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Candace Nelson: The Sweet Recipe for Turning Your Passion into Profit · The Bold Lounge

0:08
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: My name is Lee Burgett and I will be your host.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in life.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Every week will be about someone particularly important characters.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: In addition to hearing their stories, they also learn about their bold world mindset.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Whether they face actions without away, they persisted, and ultimately achieved their goals.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: These impactful stories will be motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold work.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be created.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Today I have Candace Nelson, who is the founder and CEO of Sprinkles as well as Pete Zana, and an upcoming author of Sweet Success and an ongoing Wall Street Journal contributor.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Candace.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm thrilled to be here.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to introduce you to the Bold Lounge listeners, and I thought it'd be great for you to introduce yourself to start off.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think you did a beautiful job of introing me.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Very succinct, which is which is hard to do sometimes because I have sort of a meandering career at this point, but I embrace all of it.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Sprinkles is probably what I'm best known for.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Sprinkles was the first ever cupcakes-only bakery, which I founded and opened the doors to in 2005 on a sleepy little street in Beverly Hills.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: My husband was and still is my partner in Sprinkles and now in our other businesses as well.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: So I've got a great co-founder, but I was the baker, they were my recipes, it was my vision to elevate the Lowly Cupcake.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And back in 2005, that was kind of an interesting idea because, first of all, it was the low carb craze.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: It was the height of the low carb craze.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Nobody was really thinking about launching businesses that were full carb businesses.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, no one had ever focused on just cupcakes before.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Bakeries sold a variety of things.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: They were known for selling a whole inventory, so to speak, of cakes and cookies and muffins so that they could continue to drive business from morning till night because bakeries are known for having very slim margins and not known for, you know, big exits and liquidity.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the idea that I was focusing on cupcakes only raised a lot of eyebrows.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Also, cupcakes at the time, it's interesting to consider now because people think of cupcakes as sort of this nice, you know, bougie treat.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: But at the time, they really were just kids' lunchbox fair.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, you found them in the supermarket, bakeries, they were packaged in plastic clamshells.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: No one really considered the cupcake as much more than just a lunchbox treat.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: So when we opened Sprinkles Doors in 2005, it really flew in the face of so many things that were happening at the time.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Also the fact that we were opening in LA, which is not known for people eating cupcakes.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And it was sort of an instant and runaway success.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of fun and exciting things happened.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: I ended up on an internationally syndicated TV show on the Food Network, where I was positioned as the queen of cupcakes that led to another dessert competition show on Netflix.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And we had incredible media attention success, and it was quite a wild ride.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: So we sold the business in 2012.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And I have since started Angel Investing and also have a venture studio, CN2 Ventures, where we partner with other passionate founders and help them with the financing and also operationally to launch their businesses.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And the one that has really taken off from CN2 Ventures is Pizzana, which is my new pizza concept.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Daniele Uditi hails from Naples, Italy.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: He's an incredible pizza, uh, pizzeolo.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't want him to make fun of me for mispronouncing that.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's Neo-Neapolitan pizza.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: We have three locations in Los Angeles, but we are potentially doubling, if not tripling, that in the next year.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: It's on a real vast path to success.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: So certainly known for, you know, loving foods, delicious foods, handheld foods, cupcakes and pizza are both handheld foods, which I always like to point out.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And just making foods that we in America love easier to love by elevating them with great ingredients, packaging them with really sophisticated design, and telling a great story and serving up a great customer experience.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I now have this book coming out, which is called Sweet Success.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: It's being released on November 8th by HarperCollins Leadership.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And basically, it's a guide to entrepreneurship for first-time and aspiring entrepreneurs.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: It is told through the lens of me bootstrapping my first business, which was Sprinkles.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: And my message and mission is really to shout from the rafters that entrepreneurship is for everyone.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: It's not just for the men we see glamorized on TV, in the media, sending rocket ships to the moon.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I built a company making something that even a child could make.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my kids make cupcakes.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And so it's really all in having a passion and a plan.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And my hope is that sweet success will be that roadmap and that manual for all the women and other aspiring founders out there who really want to go after their dreams.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: All right.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: So great introduction, kind of covers some of the things we'll go through.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And two of my favorite things that you are connected with is cupcakes and pizza.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: There's not many people that can turn those down.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: I like anything that ends in cake.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: So from that perspective, excited to jump into why and how and you know the innovative things that you did.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: But obviously, you did some bold things in there as well with starting a business, then selling a business, and then really getting at it again, writing a book.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: Those are all bold moments, um, of course.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: But would love to understand how you define bold.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like for Candace?
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Bold to me means having the confidence to dream really big, unwieldy dreams, and then having the strength and fortitude to go after them, take the action to go after them, particularly when they run contrary to what is sort of expected of you.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: So, in your definition, when was the first time you were bold?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I would say I was bold when after I lost my job in the dot com bust after having worked in investment banking and then at an internet company, lost my job in the dot-com bust and decided to go to pastry school instead of business school.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Business school was absolutely the next sort of logical step for me.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: All of my peers who I had been, you know, financial analysts with at the investment bank where I was working right out of college, they were all going to business school.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: I had had a very, I guess I had been told and I had been led to believe, and I did believe that if I followed a certain path, went to the right school, went to the right college, got the right job, got the grade, that success would follow.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: But I found myself in a position where I was really miserable doing what I did.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And as you know, we spent a lot of hours on this earth working.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And if it's soul sucking and it doesn't fuel you, what is the point?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And it was really in the wake of 9-11 that I was able to dig deep and was sort of forced to face the fact that I didn't like what I was doing.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel like it was contributing to the world in any meaningful way.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: And I finally asked myself the question that I've been sort of avoiding up until then, which was, what did I want to do?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: How did I want to contribute?
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately I landed, well, I went back to a place, sort of a nostalgic place from childhood when I used to bake alongside my mom.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: We baked for hours on end in the kitchen from her joy of cooking cookbook.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, my family was living overseas.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: We were living in Indonesia when I was sort of in grade school.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was homesick.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I missed home.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So my connection to home at the time, this is obviously a pre-internet world, was to bake the treats I loved from home, the American classics, cupcakes, you know, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, all the things that I couldn't go to the corner store in Maidan on the island of Sumatra and buy.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So I had this, you know, wonderful love for baking.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: It had always been a hobby, but then I decided to test my interest by going to pastry school and figure out, hey, maybe, maybe I would want to do this for a living.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And it raised a lot of eyebrows, I have to be honest.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and probably like you said in your definition, might have been contradictory to what someone expected of you, right?
9:07
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: So maybe unpopular with some, not all, but I think that's where we find our tribe and who we're going to actually roll with at a certain point.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: And you may have a different tribe, different layers of our life.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: But I think that definitely was bold.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: I want to connect to something you said because food and memories, and you know, we spoke briefly just before, and I said I really love to throw dinner parties and just have memories made just by having conversation that you know, we put down our phones, we're not connected, but we're connecting in person, which is just not easy to do these days.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: I I have so many good memories around food, and my grandmother, my mom, my dad, like it's just it's pervasive.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: And now my daughter very much likes to cook.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: My husband and my daughter are going to the King Arthur Flower here in New Hampshire.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: There's a cooking four-day class, they're gonna go learn how to do all the pastries and croissants, and so my diet is a definite jeopardy.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, how in the sense, you know, as you've kind of gone through, and obviously I bet so there's some pieces of this in the book, of the connection between kind of food and memory and then connecting that to like action.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: What would you say when someone's taking their passion and connecting it to their work?
10:21
SPEAKER_01: And you've been able to do that.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: So making that change from finance and the investment world to pastry school, how did that roll through your mind?
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Was it really about am I serving a purpose, am I finding joy, or were there other questions that you asked yourself?
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think starting a business is really hard.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: I I think everyone should do it, but I am not going to say it's not hard.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a passion for what you're doing, I think it's a lot easier to give up.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: It's that sort of extra fire that's burning inside of you that makes you keep going in spite of the obstacles that are inevitably going to come your way.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, it also helps to have a larger mission and purpose to what you're doing in your life and in your work.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully the two can connect in some way.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And for me, having lived all over the world, I really have this philosophy that in spite of the fact that we live in a very fractured climate a lot of the time, people are essentially more alike than they are different.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: And for me, food represents that.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Food represents that place where people really can come together and sort of like escape their differences, let down their barriers and agree on something, right?
11:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there aren't that many people that can't agree that having a cupcake is delicious and it improves your day.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: By the same token, you know, bringing your family around the table for a great pizza dinner at Pizzana, like that feels good.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And and I feel that so viscerally because when I was growing up, that was everything to me.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: That was my connection to my homeland was through food.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And it was also the way that I explored the different cultures that I was living in, right?
12:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, my family lived in Singapore.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: We'd all go out to like the stalls and eat chili crab, and we'd be like in that humid night air and sweating, and my dad'd be drinking the beer.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And it just is, we go to Europe and it was like, sure, we're gonna go see the Eiffel Tower, but we're really gonna go eat croissants over here.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was everything to my family.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: And that really, so that that sort of served a larger purpose in my work.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that I encourage other people to find that.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody knows what their thing is, and I spent a lot of time stewing over that because I was sort of this well-rounded kid and I considered myself a jack of all trades, which I thought was a liability.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: I think, and you can speak to this obviously as an entrepreneur yourself, but I think it's really a strength when it comes to entrepreneurship because you have to wear so many hats.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And so it took me a long time to figure that out.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: But if you are trying to find your thing, and listen, I did all the things.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I did the career aptitude testing, my, you know, what color is your parachute was on my bedside table.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, it's about where do you find your flow, right?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: What do you do that when you're doing it, you kind of lose track of time?
13:16
SPEAKER_00: And then think about is there a way to work that into how you make a living?
13:22
SPEAKER_01: That's where it starts.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think the the thing there is also like you can try things and they don't stick, and then you don't give up.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: That's the key piece there.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And you and I talked also, and I've said this before, like every idea you have may not be a good one, but how will you know unless you try it?
13:39
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean go all willy-nilly.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean be thoughtful and pragmatic.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: That's my definition of big swings of bold is thoughtful, pragmatic steps towards something different that's not guaranteed.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: And you just have to manage yourself.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I'll just speak for myself every now and then of like just not doing all these creative things without thinking.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: But that's just my favorite part about what I do now is I actually don't have that lid on my creativity.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: And and I think being in the corporate world was an incredible experience.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't trade it, I wouldn't go back and change it.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't believe in that type of thing.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: I was there for a reason and I learned from it.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: But I think now it's just being able to kind of channel that in in different places.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: I love that you talked about the travel, like, yes, you're going to see something, you know, because I could relate to that.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Like when we go to City, we're looking for the greatest places to eat and also bookstores.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: My daughter will find every really cool bookstore.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that about your daughter.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: That's that sounds like my son.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: I have an 11-year-old who is just a fanatical reader.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: We should share lists because she'll she'll find the very coolest independent bookstores in every city we go to.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's fantastic.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: I I sometimes worry about that with the TikTok generation, right?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't yeah, don't even get me started on that.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, like instead of concert shirts, she has like the little the bags from each one.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of cool.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: So as you think about all your travels, what put you in those spaces?
15:04
SPEAKER_01: Was it your parents' careers, or what why were you an international kind of moving around child growing up?
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: So my father, people always assume I was an army kid or, you know, what do they say, like a military brat.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: My father's father was in the Air Force and he moved around internationally like his whole life, even more than we did.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So I think it was in his blood, but he was actually general counsel for a couple different American multinationals.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: So it was work that took us to these various places.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but you, I mean, you've had some experiences that run deep in the sense of like who you are, and also probably seeing some bold moments yourself in some of those places that you went to.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: One, like being the new kid or being different, or kind of stepping into situations.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Anything come up for you?
15:49
SPEAKER_01: I can remember, you know, thinking about like, you know, this is an experience or this is something that I would consider bold and just your your childhood?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for bringing that up.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I do talk about this a little bit, well, maybe a lot, at the beginning of my book, Sweet Success.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And just that, you know, moving around so often as a child, although in retrospect, I'm so grateful for it because I just have a cultural perspective, I think, that is hard to find if you if you don't have those experiences.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: You can try to create them, and I do with my children now, like by traveling and exposing them to things that they wouldn't normally be exposed to.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: But that was really my reality.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to go on trips to experience it.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the time, you know, as a grade schooler, having to walk into new lunchrooms and classrooms every two years, making friends and then having to say goodbye to them because either I was moving or I was part of expat community.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: So they were moving too, right?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: So it was this constant churn of friendships and it was exhausting and it could be really scary because I never felt entirely safe, right?
16:57
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have that now.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Granted, I had a wonderful family life and I was comfortable and I was safe.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to make light of that word, but from a social perspective, I always had to be on as a kid.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And that is, you know, I think it was a survival skill, but ultimately what it taught me is that I could count on myself.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And there's real strength in that.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's a foundation for a lot of the bold moves that I have made in my life.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Because when you know that you got you, anything is possible.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Because I knew, you know, when Charles and I were starting sprinkles and everyone said we were gonna fail, and we put all of our life savings into it, and we spent years on it, and everyone thought it was ridiculous.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I could say to myself, they might be right and I might lose all of my savings and I might have to start over with egg on my face.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: But I know I can do that because I've already done the hard stuff before.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's really important, and women in particular, you know, they don't sometimes have the same confidence as our male counterparts.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: They suffer from imposter syndrome more, and I am not immune to it, trust me, in spite of my, you know, my training and my childhood experiences, I am not immune to it at all.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: But I think what I encourage women in particular to do if they're suffering from that or they're feeling that they don't feel ready or prepared or that they're, you know, gonna go after their dreams because they're scared, is to look at what you've been through, even the small things that you've done, like the breakups you've had that you got through when you got to the other side.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're scared of public speaking, like the one toast you gave where everyone said that was great, like how like heartfelt was that.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Just the little wins that you have.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it's so important to remember, even write them down, because those are the building blocks to confidence.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that, those are really important steps to taking that ultimate bold leap later.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's baby bold and big bold.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, baby bold.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like that.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think in the sense of, and I, you know, I've talked about this on my LinkedIn of like what are your wins for the week?
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Small, medium, or large.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, there you go.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have four puppies.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: So, like, if I can give them all to the car without anyone getting maimed or hurt, like, yes.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: You did it.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Small, meaning, or big, to me, that was big.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: Someone else may be small, they're all under one and a half.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Funny story.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I actually did a little, you know, I I love I love social media.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I think it's super fun.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to spend too much time on it, but I do, I do like the creative nature of making these little videos like reels and TikToks.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And I did this reel about imposter syndrome and how it's really important to celebrate the small wins.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And I used this example of sinking a basket, right?
19:52
SPEAKER_00: So I shot the basket, and my son, who's 11, was like, mom, how many tries did it take you to make that basket?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Nail it.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, Harry, you got me, you know, and he goes, You need to you need to tell people that was a big win for you.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: That was not just a small win.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're not Michael Jordan.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: So we have that as that.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I know.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: I've been outed summer.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: But it's the little things and they all add up.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: For me, it's like, oh wow, I was able to like go outside and take a walk, you know, and I was able to decompress and read a couple chapters, or I spent some time researching something.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, some of those don't sound like, oh, well, that what why is she celebrating that?
20:35
SPEAKER_01: But it's all individual too.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: Like what my win is, don't judge my win, you know, like you have your wins, uh, they have their wins, like, and I'm happy about mine.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's again, I think coming back to the confidence that you talked about that we gain in certain experiences in our life along the way, or we figure out how to gain it, right?
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Because I used to think, like, I never had an issue with imposter syndrome my whole career.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, I never Okay, I would like to study you.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: I want to study you.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: I became an entrepreneur is the rest of that.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, okay.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Because I felt like I'm here, I'm I'm speaking my truth, I'm gonna be who I am.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Now it got me in trouble, probably in certain in spaces, because one, not everyone doesn't want you to speak your truth or to say what you really feel.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: That's not always welcomed in certain spaces.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: But when I became an entrepreneur, I was like, I don't belong here.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, who am I?
21:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, who am I sitting next to or talking to?
21:26
SPEAKER_01: But then I like had to work through, like, okay, I can do this.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm like worthy of being here.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: So I hadn't experienced that.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's normal too.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: And I I think it's the little things and also not judging yourself on what you say is a win.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's if it's a win to you, it's a freaking win.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: So like celebrate it.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And I also think to your point about having this just extreme confidence doing what you had done prior to entrepreneurship, because you've been doing it, you had it all dialed in.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And then I give you so much props for.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Stepping outside of your comfort zone, sometimes I feel like the fear, the imposter syndrome, all of that is like an incredible signal, right?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: It's an internal signal that you are growing, that you have, it's kind of like I am terrible at yoga.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I am like the stiffest person ever.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: So I always feel bad entering a yoga class because I'm the one like wobbling in back.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one yoga instructor saying to me, she was essentially speaking to me, but she was kind enough to be saying it to the class.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: She's like, if you're not falling, if you're not wobbling, you are not stretching yourself far enough.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: You are not, you know what I mean?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Like all these yogis were in there, like with their perfect poses.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, guess what?
22:42
SPEAKER_00: You've got a perfect pose, but you can make it better.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: You can stretch yourself farther.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: I want to see you wobble.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking, like, oh, that's a very, I mean, so much of yoga is very, yeah, it has such deeper meaning than those poses you do in class.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: But I thought that that was quite poignant because, you know, really being uncomfortable, feeling that fear just means that you are growing and you're learning and you're allowing yourself to be a student and be humble and not be, you know, the best in class anymore.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's so much bravery in that.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're not, if you're not wobbling, you're not learning or stretching.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: It really does speak to the how, and I think that's the piece that I I wish I could bottle for people is they have to, they have to make the first step or think through how will they start.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And then they have to just start.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I and you can only say just do it so many times, but I think there's things that hold people back.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And you know, for me, I guess got to a point of just health, mental health, and physical health, and it was enough.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't gonna do it anymore.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't advise that to people.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, being able to kind of figure out where, you know, you know, what is your path to being joyful and where are you happiest and where do you like to work and give back and do things?
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And like, can you figure out how to do more of that?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And starting off with an hour a week, hour a month, you know, just start.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's really helpful.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So in your book, you know, when you're talking about sweet success, is it like the ingredients of how to build your business?
24:19
SPEAKER_01: Or tell me kind of just a quick overview for everyone.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sweet success is really it's about preparing yourself for entrepreneurship or frankly for any type of big unwieldy goal, right?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: That you may want to achieve.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: But I wrote it for founders, but a large piece of the book is really the mindset.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: And the mindset is applicable to so many things, as we all know, right?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Finding the courage and the confidence, being resilient, all of these characteristics that we revere in an entrepreneur, frankly, are great human characteristics for getting through life.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: So we have the mindset piece.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And then also, my belief is anyone can be an entrepreneur with a passion and a plan.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: So I help you from ideation all the way to sale.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: So the idea is that I'm getting you ready, mindset ready.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm helping you come up with the idea.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm helping you determine whether the market is worthy of your time, testing your thesis.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Cause to your point earlier, bold, being bold isn't about being reckless, right?
25:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not about entrepreneurship, it isn't about just taking a flying leap off a cliff.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: There is a right way to manage risk and calculate risk.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, you're still going to have to take a leap.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a security net waiting for you.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: But also, I would argue that, you know, having a career at a company for years and years and years is also not very secure, right?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing layoffs around the country right now from those big behemoth tech companies that we thought were, you know, just like superpowers, basically.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing people getting their job offers revoked.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, at the end of the day, entrepreneurship is about betting on yourself.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think, as I said earlier, you know, there's nothing more secure than that.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I am encouraging responsible entrepreneurship.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I am giving people actionable tools and a plan to test their thesis, to make sure they have some traction, to make sure they have enough money.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't how to get it before going all in.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And it really came about from the fact that I have had a lot of people reach out to me for mentorship.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And there's only one of me.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: As you know, you're a coach.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: There's only so far your hours will take you.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And so this book is really me sort of having a platform to help more people out there because a lot of people want to start a business, but they don't know how.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: And you and I know how important the action part is and taking those first few steps and then momentum starts to pick up if you're on that right path.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: But even just, you know, tactical things like finding a name that you can register, that you can own, building a brand.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Marketing, go to market.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Like how what marketing channels?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: There's so many these days.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: How are you going to choose one?
27:11
SPEAKER_00: So it's really, I'm sort of your cheerleader, but I'm also handing you a roadmap to build the business of your dreams.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: So love that.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: And I love the being bold doesn't mean being reckless, because I think sometimes people equate boldness with risk.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: And it does have a correlation, but it's not blind risk.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: I think that's why I define it as pragmatic and thoughtful, but not guaranteed.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, one thing that I think for my advice for people who are starting out a business is just expect obstacles.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Don't expect that it's just going to be forever smooth and your first year will look the same as your second year.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: So I'm in my second year and it's very different year, very different services, very different products, and continuing to do what I do.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: So I think that also keeps you on your toes, which I love most of the days.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I relate it to raising a child because just when you think you got it, like I got this, I'm an awesome mom.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Your child goes through some new developmental stage and you're like wringing your hands, like, I have no idea what to do now.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's just like, you know, growth phases in a company because, and by the way, that means you're succeeding.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: The fact that you are, you know, growing to that next stage, and all of a sudden you're ignorant about what you're supposed to do again, that means you've done a good job because you've raised the child to this next developmental stage.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: You've scaled or grown the company to this next stage of growth, but it can still be overwhelming and a little bewildering.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: So what's your advice as we kind of end out today's podcast?
28:44
SPEAKER_01: What is your advice for folks that are just starting out?
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the first step in thinking about it?
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Besides buy my book?
28:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, besides no, I'm just kidding.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding you.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: I think it's all in the action.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take the mindset piece to get to the action.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you a little story.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: We revere this notion of the idea.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: When you have the great idea, when the great, you know, inspiration is bestowed upon you, that's when you will start your business.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: No, ideas are a dime a dozen.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And I learned that when I first opened Sprinkles, and granted, Sprinkles was innovative, it was disruptive to this sort of multi-generational bakery industry.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: It was very new, one of a kind, and it got people talking.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I felt very proud about that.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd had this very unique and original idea.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: I had taken action, and here I was.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: And in those first weeks, I can't tell you how many people walked through those doors and said, This was my idea.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And at first I was kind of taken aback because I thought they were sort of taking something from me, right?
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I had thought I'd had this original idea, but it's actually the lesson is so much more important than the idea.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: The difference between those people and me was the action.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the execution.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: It was the action, it was the execution, was taking those first steps.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you what, those first steps were like scratching my head.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Who can I talk to about opening a bakery?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: How about the wedding cake maker who just did my wedding cake?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk to her first because I don't know anybody, anybody else in the baking industry.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start there.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And that little step led to another little step, led to another little step, but it's all in the action.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And so whatever you have to do to take that first step, right?
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Is what I advise people to do.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: Love that.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And we can bottle that and then we will be gazillionaires.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: The first perfect, perfect.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I was just talking.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I did a I did a podcast yesterday.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Moms don't have time to read books, I'll mention by Zivy Owens.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And she's writing her, like, I don't know, third, fourth book right now.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: And I told her we need to bottle a pill that helps writers with writer's block.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: Or a patch, you know, the one patch.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Yes, your healthcare.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's work on it.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: All right, that is the next clinical trial coming to you soon.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for being part of the Bold Lounge.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate getting to know you.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: And please do see all the information below for picking up sweet success and learning more about Candace.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Lee.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others to share the journey of those with a bold.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey.