We recently connected with Shekinah Strong and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shekinah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Perseverance to never ever stop pursing your dream even when things get rough, tough, or slow you have to keep pushing forward. Patience because even when you have a game plan or an idea of what you’re going to do to make your dream come true it doesn’t always work like that. Set backs are bound to happen, bumps in the road will always be there, and even people to stop you from achieving what you desire the most. And lastly for me faith. Having faith is such a hard process to do because you have to trust that everything will workout even when all your getting is negative outcomes because you can have a game plan and have everything set out but if it doesn’t flow with the plan He has for you he’ll make sure to change it and you just have to trust that what will be will be.

Shekinah, 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 knew I wanted to be in the kitchen whether it was a chef of baker since I was 7 I just didn’t know which one until I was 16 working my first official service industry job in a local restaurant back home in Maui. I worked there for a couple years then got the opportunity to work in a bakery from a friend so I took it. I ended up loving every second of it to where I wanted to further my education for baking so I signed up for culinary school. After culinary school Covid hit so businesses were closing down and everyone was staying inside so I would have family members asking me to do there cakes and desserts because local bakeries were shut down. I found myself baking more at home and ended up loosing both jobs because of the regulations that Covid was starting to have and thought I should put all my energy and effort into finally starting Nalani’s Bakeshop and it was hard, scary, and all of the above but I did it and ending up thriving and becoming successful within 3 months. It was definitely the best part of that year. I ended up learning so much on what certain treats people liked, flavors, design work for cakes, pricing points, and so much more. The best part of it all was seeing peoples reactions or reviews when they would eat my desserts because it would show me that what I was doing was worth it, worth coming back to get more, worth ordering from me, worth telling their friends and families and I loved it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

2021 I completely packed up my life back in Maui and moved to Austin and that was one of the hardest decisions of my life. My bakeshop was booming, I had my own place to live and everything just felt right from the outside but inside I was struggling a lot mentally and felt suffocated in a sense because all I ever knew was the island life. Don’t get me wrong the island life is a beautiful one to live but I knew I wanted to see more, I wanted to travel and see what other parts of the world and taste their cuisines and flavors and I could do that being home.. This decision was going to affect my career and life and I knew I needed to either put my career on hold and move to explore more of the world or put my life on hold to follow out my career. Obviously I chose my life because I’m currently living in Austin now and I believe I made the right one.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Everyone knows you have to spend money to make money and as a new business owner at 20 years old I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I knew I had money saved up but didn’t know how to use to it to start me up correctly. Luckily I have a mom who’s a two time business owner and had the knowledge to show me what I needed to do. And oh boy how I was surprised seeing how much money you truly have to spend to get yourself started. My savings ended up running out and I thought that was it for me and my lil bakeshop but to my surprise my mom put aside a business savings account for me once I started going to culinary school. Because of that small yet large act I was able to keep pursing my dream because of her setting me up for success. If my mom wasn’t the great women that she is I wouldn’t have been able to open my bakeshop. I had the passion and the love for baking but the logistics of it is where my mom came in and showed me how to properly run my business.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Nalanis.Bakeshop
• Facebook: Nalani’s Bakeshop