noticed my business grew quite a bit when i started doing pop-ups and markets in my area. It gave customers a chance to try my desserts without having to place a large custom order first. I gave out samples and made sure I had a variety of items to sell. It also helped me to hone in on which products/flavors would do well for my holiday pre-sale items.
How did you build your audience on social media?
The best advice I could give for social media presence is not to get too hung up on follower counts. Followers don’t equate sales. The energy put into social media should be about building your brand’s prescence and story and maintaining consistency on the platform so when customers are seeking out your products or hear about you word of mouth from someone else, they should have a pretty good undertanding of who you and what you offer from your pages. Social media is the best tool for visibility and brand awareness.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
A. Beauford Photography