Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Karla Reesor, co-founder of Sunny Cookie Company, located in Calgary, Canada. Her co-founder is her daughter Rebecca Reesor; she is a key part of the growth and success of the company.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We sell small batch cookies and other sweet treats! We focus on traditional flavours that you might have grown up with, like molasses, to bring out the nostalgia in everyone. We also like to provide seasonal treats, like raspberry blondies in the summer, Mini Egg cookies at Easter, and Shortbread at Christmas. Some of our cookies are also destined for adventure - like our plant-based Mighty Almond cookie.
We like to use ingredients with no preservatives and we always try to avoid the mystery ingredients with a lot of vowels. Our customers range from the daily sweet tooth to the sugar-once-a-month person because we have cookies that have lower sweetness levels and limited refined sugar. We are also exploring the gluten-friendly market, as we’ve noticed an increasing amount of people looking for lower gluten options! All in all, though, our customers are individuals who enjoy treats, enjoy treating others (often our cookies are sent as a gift), and like supporting small businesses.
Tell us about yourself
Our love for baking really comes from a genetic trait that has been passed along from my (Karla’s) mom and has been passed along through the generations. We feel lucky that homemade cookies have always been a staple in our house. Our love for baking partially formed the idea to start our own business, and we realized that we also love sharing treats with our friends and family. We are always happy to bring the treats for the get-togethers, swap cookies at Christmas, and bring the energizing sweet snacks for hikes and it’s almost impossible to be an out-of-town visitor and not go home with a bag of treats. We often talked about turning this into a business and decided to go for it (after a lot of planning) with the holidays in 2020.
What motivates us? Experimenting and seeing what new things we can come up with and also taste-testing…knowing there is almost always a new cookie to try definitely keeps us going. But in all seriousness, hearing our customer's feedback on our treats, whether through our social media or hearing the “Wow this is a good cookie” when we hand out samples at the farmers market motivates us to keep baking even though some of our less successful “experibaking”.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
1) At the Triwood Christmas Market we had made plans to bring about half our stock on the first day and bring the rest out the second day. We ended up selling out of our total weekend supply within the first day! We had to split up and have one person man the booth so the other could leave early and start baking for the next day. That was pretty cool.
2) Having all packaging involved with Sunny Cookie Co to be compostable/recyclable/reusable. This took many many hours of research and hunting for the right suppliers. We even talked to the city of Calgary staff to confirm how to dispose of our cookies bags in our city. Even the smallest items on our bags, the stickers, were not overlooked. Sustainability is important for us as individuals and business owners - we are glad to have found suppliers and packaging to align with those values.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
1) Not being able to say yes to everything. We just don’t have enough time in our days to say yes to every special request, and help out in our community as much as we want with either time, money, or cookie donations, while also working our day jobs and finding time to be social! Our rule when we started this business was: we will keep doing it as long as we are still having fun - and we’re learning that sometimes saying no is the best way we can continue that motto - even if doesn’t always seem like that at the moment.
2) Beforehand research of regulations and what you need to actually start the business (ie. business license and label requirements for foods, delivery options, business insurance) and then specific requirements if you want to sell at markets or other venues. There are also specific requirements you need to follow depending on the business license.
3) Learning about e-commerce and how to best sell your products. Talking to other small business owners really helped. We talked with local market vendors and other small businesses in Calgary which helped determine what e-commerce site to use and how to deliver our products across the city.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
1) Find something you love and then research how you can actually turn it into a business. Jumping into a business idea always seems like the right way - and it might be - but having the research to back up how to actually get your products to customers within the rules of where you live (see beforehand research in question 4) is important to keep your business going. It also helps to not create a more overwhelming environment than needed because starting a business even with all the know-how is overwhelming enough!
2) Keep experimenting - experiment with your products (we started with 5 products and have tried out another 20 products over the course of our 15 months in business!), your service delivery, and keep track of what you like and what you don’t like as well as what your customers like and don’t like! Also, remember that even if your customers like a product, if you don’t like creating it, your business isn’t going to be as enjoyable.
3) Reach out to people you know and when opportunity knocks, say yes (if you can manage it)! We’ve grown our community of cookie lovers by saying yes to new things when we can (whipping up 800 cookies for work Christmas presents for a friend of a friend the week before Christmas and reaching out to healthcare workers to see if they want any cookies for Valentine’s Day for example). It extended our cookie community, and gave us new inspiration for how we want to run our business!
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://sunnycookieco.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SunnyCookieCo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunnycookieco/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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