Baking Up a Business Empire
Interview with Candace Nelson
Photos courtesy of Candace Nelson
Where does your culinary creativity come from?
My mom was a great chef and loved to bake. When I was a girl, my family lived in Southeast Asia, and she and I would bake the treats I missed from home. Going further back in my family history, my great-grandmother was a restaurateur in San Francisco during the Great Depression. Other than that, there isn’t much in the way of food-industry experience or entrepreneurship in my family. My dad was a corporate lawyer, so it was expected that I would go down a similar path. It didn’t occur to me until I entered that world—and found it very unfulfilling—to pursue something more creative. In the wake of 9/11 and losing my job in the dot-com bust, I looked around and thought, Maybe there are other options out there that would add more purpose to my life. That’s when I decided to go to pastry school. Ultimately, I merged the two sides of my brain, turning my creative passion into a business.
You took a risk opening Sprinkles, the world’s first cupcake bakery, with your husband. Tell us about that experience:
It was scary. While all my friends kept marching along in their careers and had disposable income for nice things, we were leaving the security of high-paying jobs and investing everything we had into this business. I had to make peace with the idea that failure was a possibility. However, I was more comfortable with taking that risk than not doing so and regretting it for the rest of my life.
Did you try to raise capital, or did you bootstrap it on your own?
We knew that nobody was going to give us money; it was a harebrained idea, and everyone felt free to tell us that. They couldn’t believe we left the corporate world to bake cupcakes in a brick-and-mortar in health-conscious LA at the height of the low-carb diet craze. We even had to buy out an existing business to secure a location. There were so many cards stacked against us. But I had a vision for what Sprinkles was going to be and wanted to have complete creative control over it, so we decided to take on all the risk ourselves.
You clearly have a strong passion for what you do. Is it challenging for entrepreneurs to always keep that energy high?
Entrepreneurship is hard. There are so many opportunities to give up, so many challenges, and so much resistance. The world does not want to hear from you most of the time. You’re going to get a “no” ten times more than you do a “yes.” So passion is vital because it grounds you in your business’s mission and vision.
Interestingly, I saw that with Kristen [Dunning, owner of Gently Soap, who struck a deal with Nelson on Shark Tank]. She had quite a few brutal weeks after the episode—she was always sold out, and some customers weren’t being nice about it. But I knew she’d get through it because of her passion for her business.
Is it difficult for an owner to relinquish control and trust other people with their business?
Very much so. Sprinkles was built on details: how each cupcake was frosted, how it was presented, and how it was packed in the box. For the longest time, I was very controlling over those details—I couldn’t imagine delegating them to somebody else. However, I eventually reached my breaking point because of the crazy hours my husband and I were working trying to do everything ourselves. Sheerly out of desperation, I hired a baker and figured, This is it. I’m handing over the keys to the kingdom. I’m giving this person, who I don’t know, my recipes. What’s going to happen? Well, what happened was I got a good night’s sleep!
The moral of my story is that it’s vital to build a team you trust in order to scale your business; otherwise, you’re going to be in the weeds for the rest of your life. You have to work on your business, not in your business.
You have a long history of thinking outside the box. How important is that quality for business owners?
With all the noise and competition out there, the only way to make people pay attention is to do something delightfully unexpected. Everything we did with Sprinkles certainly flew in the face of expectation, which created buzz. That organic, viral word of mouth was basically free marketing and was critical to our success.
We had the same mindset with our pizza business, Pizzana. LA has never been known as a pizza town; in fact, it was sort of a laughingstock to any New Yorker or Chicagoan who visited. So we set out to make the greatest pizza in the world—something that was more edgy and chef-forward—right here in LA. Before we knew it, people were driving an hour from Eastside to eat at our restaurant, which was exciting.
You’ve cultivated massive brand loyalty with your businesses. What tips would you offer for creating raving fans?
I am a big believer in the product coming first; both Sprinkles and Pizzana started with exceptional products. If you continue to stay true to the quality of yours and deliver that quality consistently, people will grow to trust and rely on you, fostering brand loyalty every day.
That’s what we did with our pizza delivery. Pizzana didn’t offer takeout or delivery for the first six months because with Neapolitan-style pizza, a lot of its character is lost when it’s delivered. After thinking long and hard about it, we came up with what we call our “heat and slice” option: We bake your pizza 95 percent of the way, leave it unsliced, and put any fresh toppings on the side. Once you get it home, you fire it up in your oven and finish it yourself, making it almost identical to eating it in our restaurant. I can’t tell you how many people have said they order from us two or three times a week because we offer this solution for reliably delicious pizza.
One of your mantras is turning passion into profit, and CN2 Ventures exists to help other entrepreneurs do just that. Would you talk about this endeavor?
Absolutely. I love to start businesses, but I learned that you shouldn’t launch more than one at a time; the process takes all your energy and attention and a lot of financial resources. So I invest in other passionate founders with great ideas in the consumer space, partnering with them to help make their dreams come true. It’s incredibly fulfilling to engage in creation and brand building with founders at the earliest stage.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned on this journey?
I always thought of entrepreneurship as me taking on the world, but what I’ve learned so many times since 2005 is that the leader is just one piece of the puzzle for business success. It has everything to do with your team, support system, and network.
I mean, I didn’t even have a mentor when I started. Today, you can find many amazing professional networks devoted to women, particularly those in entrepreneurship. I highly recommend that any aspiring entrepreneur start building their support network immediately, and not just professionally. If you’re a parent, for example, it can be those trusted people who are only a text away if your child needs to be picked up when you’re stuck at work.
You wear so many hats. What advice would you give to fellow business owners for keeping a healthy balance?
I can only do all this if I know there’s times when I’m the priority. Putting my self-care and personal goals first may mean that something’s not going to get done, and that’s OK. I like to respond to things immediately, but sometimes when I don’t, they seem to take care of themselves in the end. A great team helps with that.
It comes down to prioritizing ruthlessly and making sure that you keep chipping away at your larger goals every day to get the important things done. Otherwise, all those constant incoming emails and fires you have to put out are going to tear you away from what really matters most—your own well-being and time with your loved ones.
For more info, visit candace-nelson.com