We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Teresa Weber. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Teresa below.
Teresa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
At the beginning of 2023, I was deep in an existential crisis about my next chapter. I knew it was time to leave the school where I was working, and honestly, I was feeling like it was time to leave nonprofit fundraising altogether.
We had just passed another holiday season where colleagues and friends had oohed and aahed over my annual gift boxes of cookies, encouraging me to start a cookie company. Traditionally, I resisted their encouragement, saying the recipes weren’t mine and that it was too much work to do regularly. It was truly a labor of love – once a year.
But that year felt different. Instead of waving them off, I listened and began asking myself: what if?
As soon as I opened myself to the possibility, I was flooded with ideas. I knew instantly that I should focus on one kind of cookie – shortbread – because the high butter content would take on flavors beautifully. The only cookie cutters I owned were heart-shaped, and it seemed like the perfect analogy for what I wanted to do. I wanted to bring smiles to everyone who ate my cookies, take them on flavor adventures, and expand their thinking on what cookies could be.
I set up a testing group at work and created a Google form for people to review the cookies. Every Tuesday, I’d run around the school like one of Santa’s elves, delivering new flavors to colleagues and leaving cookies in mailboxes for people who weren’t around. Then I’d obsessively check the Google sheet, waiting to see who had tried them and what they thought.
The first week? Earl Grey and fennel/orange. The reviews were fantastic, and I was hooked.
That February, I attended a fundraising conference in NYC. During dinner at a small, noisy restaurant with about twelve colleagues – these were my people, folks I’d known for years – I was chatting with a colleague who embodies pure aloha spirit about something completely unrelated to my cookie venture.
Suddenly, she looked at me and said, “Teresa, you’re just all heart.”
My whole body vibrated. I had to sit back in my chair. I looked at her and said, “I think you just found the name of my company!”
It’s one thing to know these things about yourself, but it’s another when others begin to see it too. With my decision to make all of the cookies heart-shaped, the double meaning of “All Heart” was too perfect to ignore. It immediately felt right in all the ways – conveying not just the practical element of my business, but also the joy and warmth I wished to share through every single cookie.
Teresa, 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?
After twenty years in nonprofit fundraising – where I loved bringing people together around shared experiences and common goals – I discovered my true calling was still about creating those moments of connection, just through a completely different medium. I noticed that people were craving more moments of surprise and delight in their everyday lives, and I knew that food has this incredible power to bring people together and create connections.
That’s where All Heart Baking Co. comes in. I craft heart-shaped shortbread cookies that are conversation starters in the most delicious way possible. When someone tries our Love Bite – with its unexpected combination of cherry, pistachio, and black pepper – it doesn’t just taste amazing, it gets people talking. “Wait, what’s in this?” becomes the start of a shared experience.
My approach is all about flavor innovation that challenges what people think cookies can be. Using premium local ingredients like NYS honey from ethical apiaries, I create rotating seasonal collections alongside beloved classics that expand people’s thinking about shortbread. These aren’t just treats – they’re little adventures that bring smiles and spark conversations.
What I’m most proud of is that people have really come along for the flavor ride. It makes my heart sing when someone falls in love with a cookie like First Blush – strawberry, rose, and pink pepper from this year’s spring collection. That folks are willing to step outside their comfort zone and try something that sounds unusual brings me so much joy.
We’re really striving to shake up the cookie world – not just the tired, old options on supermarket shelves, but also this trend of oversized, oversweet cookies. We’re not about that life. We think cookies deserve a place in the pantheon of great desserts. And here’s what surprises people: our shortbread isn’t dry and crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread. They’re soft with that same big butter taste, but in a completely different texture.
We like to say that not every cookie is for every person, but we sure hope there’s at least one on our menu for you. All Heart Baking Co. is about more than just cookies – it’s about creating shared experiences and moments of connection, one flavor adventure at a time.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In Fall 2024, I thought I’d hit the jackpot when my small business was accepted to a brand-new, month-long holiday market in the heart of New York City. The event was being run by a well-respected company that puts on great events throughout the city, and I was thrilled to be part of this prestigious new venture.
Looking back, I should have paid attention to the warning signs. The application process was rocky – I had to follow up multiple times just to get an answer, all while trying to keep other event organizers at bay who needed decisions from me. It really came down to the wire, and I was worried about ruining relationships. But I was so blinded by the glitz of this opportunity that I ignored those red flags.
When I finally got accepted in October, I cancelled all my other holiday sales events for the rest of the year. I poured EVERYTHING into this venture – bought new gift boxes, stocked up on ingredients and packaging, designed my booth, purchased furniture and fixtures to make it special. And I baked so many cookies. I really felt like I was in it to win it.
Then reality hit. On set-up day, I discovered I wasn’t going to be in the prime location promised. Only half the market was on that coveted block – our half was the next block down. No worries, I thought. We’re still in a great location, in the heart of the city. Tons of people will walk through here.
But the disasters kept coming. Just as I was persevering through these challenges, I discovered that my booth was built directly over a subway grate. Every time a train went by underneath, it blew everything from the street – urine, soda, cigarette butts – right up into my booth. The smell was horrible, and the ensuing mold became a health hazard. Still, I pressed on.
About halfway through the season, just as I thought things couldn’t get worse, there was a fire in the market. It knocked out half of the vendor booths on our block. With foot traffic already struggling, sales plummeted after the fire. Our half of the event looked like a wasteland and the vendors were demoralized.
It was truly a disaster, and I lost A LOT of money. Like, my business would have been in the black in 2024 – my first full year – had it not been for this experience.
While I definitely spent some time licking my wounds and questioning everything, I feel like I learned so much from the experience. First, don’t be the first to join an expensive new event – see how the first year goes, talk to people who’ve done it before, and assess if the reward matches the risk. Second, tourists at the holidays are not my market. Most of my customers during that period were actually New Yorkers. Third, I am not built for 12-hour days in a store-like setting. I was on the fence about owning a retail shop before this event, and afterward I was crystal clear that I definitely do not want retail!
But here’s what kept me going: even though I didn’t hit my sales numbers, I had some great reaffirming conversations with customers who were 100% on board with the flavor adventure.
I spent January sick (probably from all that mold) and licking my wounds. Then in February, the local news channel featured me on a ‘Made in the Hudson Valley’ segment that sent my online sales into overdrive. I realized then that my business needs to shift to e-commerce, and that people will take a risk on our quirky little heart-shaped cookies!
And here’s the biggest lesson of all – one I try to live by in other parts of my life: when the universe keeps putting obstacles in your way, listen. It’s one thing to be resilient and flexible, but often if you stop and take stock when you meet obstacles, you may find that the thing you thought was perfect for you actually wasn’t meant for you. The prestige had completely clouded my judgment from day one.
Sometimes the best lessons come from the worst experiences. By extracting value from this disaster, I was able to steer All Heart Baking Co. towards what actually works – using food to foster connection and shared experiences.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think it’s been the combination of earning people’s trust in my creative judgment while building genuine personal connections. When customers say ‘I trust you’ and buy flavors without tasting, or when I remember their kids’ names and they light up… that’s when I know I’m not just selling cookies – I’m creating experiences and relationships.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.allheartbakingco.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allheartbakingco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allheartbakingco
