I just sat down with Samantha Strange, Owner/ Founder/ Master of Cheesecakes under the business name, “The Cheesecake Girl.” I was met with a casual, strong confidence that was well beyond her 28 years. Read on to discover how and why she went into business and just how it is spreading into the empire that it is.
Oh, and she drops some invaluable pieces of business advice you won’t want to miss!
Who is the “before” person?
“I can tell you I had no intention on starting a cheesecake company!” (insert endearing giggle)
Samantha goes on to explain that she had went to school for, and was interviewing for, sports broadcasting jobs prior to starting The Cheesecake Girl.
It was just her minor that was in culinary arts. She had gotten her first job at iHeart Radio and just one and half years later, quit her day job for cheesecake.
How did this opportunity present itself?
“I was baking just for fun!” Word was getting out about her tasty treats and restaurants started asking her to wholesale her products. She would work all day at iHeart Radio and then spend all night in the kitchen. She matter-of-factly reports:
“I called myself the Cheesecake Girl because that is was what everyone else called me.”
“I developed the recipes purely based on what I wanted in a cheesecake. I was eye-balling everything and learning as I went. My family and friends were some very crucial taste testers. As we grew, I needed a lot of help getting all of the recipes down with actual measurements… I wish you could see the eye rolls I got from the first staff members I had when I tried to explain a recipe. haha.”
When did you know you were going to jump into this idea?
In the summer of 2016, she was asked by a local brewery to do a cheesecake and beer pairing. It was there that she knew she had something special.
I absolutely love this: the customers that day bought all 200 of her mini cheesecakes and were asking her for her web and social media information.
“I literally sat in the back of the brewery that day and started an Instagram page to give out to them.”
Unbeknownst to her at the time, you can’t bake at home and sell your products commercially. This realization pushed her into a frenzy of registering the business, getting a logo from an Etsy seller, renting a commercial kitchen, taking classes on how to start a restaurant… “I felt like I had to dig through the weeds to stay in compliance!”
(This led to a side-bar conversation about just how hard it is to be a new business and navigating the regulations and start up processes. While we both agree that nothing necessarily needs to be handed to you to start up business, there really should be more clear-cut, systematic information available publicly).
What went into the decision-making process?
With the help of her father, Samantha was able to rent kitchen space from friends and fellow restaurateurs at Sunny Street Café. Samantha wanted to look for a storefront right away, but she honored her dad’s advice who urged her to get everything “squared away and self-sufficient” before hanging her shingle in her own place.
She made her first year “The Year of Yes” as she proudly calls it, where she just said “YES” to absolutely everything… and adds, “it was a very tiring year.” With this push, she was finally able to hire an assistant, and open her first location in Hilliard, Ohio in April 2020.
It was in this location- 200 square feet of cheesecake making- that she realized VERY soon that a second location would be needed…
… and then COVID hit.
Catering stopped.
100% off their revenue dropped off, just like that.
The Cheesecake Girl did what every smart business owner should do: she pivoted to what her customers really needed at the time.
They went directly into curbside and pick-ups… and they had lines out the door, and sold out, EVERY.DAY.
Samantha recalls; “we just kept getting bigger… more and more people were coming.” She eventually began to actually fear what business would be like once COVID released it’s grip on how she could run and catering started back up. Hence, the opening of her second- and bigger- location in Dublin, Ohio by September 2021.
She admits, “I never saw past my Hilliard location, and it was then that I knew I just was along for the ride.”
What are some roadblocks or obstacles you encountered?
#1: While she was grateful to have a roof over her head, it was very hard to grow under someone else’s roof. She knew she needed to spread her wings.
#2: Hiring… in the midst of COVID. Hiring had never been a problem prior, and she cites the unemployment support given out throughout lock downs as a reason why she thinks it was so hard to hire at the time. Here she was, so proud that she was able to hire in such dire times, but she felt no one wanted to work. She shakes her head remembering the 6 months where they ran a very rigorous schedule with too thin of a staff. The silver-lining: finding the stellar people she was eventually able to find had they not been looking for work due to COVID.
What would you have done differently if you could? Any regrets?
“NO, everything happens for a reason.” (I was surprised at how quickly and confidently this answer came out, honestly).
“I feel people expect help when you start a business, and while in order to be successful, you’ll need to ask for help, you also have to have the grit to get it done yourself. There is strength in the struggle.” (SEE?! She so gets it!)
One piece of advice for current and aspiring entrepreneurs?
“You need to make mistakes. Continue to make mistakes, but don’t lose your grit or passion along the way. Fix your problem, and move on! Also, hire HR.”
Samantha goes on to say, “when you are the owner, you work hard to see the bigger picture, but you also have to pay attention to details that we sometimes don’t have the capacity to right then.” While this was hard to keep up for Samantha among the busy workdays, the want was always there. She saw hiring HR as a way to keep her employees happy and to capture their valuable ideas.
What is the goal for your business now?
“Shipping.” She would like to even go international with their offerings and shipping, and remarks that a temperature-controlled product really adds to the difficulty of that process. With her bigger location, Samantha now feels she has the space to “figure it out.”
“From there, I’ll listen to my customers.”
(YAAAAASSS, Sam! Hatched Consulting Tip: ALWAYS look to your customers for answers).
“Maybe we will go international with shipping, maybe we will open a few more locations.” She then smartly adds: “How can you ever plan?”
How are things going currently?
“Currently, I am kind of excited, kind of at peace, kind of stressed, kind of worried about the potential enormity of post-COVID growth.”
She states they are currently preparing for the Holidays. They have their cheesecake advent calendar currently in the works (OMG- what? I need that).
She goes on to say “someone asked me once, ‘If you go on vacation, how many calls per day would you get?’ “ She stated that the question was to reveal that your team need to be sufficient enough to operate without you in order to grow. *MORE SOLID ADVICE*
“You can be the fire extinguisher, but there shouldn’t be a fire everyday.”
(Entrepreneurs- are you listening??)
Who are the most instrumental people in your team or were in the start-up process?
“Right now? My Director of Operations- Brittany. Brittany has more kitchen experience than me and acts as my sounding board. She’s my person that I talk through everything with.”
“At start-up: Sunny Street Café (Laura, manager and Earl, owner).” They were instrumental to Samantha at the very beginning when she rented space in their kitchen. She recalls them being great examples of how to stay level-headed and how to operate like a well-oiled machine.
… “Oh, and of course my parents. They took care of me, and my dog, the whole time.”
Where do you see the business going/ accomplishing in the future?
Samantha is taking an organic “wait and see” stance: “I think God has a plan and I’m going to listen and learn.”
Anything else you want to add about your journey?
When we were spread too thin and couldn’t find anyone to work, we were presented with an opportunity have a small, 5 month, pop-up location inside Cameron Mitchell’s Budd Dairy Food Hall in March 2021. I asked my staff: “Should we do it?”
Samantha knew this would affect all of them if she said “yes” and accepted this partnership with Budd Dairy Food Hall. Her powerhouse of a staff agreed they should! Sam was then able to move forward with confidence that everyone was on board and already agreed to all the over-time they were about to encounter.
They were open in Budd Dairy April 2021- September 2021. “It was an amazing growth and learning experience and totally valuable to work alongside a company with such deep roots in the culinary scene in Columbus (Cameron Mitchell Restaurants).”
She goes on to share a quote from her Dad:
“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” THIS, she says, is how you run a business.
***
I’ll be watching as Samantha continues to build her empire and go international…. With so much life ahead, I can only imagine what she will be able to accomplish! Oh, and I totally scooped up a pumpkin cheesecake to freeze for my own family’s Thanksgiving festivities … and a cookie dough cheesecake bite that never made it home. Yum.
Try out The Cheesecake Girl, folks- you won’t regret it! And don’t forget to take a peek at the powerhouse and wise beyond her years- Sam- right there, in her element.
For more inspiring small business stories, head to the BLOG!
The Cheesecake Girl
Locations in Hilliard, Ohio and Dublin, Ohio