How Baked by Melissa CEO turned bed room chilly calls into cupcake empire 

Depend Baked by Melissa founder Melissa Ben-Ishay among the many entrepreneurial success tales based on getting out of the company rat race.

Earlier than beginning her firm, Ben-Ishay labored at an advert company in New York Metropolis – a task she felt unfulfilled in. The day she was fired was an “aha second,” she not too long ago instructed CNBC. She visited her brother at work, and he advised the 2 begin a enterprise promoting her cupcakes. They shortly created an internet site and shot pictures of cupcakes utilizing a white sheet as a backdrop. 

Again in 2008, Ben-Ishay was doing all of it: hand-delivering cupcakes to tastings, chilly calling caterers from her bed room and, as soon as she had an order, boarding the subway with a white cardboard deli field filled with her trademark tie-dye sweets. On the time, each cupcake got here from her tiny New York Metropolis house kitchen. 

Baked by Melissa would sprinkle town with bite-sized cupcakes in tie-dye bins for the following few years, along with her massive break coming when the proprietor of Cafe Bari, who had fallen in love with the bite-sized cupcakes and provided Ben-Ishay the chance to make use of his industrial kitchen in trade for promoting him cupcakes at price for the NYC vacation markets.

“Seven months after we based the corporate, my dad drove in from Bergen County and helped me transfer all of my stuff from my little teeny kitchen to the basement of Cafe Bari,” she recalled at a current CNBC occasion.

The cafe proprietor turned a shareholder in Baked by Melissa, and the corporate was in a position to proceed utilizing the area for years. The natural foot visitors was already profitable, Ben-Ishay says, however because the press began to catch on, individuals lined up across the nook. A 12 months after it moved into the Cafe Bari area, Baked by Melissa opened its second location in Union Sq..

Since then, Baked by Melissa has develop into a world enterprise with 14 bricks-and-mortar areas, worldwide supply and a following of over 2.5 million on TikTok. Ben-Ishay has additionally taken on the function of CEO and not too long ago printed her second cookbook, “Come Hungry.” 

Social media has develop into more and more necessary in constructing the “cupcake empire.”

In 2021, Ben-Ishay’s “inexperienced goddess” salad recipe went viral on TikTok and turned Google’s No. 6 most-searched recipe nationwide, with 1.6 million searches in 2022. The recipe, which was recreated by celebrities like Cardi B and Lizzo, led to Ben-Ishay showing on the At this time Present and later posting a recipe for “inexperienced goddess” ranch, which amassed almost two million extra views than the unique recipe. Now followers maintain tabs on the recipes and routines Ben-Ishay shares on TikTok.

“Social media could be an unbelievable instrument,” she instructed CNBC in an e-mail. “You are able to do something [when] you keep the proper perspective … present up day-after-day (aka make it your job), hearken to your viewers and work to create high quality content material.”

Ben-Ishay declined to touch upon how a TikTok ban within the U.S. would have an effect on her.

Changing into a cookbook writer backed by social media success has helped Ben-Ishay transfer past the cupcake model.

“I wished to share that philosophy and a means of consuming that prioritizes nourishing elements in each meal,” she mentioned. “I hope readers acquire a way of confidence within the kitchen by means of my recipes, that they’ll use with any elements sooner or later.”

Boundaries to success for feminine founders and CEOs

Research present that ladies face excessive hurdles in entrepreneurship, with vastly much less entry to funding than male founders and a excessive stage of skepticism from a male-dominated investor world. There are some indicators of enchancment, with the price of latest enterprise formation amongst feminine entrepreneurs rising, and extra ladies investing in female-founded companies. These capital market points contribute to analysis displaying that ladies usually lack the boldness to start out a enterprise, regardless of the analysis additionally displaying that female-run companies usually outperform the market, resulting in the creation of ETFs monitoring women-led corporations.

Ben-Ishay mentioned she has skilled gender-based obstacles firsthand.

“It is exhausting to reach enterprise no matter your gender,” she mentioned. “[But] some challenges I’ve discovered to be extra distinctive to females. I feel usually males are overconfident, whereas ladies lack confidence. I did not develop into CEO of the corporate that bears my identify till 2019, and even after I was put into the function, I assumed I could not do it. I used to be flawed.”

Now a profitable CEO and social media persona, Ben-Ishay has constructed a model uniquely its personal. And the liberty and unpredictability of entrepreneurship depart her feeling fulfilled — she mentioned she loves stepping out of her consolation zone and placing out fires.

“I embrace it,” she mentioned. “That is after we study and develop probably the most.”