We recently connected with Sloane Solanto and have shared our conversation below.
Sloane, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Be open and accepting to change because it is inevitable. Understand that your business may evolve over time and you can either fight it or go with the flow and see where it takes you. I am naturally impulsive so I have taken this approach to most everything in my life. I believe that if things are meant to be the right doors will open up for you and you just have to have courage to step through them. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose but each day is a new chapter in an exciting adventure.
I want to say it was one thing that made The Creative Wedge, my first business, fail but looking back it was a series of things set into motion from the beginning. We had a beautiful retail shop that sold lots of local art, American made handcrafts, regional cheese and other artisanal food. My business partner (Barbara Densley) and I tried a lot of different things to make The Creative Wedge profitable such as adding more farmers markets, hosting community art shows, monthly open houses etc.. but unfortunately our efforts were in vain and we had to shut our doors after 8 years at the end of our lease in 2021.
Lucky for me I was immersed in the farmers market community and made invaluable connections. Even though the brick and mortar was struggling my homemade cheese spreads were growing in popularity, markets sales were increasing and we added a few wholesale accounts. Several friends encouraged me to find a way to keep going with the cheese as it was a viable business on it’s own. Market friend (Nikki Hopkins), Sage Mermaid Kombuchery, graciously offered to let me join her in her commercial kitchen space, another friend rented half her garage to me and two other businesses offered to accept all my deliveries. The 2021 market season was insanely profitable as we were post pandemic, folks were itching to get out of the house but no one was traveling yet. I was able to pay off the substantial personal debt I had accrued over the previous 8 years. The following year I was able to upgrade to a compact cargo van which enabled me to hold more product, thus increasing market sales, saving on gas and so much kinder to my body as it was easy to load things in and out. I outgrew my current situation last year but I have managed to keep making it work for me. This year I decided that although the business is successful it’s stagnant and I owe it to myself to see how far I can take it. Here is where All Good Craft Granola (Bryan Daniels) comes into the picture. Bryan’s wife Gail had suggested that I reach out to him and tell him my needs. It took a few month but yet another door has opened for me as he has invited me into his space where I can not only share his spacious commercial kitchen but I can have a 300 square foot retail section in the front. This allows us to sell our products 5 days a week, all year long, rain or shine!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
After years of working in the restaurant industry I went to work for my family’s screen printing and embroidery business. Although I do not regret the 12 years I spent at Cavalier Sportswear my heart was really with food. In 2012 I was anxious for a change and my mom threw out the idea that I should open a cheese shop. I had worked with food most my adult life but knew nothing about cheese and was also terrified to go into business by myself. Impulsively I asked a friend, Barbara Densley, if she wanted to start a business together. We were already comrades in the arts and craft show circuit, she had retail experience and the willingness to give it a go. To learn about cheese I discovered that Murray’s cheese in NYC offer a cheese boot camp. One of my oldest friends and Brooklyn resident Amy and her family graciously hosted me as I attended this fun and informative class. I had lodging covered, now to learn about cheese and come up with a plan on exactly what kind of cheese I wanted to sell.
Here is where local food writer, Patrick Evans-Hylton comes into the story. There were 14 students from all over the US and Canada in attendance, one of the just happened to be Patrick. What are the odds? Over dinner one night I was telling him what Barb and I were doing and why I was there and he mentions that he is on the board of Old Beach Farmers Market and they were in need of someone to take over the provisions tent they were managing themselves. They were selling a variety of items sourced in Virginia but too far away for the actual makers to come, one of which was CHEESE.
Barbara was as excited as I was at the prospect of selling regional cheese which lead us to the concept of all of our gift items being local and American made. In 2013 The Creative Wedge: An Artisan Market opened to the public. It was a magical place filled with beautiful handmade gifts. The food part of it never became what I had originally envisioned for it, maybe if I had actually prepared and served food it could have been different but that wasn’t something we were interested in or really had the space for. So we ended up being a gift shop that sold cheese, odd I know but it made us happy.
In the beginning we took a huge hit on cheese loss as we didn’t have the customer base to sell it and only attended the one farmers market. Not to mention the margins on the regional farmstead cheeses we were buying weren’t very profitable. We didn’t want to give up supporting the farms so I suggested we start producing my Memaw’s Pimento Cheese. We could make it with commodity cheese and the margin would be better therefore balancing out the loss we were taking with the artisan cheese. It was a obviously a hit as I am still making pimento cheese as well as five additional flavors all these years later. Ends up that Old Beach Farmers Market turned out to not only be be a great way to advertise our brick and mortar it was also profitable. At the urging of a friend we eventually added an additional three farmers markets into our business plan.
For years friends had been telling me that the cheese was a viable business on it’s own. It was clear that the cheese was outgrowing the retail space I was producing in as I did something involving cheese every single day, often using our one full time employee and leaving Barb to manage everything on the retail side alone. Now that I am over the plethora of emotions that come from a “failed” business venture I can see that when The Creative Wedge closed its doors in 2021 it was time for me to move on as the sole proprietor of my next adventure . Life Is Gouda is the offspring of The Wedge and it’s a thriving small business that has had me working my tail off 7 months out of the year. Soon to be all year as I start this next leg of my journey.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
I’m going to sort of answer this as my first business did die. I feel like this is relevant and kind of fits into this question. But we, the business, managed to pay off all it’s debt, never miss paying our employees and make it until the end of our lease without having to break it. What did it take on my part personally to make it through the starting and closure of my first business. Sacrifice is what it took. I spent all my savings and maxed out the equity line on my home in order to make ends meet as we couldn’t even pay ourselves minimum wage throughout the 8 years we were open. I supplemented y income by printing tea towels, making candles and art at home before and after business hours to sell to our store. Luckily I have always been extremely frugal so it wasn’t a hard stretch for me to tighten the belt. Some things I sacrificed were having my hair professionally done, rarely eating out, and never traveling. Other sacrifices on the road to success is time spent with others. Right or wrong I always prioritized my career over social events. Being in debt while already possessing a poverty mentality gave me no choice but to keep working harder. I may or may not have made the best decisions in what to sacrifice, like I regret lost time with loved ones. In the beginning I think every entrepreneur needs to make some adjustments in their lifestyle whether it’s making your own coffee, buying a used car, purchasing a modest affordable home or painting your own nails there are lots of ways to help keep debt at bay.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Currently it’s by me being the one the customer deals with. They have a relationship with me directly. Every single person who buys a container of cheese spread from me gets a loyalty card that has my personal phone number on it. I alone answer the texts, emails, social media messages and will soon be starting a blog again. Having this one on one connection with each individual customer fosters the loyalty. I recognize that this is obviously not the best strategy for folks who want a large business. I don’t want a large business, yes I want to grow a little but when I do that I will only hire people that I care about. I never want to get to the point where I have to hire just anyone to fill a position. As Life Is Gouda grows I want to hire my team members knowing that when they are helping our customers our customers still feels like they are connected to me. If that makes any sense. I have faith that just as the doors of possibility have opened for me to allow my business to grow and thrive so will the right people walk into my life to lend me a hand.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lifeisgouda757.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/LifeIsGouda757/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LifeIsGouda757/
- Other: Web site won’t be up for another few days but if this is published in 2 weeks it’ll be live for sure.
Image Credits
Any image not taken by me personally was done by Lori Golding Zontini, friend and market manager.