The Queen of Cupcakes

 
 For her first full year, Tripp baked solo, hiring her kids to take after-school store shifts at $10/hour and give her a break. That way, she pocketed the costs for additional helpers and insurance that would jump from $250 to $500 a month. Still, despite her careful nickel-and-diming, Tripp did not take a salary for the first 12 months (though the company covers her health care and car).  Instead she lived off her savings and plowed back her $4000 monthly profit into expanding the business.

Then, just as  the store began to turn a modest profit, she hit a totally flat month.  “The November after the election was our worst month.  People were waiting to see what would happen.  Is the sky going to fall?”  She talked with other nervous shopkeepers and started to second-guess herself.  “It was ominous.  I didn’t know what to do.  I felt as if I’d taken my family down the wrong road.”    She kept brainstorming for new markets. Meanwhile, by December, business started to pick up. 
 
Expansion, she’s found, takes more than just inventing new flavors, which she does every few weeks (coming next:  peanut butter and jelly).  She also needs fresh-baked ideas for products, new customers, and marketing strategies. To bring in foot-traffic she cooked up her own publicity campaign:  flyers to schools, coupons for free cupcakes to kids through library reading programs, and donating goodies to community fundraisers. Now she’s also listed in the popular online style newsletter, DailyCandy, and gets “freebie advertising” from food and cupcake bloggers who’ve tasted her samples and loved them.

 She offers cupcake-catering for baby showers, birthday parties, and even weddings.  “Once the couple tastes, I always get the order,” she says—and a dessert round of fancy cupcakes is still cheaper than a typical wedding cake, a plus for many cash-strapped brides.  During the busy 2009 summer season, she averaged two events per weekend –a bonus of 500 cupcakes.

 “The recession has hurt us and helped us,” she says.   Even in a tight economy, most people can afford to splurge on a $3 cupcake.  “People are careful about their discretionary spending, even in an upscale community like ours,” says Kathy Severson, CEO of the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce who has seen some local shops struggling but thinks the Frosting Bakeshop has the right mix to succeed.  “Karen has an artful and clever product that appeals to families, and Mill Valley is very family-focused.”  Adds her colleague, Denise Meehan,   “It’s also very body-conscious around here, and a cupcake is not a whole cheesecake!”