We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Jacobs recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with 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?

Access, this was the one word that started all of Cake Muse.

The sugar flower industry has always catered to high end decorators and artists alike. Yet, so many potential customers never knew this existed or even how to find a sugar flower. Growing up in the confectionary industry shaped how I saw everything in life. I grew up around bakeries but most importantly I grew up around the manufacturing and distributing process when it came to commercial markets.

My idea of manufacturing artisan made products, literally made by hand, not a machine, came about way too late in my life. It took my previous business experience and confidence you tend to find only after age 30 as a woman, to build upon my family’s legacy with Cake Muse.

Although I am an artist by nature, I also worked in bakeries and grocery bakeries as a lead cake decorator. This experience shaped the direction of my business. I understand what it takes to produce cakes and desserts in numbers, but I also saw a gap in the industry for the consumer. Ready made cake decor outside of plastic and paper designs. That is how Cake Muse came to life!

Sarah , 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?

At Cake Muse we do all the work for you! Our pre designed sugar flowers are unique and ready to go. This means that you can enjoy the process and beauty of decorating without any hassle. You actually get to “have your cake and eat it too”!

Our customers enjoy the process of picking out a ready design and when it arrives in the mail they simply take it out of the box and place it on a cake or dessert of their choice. If that means you love baking and want to make a cake perfect! But you don’t have to; our sugar flowers enhance a simple store bought cake or even elevate a cake you might order at your local bakery.

I actually love cake, to eat cake I mean. This is something you get to do in bakeries behind the scenes with extra scraps when you are sculpting cakes or getting them ready to ice. There is nothing better than a moist chocolate cake, iced or not. So my love of cake started there. My creative side always loved decorating. It is a skill with your hands and your creative mind and for me that is a beautiful combination. I have always been an artist, drawing, painting, sculpting, so this was a natural move into the designing side of my company.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Perfection. I am by nature a perfectionist. This is a wonderful skill when it comes to artistry but you have to learn to let go of this in business. In particular, you have to learn to keep moving forward when you are starting a business. If you don’t, you can prevent your company from progress.

An example is packaging. When I first opened our warehouse and office the available packaging was not beautiful and not up to my standards. Today we are still developing packaging that aligns with our brand and beauty of our products. This is where I had to let go of perfection and start selling even if our packaging was not where it should be. If I had waited until I created the perfect package for each product I would still be waiting 2 years later to sell a product.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Many of our wholesale clients know my family but that doesn’t always mean that they will respect me immediately. I have had to also prove to clients that I am a trusted partner. My philosophy with Cake Muse, and with any business I was a part of in the past, is communication and transparency. You would be surprised at how many professionals ignore emails for weeks on end or never reply at all. As busy as well all are, I try to at least send an email acknowledging that I received it and I will get back to them. Years ago I worked with a lot of clients in Europe and Australia. It forced me to learn the best way to “always be there” for my clients. Meaning, they never felt like I was unreachable because we were oceans apart. I didn’t stay up at all hours for their time zones. I simply communicated and if I needed more time or something wasn’t going right we would acknowledge it and try to solve the problems. You would be surprised at how understanding someone is, when they know what’s going on.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cakemuse.com
• Instagram: @shopcakemuse and @sarahcurates
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjacobscm/
• Other: Tik Tok – @cakemuse Pinterest – @shopcakemuse

Image Credits
Photographer – Bailey Hart