We had a chance to cake it with Roni from Roni Sugar Creations and pick her brain a little about cake decorating and her business. Roni Sugar Creations, based out of San Diego, CA is one of the many bakeries I enjoy following and you should too. Roni has over 56K followers on Instagram and over 7K followers on Facebook. Amazing huh? Such grand number of followers can only mean one thing: Roni knows what she’s doing and she is an expert at it!
Q. What made you start baking and decorating?
A. I was dealing with Post Partum depression after having my first baby. Every day when it started getting darker around 5 pm I noticed I was crying non stop for no reason. I had a beautiful and healthy baby girl and wonderful husband. My mother gifted me a Wilton tool box with everything you need to decorate cakes. She told me to bake at night when I was feeling down, that it will help me feel better. I refused to take Prozac prescribed by my doctor, because I didn’t want to stop breastfeeding, so I had to make myself feel better by getting my mind busy.
Q. What advice would you give to an up and coming bakery business?
A. Learn from others, invest in your business, and share your knowledge with others. If you have the chance to take classes from other sugar artists/cake designers do it. Never stop learning. Invest in your business. Make sure you try new baking supplies, colors, fondant, tools. Yes I know we can collect a lot of supplies but at the end they are always useful. Share some of your knowledge: share your tips and tricks with your fans, its important to thank them by sharing something very personal, like a tip you always use on your baking or cake decorating.
Q. What new events or specials do you have coming up that you would like to share with our readers?
A. I will be teaching in Orlando the 23rd of September, New orleans the first week of October, and the 21 st in St Louis Missouri. All of my classes are shared in my social media pages like IG and FB.
Q. How did you turn your hobby into a profitable business?
A. I started making desserts for friends and family first. I remember opening my FB page and sharing all my creations. From there on I stared networking with event planners from San Diego and Los Angeles. That gave me so much exposure, and thanks to them it helped my business grow.
Q. What was your biggest weakness in your business?
A. I believe blogging and appearing on TV. Blogging takes so much time, I dont like writing, so it made it harder to keep my blog up to date. I was offered many times to appear on tv for our local tv shows but I was afraid I was going to freeze on live tv.
Q. Have you ever had any close call moments where you wanted to throw in the towel? If so, how did you overcome those obstacles?
A. Yes, every week! I am a mother of 3, wife and business woman at the same time. I always have this guilt feeling about not being able to volunteer at my kids school as much, or giving them more quality time when they are home. But I felt I had to do this hobby of mine to be happy. If I was happy then I could make them happy. But I always have so much work and sometimes it was overwhelming. Sometimes I take 2 weeks off here so I don’t take so much time away from the people I love.
Q. What are you most proud of with your business in caking?
A. I am proud of everything I’ve accomplished. Teaching what I do has given me the opportunity to be invited to go to Canada, Mexico, and the United states. It amazes me when people travel miles and miles to attend my classes. It tells me that I am doing something right.
Q. Did you ever envision your business going this far?
A. Never, this was a hobby to begin with, never in a million years did I think it was gonna get to be this. But I am so happy and proud that all those sleepless nights took me to this that I have now.
Q. With so many other bakeries and hobbyists out there, what advice can you offer on how to progress in this field?
A. I think If you don’t have competition you get comfortable. You need to always come up with new ideas, projects, styles in this business.
Q. If you could do it all over again, what would you change?
A. I would come up with a shorter business name. Thats it, I would keep everything as is.
Many thanks to Roni for taking out the time and allowing us to blog interview with her! If you have enjoyed this blog interview as much as we have and want to find out more about Roni Sugar Creations, follow her on social media!
Connect with Roni
Photo Credit: Images courtesy of Roni’s Sugar Creations
