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In 2002, after working for other people's companies for years, Hillary Souza was ready to go solo and found her own business. "My husband and I owned a restaurant," recalls Hillary. "I was still working in the corporate world and we had just had a daughter and I didn't want to go back to commuting. The restaurant was more my husband's business, and I wanted to do something that incorporated his business, using his equipment, but could be more my own."
Hillary had always sold her cookie creations from the restaurant's front counter and thought of spinning these cookies into a full-blown business. "I began to toy around with the idea of making gift baskets but there are so many people doing that out there and I wanted to sell something unique." As her plans evolved, Hillary focused on making unique party favors and gifts, featuring custom logos, photos, and designs, which would be made to order for each customer. Soon, Hillary founded her new company, Veronica's Treats, naming it after her first start up enterprise, her then year-old daughter.
Need edible wedding favors with a photo of the bride and groom emblazoned in the frosting? Looking for 3,000 cookies with a corporate logo baked right in? These are just a couple of Hillary's specialties.
"We do specific made-to-order, custom confections," explains Hillary. "Cookies, chocolate, and cakes ... they're all made to order either with photos, logos, or personalization of some kind. Everything is personalized for the customer, either as a gift or party favor." Hillary's clients range from small consumer orders for a baby shower to massive corporate orders to support special business events.
To get started and spread the word, Hillary began her business venture with a web site and ads in local newspapers. For the first few months she was on her own. Then, as orders began to trickle (and then flood) in, she was able to hire her first employee.
Over the past two and a half years she has expanded from one employee to a staff of 12 to keep up with customer demand. "I have a really loyal, hard-working staff and that's a big part of the reason we were able to grow as fast and keep up with the growth."
Less than three years into the business, Veronica's Treats is moving into a new, larger headquarters, and has exceeded profit projections two years running. "We've had tremendous growth, amazingly fast," says Hillary.
While Hillary was always hopeful that the company would succeed, she says it has "gone way beyond my expectations and exceeded any projections of what could possibly be the normal growth of a normal startup cookie company."
What can other merchants learn from Hillary's rapid growth and success? Here are some of Hillary's recipes for running a successful business:
- Be unique. Veronica's Treats is a perfect illustration of a basic business concept: Identify a hole in the market and fill that niche! There may have been many gift-basket makers out there, but few were making completely customized confections.
- Choose loyal employees and treat them well. "We have a great staff and they really see the potential. Most have been with me since the very beginning, so it's exciting for them to see the growth and the move [to a bigger bakery] and the notoriety we're getting," says Hillary.
- Minimize startup costs. Veronica's Treats started with the advantage of having access to her husband's restaurant equipment. That meant minimal investment in equipment and infrastructure.
- Make the most of a minimal cash flow. "Normally, in the first three years of business it is critical to have a loan to get moving," says Hillary. "I did not have any money when I started, and really should've had a loan. If I could go back I would've gotten one. It was very bumpy in the beginning. It was very tough but we got through it and we're now past the two year mark. They say the first two to three years are the toughest in business. I truly felt that."
Cash flow posed one of Hillary's biggest challenges. "I haven't extended credit lines to have to worry about, so accounts receivable hasn't been terrible, but funding the growth has been hard. With a loan we would've had money in the bank to buy ingredients for 3,000 cookie orders.
"Most of my vendors were without terms, so I had to come up with the money to pay for everything upfront and then I wouldn't get paid for three or four days later if it was on a corporate card and there was never any money left over."
"The fact that I didn't have a cash buffer in the bank meant that every penny coming in was being used to fund the business and our growth. As fast as it's coming in, you need to turn around and use it again. That leaves little for much else, including payroll and your own salary."
- Rely on trusted tools. QuickBooks Merchant Service helped Hillary gain control over her limited cash and ensure that she was using her funds effectively.
"From the very beginning I've been using QuickBooks," says Hillary. "In the very early stages, I was using my husband's copy of QuickBooks and he said, 'You know, you need to have your own company in QuickBooks.' When I started a new company, QuickBooks asked me if I wanted the merchant account through them. That was great. I wouldn't have thought of that ... I would have had to be manually typing numbers, getting authorizations, and entering the payments into QuickBooks.
"This way I process my credit card sales through QuickBooks, which automatically accounts for the sale as a deposit. Reporting is very easy and I can email customers paid receipts."
"I didn't actually use QuickBooks for order taking until very recently. I was using the regular Retail Edition and I just started getting my staff to take orders directly through QuickBooks. Before, we were taking orders over the phone, writing them down manually, and then entering them into QuickBooks."
- Look for easy gains in efficiency and cost-savings. Hillary estimates that order processing directly in QuickBooks Merchant Service for PCs takes "about half the amount of time" that it did when she managed it as a two-step process. Plus, directly entering orders into QuickBooks Merchant Service has saved staffing costs.
"To have to pay someone to sit and take the order over the phone and then enter the same order into QuickBooks was paying for double the hours." Now she can have more members of her team focused on baking up new confections, and more profits. "It also sounds more professional to have someone take the order and know that they're entering it into the computer," said Hillary.
Hillary's company relies on running daily orders reports each day, and using these to process and ship orders the following day. "Our daily production (sales) report though QuickBooks is the report my staff relies on every morning," says Hillary. "Since we started using this report, there have been a lot fewer errors and work flow has been a lot smoother and more efficient." With Internet orders such a large part of her business, Hillary is interested in the new QuickBooks Merchant Service for the Web.
- Don't melt through the profits... literally. With perishable goods like customized chocolates, Hillary had to become an overnight expert at shipping and handling methods that would allow her confections to travel across the country and arrive intact.
- Remember what you're working for. One of Hillary's biggest challenges has been founding a business at the same time as parenting a small child. Of her daughter Hillary says, "I have a lot of guilt about not being home as much, but I am creating a legacy for her. The business is named for her. She was the inspiration and realistically, at the end of the day, I feel like I am a good role model. I can feel like I'm doing this for her. That's how I get through seeing her sometimes only one or two hours a day. And I'm also very lucky that I have the supportive husband I have!"
With all the hard work, Hillary maintains an optimistic outlook: "I know that this is what it takes to be successful. These are the sacrifices. And I know I'll get to the point where I don't have to be away as much and will be able to have everyone running things for me." With a winning product, talented staff, supportive family, and QuickBooks Merchant Services behind her, that turning point may be even closer than Hillary thinks.
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