What exactly is your business?

My business is called Annie’s Signature Sweets. We are a Cleveland-based pastry catering business that works with businesses, realtors, event planners and more to create fun, flirty and flavorful unique sweets. We pride ourselves in making small batches from scratch. We hand roll and cut all of our cookies, brownies, bars, our tart shells and more. We have a menu, but also create custom desserts for dessert tables, corporate gifts, weddings and more.

How did you come up with your business idea?

My business idea came up truly because of my passion for desserts.  I grew up with an extremely large family. My mom is 1 of 15 kids. I have 42 first cousins on my mom’s side and a million other relatives. When we would get together, everyone brought something to share and the only thing they would request is finger foods so it was easy to serve, and eat. I am a picky eater and truly only eat dessert, bread and fruit, so I would always make dessert to make sure I would have something to enjoy and share it with everyone else.  I was not trained as a baker, so after going to college and becoming a social worker for Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services for 6 years, I realized this was not my passion. A friend of mine mentioned the possibility of me going to pastry school to become a Pastry Chef. In 2006, there was no food network or famous chefs. I quit my social work job, went to Pastry School at Johnson & Wales University, and my pastry career began. I worked at resorts and restaurants all over the US for 11 1/2 years and I had truly found my passion. After working for someone else for 11 years, I was needing a new challenge. I went on a yoga retreat in 2016 to Bali. It gave me time to reset and rediscover myself and my future. It was there that I decided to think about becoming an entrepreneur. Pastry is my passion and always will be.

What is your inspiration?

My inspiration is currently based on unique flavor combinations, such as my signature lemon lavender cookie, my pistachio rosewater cookie, my love for all things to be from scratch and natural-looking. I don’t like to use food dyes and I use the freshest ingredients possible. I take pride in making sure we put out the freshest, highest quality product by focusing on orders placed on our website or through contacting us by email.

What has been your biggest accomplishment with your business so far?

My biggest accomplishment so far with my business is definitely getting people to know about my business and to be excited about my products. I know that my products are great quality because I have spent 11 1/2 years perfecting my recipes, but to know it is being received as well as it is by other people is the most rewarding thing.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when starting your business?

The biggest challenge for sure with starting my business has been to learn anything and everything about running a business. My pastry passion is strong, but I had never in my life taken a business class or known what networking was or why it is necessary.

Where do you hope to be in 5 years?

In 5 years, I hope to still enjoy baking and sharing desserts with others. It feeds my soul. One of my fears prior to starting my business was that I would somehow get bored with baking or not enjoy it if it was a job. It had been a hobby and stress relief for most of my life. I am still obsessed with dessert and currently plan vacations around dessert. I spent my 40th in Paris and literally ate my way through all of the bakeries in Paris. I am not sorry about that.

Any advice for other women business owners?

My advice for anyone wanting to start a business is just to take one step at a time, ask for help, and be passionate about whatever it is that you want to do. Without the passion, it won’t be fun and probably won’t be successful. The passion continues to propel me daily.

Find Annie’s Signature Sweets at www.anniessignaturessweets.com!

Let’s face it, life is…. surprising?

It can feel like a circus when we are reacting to our outcomes, but what if we chose them instead?

This is what I set out to do years ago when I had started my first business, Flourish Design. Trying to do this from where I was turned out to be a disaster. I was trying to live life on my own terms as an entrepreneur.

Nothing was turning out the way I hoped. I had no money, a bad relationship with my husband, less than ideal projects, and total frustration. I had big ideas, though, and drive.

The main problem was I was used to reacting to the world around me. I did not know how to create outcomes at the time, which can be easy if you’re happy, healthy, and whole. One major stumbling block was in my way; I would uncover a few years into my self growth in working with coaches.

I was a codependent.

This was news to me at the time and it came as a shock. First, I didn’t know what codependents were until I read the book ‘Codependent No More’ by Melody Beattie. Second, upon finishing the book I was stunned at how deeply dysfunctional I was as an addict to addicts.

I could see how my behaviors as a codependent were keeping me from everything I wanted in life. A loving partner, great client relationships, money, basic happiness? These things can often times be unavailable to codependents because codependents live life as victims. I was a professional victim, blaming and reacting to the world at large through a very needy, empty place of insecurity.

When I learned this I was ashamed. I only wanted to be good, do good things, and be happy, but I was hard wired to fail at this. Seeing it on paper made me feel like a bad person even though I’m not. It made me reflect on how I was creating toxic situations for myself and some of the people in my path. What hurts the most was I couldn’t be a really professional service provider until I cleaned up my act.

Some behaviors of codependents are as follows and I was all of these and many more big time:

• have difficulty making decisions
• have trouble setting healthy priorities and boundaries
• give up their truth in order to gain the approval of others
• an unhealthy dependence on relationships
• a compelling need to control others

As you might guess, these traits would not have magnetized many clients or admirable people toward me, in fact it attracted the opposite.

So what did I do with this information? I changed. I could not allow the integrity of myself and my company to be compromised by how I was being. I also saw how this type of lifestyle was creating most of the pain I felt.

So I went into warrior mode and turned my life

All 

The way

Around.

180, probably a few times over.

Was it hard? OH HELL YEAH.

Codependents are addicts, and getting out of addiction is well…really challenging. It is not impossible though.

I had to become ruthless, alone on my mission, dedicated to looking at what I didn’t want to see, and courageous enough to be the only one who believed in me except the professionals I paid to see me through it.

While personally I felt alone, I did keep my coaches and counselors on the calendar otherwise I would have never made it to the other side.

And what is the other side of addiction, exactly? It occurs to me now that there are many people for whom this place doesn’t even come up on the radar. Sadly, I learned the toxic world of addiction and codependency is very common in our culture.

The other side is to live as a creator. This is actual freedom, and that is what I believe most entrepreneurs are actually seeking. While it can seem dazzling to be able to expand your income however you like as your own boss, the real joy in this experience is the freedom to be, do, and have that which is uniquely you.

To be a creator and not a reactor was exactly what I was trying to do. I basically had to become an entirely different person. In fact some people who knew me at different times during this six year transition would not even recognize me after I had addressed my codependent behaviors.

Some of the things I had to let go of were friends, my home, all of my belongings, my neighborhood, many of my ideas about how to run my business, lies I told myself, and eventually my husband. I knew that I was so deeply prone to being in victim mode, and the only way to cleanse my life would be to change my environment entirely.

As a design professional it made so much sense that every thing, person, and place in my existence would have an effect on who I was being as a person.

Thank goodness I am more stubborn than I am tolerant and that I had planned to do anything to make my life and business a success. I made myself learn how to create my success because I realized absolutely no one else cares what I want like I do, nor will those things be given to me. It might sound silly reading it if you’re thinking to yourself ‘Well, I don’t really think people are going to hand me my success.’ I didn’t think I thought that either. But when I woke up to the many excuses I placed in front of me as to why I didn’t have great sales and happy people to hang out with I could see that I was responsible for every ounce of lies I was telling myself that was keeping me from where I want to be.

If you’re not where you want to be in life and you desire to be in a different place there is something that you are not taking responsibility for. Period. End of story.

Too many people are ok with tolerating pain, to the cost of lives left unlived. I realized I was ok tolerating vast amounts of pain because it was easier to deal with that which kept me small, than accepting the potential fear of not being able to succeed at all. The keystone in my potential coffin was an emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive, alcoholic husband.

‘Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

That’s all right because I like the way it hurts

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry

But that’s all right because I love the way you lie

I love the way you lie’

-Rihanna in ‘Love the Way You Lie’

Heck yeah it was hard to admit that I was the one making me very unhappy by blaming a man among other things. With him and everything else gone, I could see the piles of crap I created were truly mine.

Was my grueling transformation worth it? Abso freaking lutely.

I honestly did not think life could be this good. Yeah, I still cry, get stressed out, and get frustrated. But I know I can turn around those thoughts, I know that’s just me being in victim mode. Being a codependent my whole life, I actually didn’t know the joy of feeling in charge of who I am and being clear and connected with who that is. Knowing that and feeling that feeling is like being home.

I share this story because it still hurts me to see other people hiding from who they are even though I know how terrifyingly challenging and lonely it can feel to take the first steps. Now that it is trending more than ever to become an entrepreneur and because becoming an entrepreneur means taking a good hard look at who you are being this story needs to be told. I remember feeling stuck, stagnant, uncertain, and not knowing where to turn.

A real entrepreneur is constantly committed to taking steps especially if they don’t know where they’re going. A real entrepreneur simply knows who he or she is and that his or her gift needs to be seen and heard.

Nothing will stop me from connecting my gifts to the people who need them again. And gosh darn it if I don’t know how to smile every morning when I wake up from a real place and that is priceless, my home, the one I took responsibility for.

Michelle Andersen is an entrepreneur committed to helping people live a bold, confident, and brave life the best ways she knows how – through her coaching and design ventures. You can follow Michelle more closely by signing up for her newsletter at michelleandersen.com

 

What exactly is your business?

Allie’s Walkabout provides off-leash doggy daycare, boarding, grooming, training and pet photography. Off-leash means our guests spend 70% of the day at play in one of our many indoor/outdoor play yards. All play is supervised by our extensively trained staff.

How did you come up with your business idea?

When Allie was 9, she asked her dad for spending money. Her father told her, “no, but I will teach you how to earn money.”  Neither of them had any idea how that moment would impact their family.

Her dad told her to go knock on every door in their neighborhood and ask if they had a dog and offer to walk him. If they agree, charge $5 for a 20-minute walk. She and her brother left (he was 7 at the time), and when they came back she had earned $7.

Since then, with the help of family, many friends, and now employees, Allie’s Walkabout has grown to over 1,800 customers and is as busy as ever. We now operate from a 12,000 sq. ft. facility with 5 big play yards for all our guest’s Off Leash care.

How did you find out about Aviatra?

We attended a graduation where we heard the compelling and inspirational stories of so many and we knew we wanted to be a part of what Bad Girl ventures was doing.

What is your inspiration?

Being a small part of making life better for our clients and their pets. It means a great deal to us when we hear the amount of stress, worry and sometimes guilt our services eliminate. The other is seeing our staff develop. Like Sir Richard Branson, we want to train our staff so well that they can go anywhere and treat them so well that they will never want to.

What has been your biggest accomplishment with your business so far?

Scaling the business from a home-based business to a 12,000 sq. ft. commercial space, which took us from a handful of employees to over 20.

What was the most valuable thing you gained from your experience with Aviatra?

The resources that we didn’t realize were available to us as a small business in this region. One such resource was the Small Business Development Center at NKU, and specifically Rebecca Volpe, she has been a tremendous blessing to us.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when starting your business?

Starting in our home, we didn’t face many of the traditional challenges of a startup. Our biggest challenge was moving into the commercial space and realizing our processes in the home didn’t translate or scale, so they all had to be reinvented quickly.

Where do you hope to be in 5 years?

Our overall plan is 25 by 25; 25 locations by 2025 so in five years we expect to have 8-10 locations through the greater region including Louisville, Lexington, Columbus and Indianapolis.

Any advice for future Aviatras?

Always be growing and changing. Stay curious and constantly ask yourself how your work will be done 10 years from now. Also, build processes that can be replicated

 

By Tarek Kamil of Cerkl

I’m frequently asked, “Why do you think most startups fails?” I’m on my 5th technology-based startup and I’ve learned a number of lessons along the way. Yes, of course you need to build something that people want AND they are willing to pay for BUT that’s not why most startups fail.

Most startups fail because the founders have not adequately anticipated the amount of time and work required to survive UNTIL they figure out the path to success.

While I’m coming from a technology perspective, this is true for all types of new businesses. The analogy I like to give is that when you start a business, you have been dropped into the middle of the ocean and you can swim in 1 of 360 degrees to find land (success). The problem is that you have a limited amount of oxygen. Most founders swim as fast as they can in 1 direction (odds of success, you guessed it, 1 in 360). Next thing they know, they’re out of oxygen (capital) and they drown.

The path to success is NEVER a straight line.

The common trait among startups that succeed is that they are using the least amount of resources possible to answer questions about their business model, product, service and constantly repeating that process. If I had to pick just one trait to look for that would predict your chances of success, I’d pick your ability to solve problems. Starting a business is nothing but one problem after another. Not just the big questions around product, pricing, marketing, messaging, etc. – everything is a problem. When should you open an office? When do you hire? How much do you pay?

What’s the takeaway? To maximize your chances of success, be quick, lean, flexible and have go into it with a passion for critical thinking and problem-solving.

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH YOUR BUSINESS IDEA & HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN BUSINESS?

My business consists of a retail and wholesale business to sell my artwork and a classroom space offering programming for ages 4 and up. I had been selling my artwork since 2000 but did not make the leap to full time self-employment until July of 2013. I began working with the catalog Uncommon Goods after meeting their buyers at my first wholesale show. At the same time, I opened the classroom and both took off simultaneously. The classroom space was formed after many years working at local non-profits. Cleveland was one of the few major cities lacking a clay centric learning space. Most of the area non-profits encompass all forms of fine art rather than focusing on one specific medium. I wanted to fill that niche in Cleveland.

HOW DID AVIATRA MAKE AN IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS?

Aviatra connected me with mentors that helped take my business challenges and streamline them while forcing me to think bigger. It was great to have the mentors, fellow students and Aviatra staff to cheer you on during the process. I felt very supported and that network still exists long after finishing the program.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACED WHEN STARTING YOUR BUSINESS?

The biggest challenge is still one I face today, which is being able to afford an employee. I’m lucky that my business has been consistent while growing slowly. I would say the biggest challenge is that sometimes you have to learn by mistakes and each year take those missteps and turn them into building blocks for a more practical business plan.

WHAT GETS YOU EXCITED ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS TODAY?

I thrive on making my own schedule and being able to walk into my studio and be creative. I get excited to see students become hooked on ceramics. I have students who have been with me since the beginning. It’s exciting to see their work evolve and their confidence grow.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE TO BE IN 5 YEARS?

I would love to step away from retail shows and focus on retail online sales and studio sales. I hope to expand the wholesale business and garner some press in the process as I work with new companies. I would also jump at the opportunity to design ceramics for mass production. I have a lot of ideas and I cannot execute them all.

For the classroom I hope to continue to bring in visiting artists from around the country. The studio has brought in artists I admire and who are not teaching workshops anywhere else in the area.

 

ANY ADVICE FOR FUTURE AVIATRAS?

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes or ask for help. Every business makes mistakes. Every business owner can’t do it all alone. It’s important to create a network of support to bounce ideas and share struggles. Do take time off for yourself. In the beginning of starting a business it can feel like it owns you. Once you hit a stride make sure you take time to do the other things you love and it will make you a better business owner and employer.