Right now, I am not technically a small business owner. I closed the Goodie Godmother bakery in July just prior to our cross-country move, and converted Goodie Godmother into a food blog. I wanted the opportunity to grow and mold the brand with me as it felt right, work on a few projects I never had time for with the bakery, and keep have the opportunity to keep alive something I truly love.
The blog is set up to one day, hopefully, provide some income to help defray the expenses related with hosting, buying ingredients/props/photography equipment, but technically, this is just a hobby. I’m not selling anything, so I don’t own a business despite this project still requiring a lot of love and pixie dust (ha!) to work.
But this week, my heart has been torn making a decision. I’ve been encouraged by a few people to re-open either as a cottage baker once again or move forward with renting a commercial incubator kitchen, and it’s been a hard choice for me. On one hand, I know GG as a bakery is marketable and what I make sells, and well. But on the other hand, it would mean letting go of the plans I had for my “business” now.
I’d have to let go of the blog. I tried to be a baker and food blogger before, but as you longtime followers can attest, the blog never took off. There just wasn’t enough time to develop recipes and invest enough attention to both. If I had been dedicated to both, both would have suffered. So to my fellow workaholic entrepreneurial types… listen up!
You must pick a direction for your business. It may change over time, but you will not succeed trying to go multiple directions at once.
At some point, we (all of us, collectively) need to refocus and remember what got us in to business to begin with, what skill we had, what passion, what drove us to say “this thing I love so much and am good at that I would do for free, I want to make into a sustainable business”. And then while we are building our businesses, take the time to re-evaluate the direction things are going.
So this is what I did, and today, what seemed like a tough decision became incredibly clear. Over a year ago, when I realized I couldn’t run a bakery and be a good blogger, I put the blog on hold and made a plan to shift my attention this past summer to help ease the sting of closing the bakery and leaving all my lovely clients behind.
This blog hasn’t even had a real shot to get off the ground, and I’m not ready to let that possibility go. The potential of where this could grow is exciting. It sounds counter-intuitive because most people would choose the option that actually generates income, but this is the direction I’m choosing for my “business” now.
If I do a good job, my lovely clients and friends from California will still be able to enjoy my cooking in a way, and I’ll be able to make so many more friends from our new home in Virginia and lots of other places. Food has a beautiful way of bringing people together. Thanks in advance for joining me on the journey.<3