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Dana Pollack of Dana’s Bakery – Sweet Success

November 19, 2018

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Highlights

  • Dana’s former career at Muscle and Fitness magazine
  • Her light bulb moment – when she asked for a raise and was declined
  • Faced with screen of oily men working out—asking will she really do this the rest of my life
  • Photo industry in transition, switching digital wanted to do something different after 10 years=–what would she want to do
  • Realizing she loved baking and entertaining
  • Dana realized she should get formal training, and within a week enrolled in culinary education and quit job, and broke up with boyfriend
  • Everyone except for her mom thought she was crazy to do this at 30 years old
  • Never anticipating what it the bakery became
  • How she knew could always pick up work in editorial world, but never had to
  • Found a job as pastry cook while going to school to get experience as fast as possible
  • Never went to business school, learned largely online basics of starting a business
  • How her mom helped her, no investors or partners, bootstrapping
  • When she photographed macaroons like sexy perfume, people were drawn to them
  • Using American flavors instead of traditional macaroon flavors
  • Social media as marketing helped people find out about them all over the country, then Dana hand-delivered and was not making a lot of money because the cost of delivering
  • Collaboration with Drake for Valentines Day
  • Favorite flavor is the “Mallomac” – a Mallomar bar without gluten
  • Biggest mistake made in packaging  — $60k of unusable branded inventory
  • Making a formal business plan vs. getting things done
  • A surprise for Dana and idea for a new flavor!
  • The challenge of hiring the best talent
  • Why she has no partner to date
  • Why it is best to hire people who are better than you are at skills
  • Being at 35 employees
  • Typing and email answering assignments with new employees
  • Expanding the operating and offerings
  • Why showing up is such a major thing
  • Marketing strategy
  • Partnership with Dylan’s Candy Bar
  • The Mookie – a macaroon inside a cookie
  • How an Instagram contest created a new product
  • The rainbow black and white cookie
  • Looking at ROI of every dollar spent
  • Organic social media posts have always worked, preferring marketing dollars for ad words and FB ads
  • Sharing her entire days on Instagram
  • Planning days, every day is different, the importance of the calendar in phone
  • How Dana doesn’t have a set schedule every day
  • Running personal and business Instagram accounts, and how running a business account like a personal account speaks to the brand
  • Dana’s most used apps
  • How helpful people are, and why being willing to ask for help is huge
  • Being able to recover by recognizing when something goes wrong in the business
  • A brainstorm for a new flavor idea for the holidays
  • And, a big accolade as a business leader without a business degree is a credit to her team