Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Candice Nelson is the entrepreneur who put cupcakes on the
Speaker 1: map as their own category. She is the founder of
Speaker 1: Sprinkles and Pizzana, a judge on Cupcake Wars, and the
Speaker 1: author of her new book, Sweet Success. So you said
Speaker 1: goodbye to your career as an investment banker and then
Speaker 1: went back to school for baking. What was next? After
Speaker 1: pastry school? I got to work making special occasion cakes
Speaker 1: out of my kitchen because I just wanted to be
Speaker 1: as creative as possible. I need to do the opposite
Speaker 1: of crunching numbers. And it was actually kind of comical
Speaker 1: because these special occasion cakes were just they took years
Speaker 1: off my life, I mean, making all the decorations and
Speaker 1: the fillings, and then I was trying to deliver them,
Speaker 1: and you know, on those steep hills of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: was like they were sliding around all over the place.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't take it anymore. And I remembered some
Speaker 1: advice that someone had once told me, which is, if
Speaker 1: you want a real business, you have to make something
Speaker 1: that people will buy every day, which a special occasion
Speaker 1: cake you can't. So I sort of went back to
Speaker 1: those wedding magazines I had seen when I had noticed
Speaker 1: that cupcake towers were kind of, you know, coming on
Speaker 1: the scene. But at the time, cupcakes still were like
Speaker 1: kid fair, right. They were in the supermarkets. You found
Speaker 1: him in the plastic clam shells. They were very unsophisticated.
Speaker 1: They were nostalgic. Everyone loved them, but they didn't really
Speaker 1: like the taste of them. They just liked the feeling
Speaker 1: of them. Reminded them of childhood. And so I thought,
Speaker 1: what if I married like these beautiful ingredients and this
Speaker 1: artful design I am using, you know, for these special
Speaker 1: occasion cakes, and applied them to cupcakes, but not to
Speaker 1: make them too fancy. They would still be like fuss free,
Speaker 1: but somehow more elegant, more beautiful, elevated in terms of
Speaker 1: the ingredients. The technique and the style, and that was
Speaker 1: sort of the lightbulb moment for if I can like
Speaker 1: remake the cupcake, this is a new business. And then
Speaker 1: what did you do, Like what was your first step
Speaker 1: after you had this lightbalb moment. Well, my first step
Speaker 1: was I realized San Francisco was not a place to
Speaker 1: be starting some like innovative new concept because the economy
Speaker 1: was terrible. So my husband and I actually had a
Speaker 1: bunch of friends would move down to l A And
Speaker 1: we came down here and LA is based on, you know,
Speaker 1: making business out of creative pursuits, right, which is essentially
Speaker 1: what I was trying to do. And so it just
Speaker 1: really spoke to me. And we went to all these
Speaker 1: parties and every party would had the exact same cake.
Speaker 1: It was that sweet lady Jane Barry cake, which is
Speaker 1: delicious and I love it and I love Jane, but
Speaker 1: I was like, hmm, this is a large city. There's
Speaker 1: one cake. So it all was happening. So we moved
Speaker 1: down to Los Angeles and I have to give my
Speaker 1: husband a bit of credit here because he had his
Speaker 1: m b A. He had worked in banking too. He
Speaker 1: was doing financial consulting and he said, I'll start the
Speaker 1: cupcake business with you two, like I will be your
Speaker 1: co founder. I will initially be your cupcake delivery man,
Speaker 1: and then we'll build this business together. And you can
Speaker 1: only imagine. I mean I people were raising eyebrows at
Speaker 1: what I was doing, but just given like you know
Speaker 1: how it all works in investment banking and sort of
Speaker 1: how gender plays role. Like he was getting a lot
Speaker 1: of flak from people, but he was all in. And
Speaker 1: so we came down to um Los Angeles. I started
Speaker 1: making cupcakes out of my kitchen and it was like
Speaker 1: product market fit immediately because I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: many people down here. But my friends, who initially took
Speaker 1: pity on me and we're ordering cupcakes, would take them
Speaker 1: to parties and then their friends would order. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people were calling me and I
Speaker 1: had no idea how they found me. And one of
Speaker 1: them happened to be Tire Banks as producer, and so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was baking cupcakes for tire
Speaker 1: Banks out of my little we allywood apartment kitchen, and
Speaker 1: I was like, we're onto something. And at that time
Speaker 1: was it called Sprinkles. It was there was a moment
Speaker 1: where it was Sweetie Cakes. There was a moment that
Speaker 1: was like during my cake making days. And then I
Speaker 1: had this vision of I don't know, I was walking
Speaker 1: through an airport and I had this vision when I
Speaker 1: looked at the the food court area of Sprinkles, And
Speaker 1: not that I was wanting Sprinkles to be a food
Speaker 1: court brand, but there was something spoke to me about
Speaker 1: this name and how it was going to be huge.
Speaker 1: And I think there's so much in a name, and
Speaker 1: I feel so fortunate that the name was available for
Speaker 1: us to use because Sprinkles is so strong, right, and
Speaker 1: it's it feels good in your mouth, it's fun to say,
Speaker 1: it's elevated like Sprinkles or the decoration on top of
Speaker 1: the cupcake. It's aspirational. And so just even with that name,
Speaker 1: I knew that there was there was something there. What
Speaker 1: did you envision Sprinkles becoming in those are early days.
Speaker 1: I would have been happy with it being a successful,
Speaker 1: you know, bakery in Beverly Hills, But every entrepreneur has
Speaker 1: a dream and a vision, and my vision was like
Speaker 1: Sprinkles in every city across America and ultimately the great
Speaker 1: American bakery brand, right, but at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to sort of temper my vision because it
Speaker 1: was let me walk you through the time in which
Speaker 1: we opened sprinkles. First of all, it had never been
Speaker 1: done before. The first ever cupcakes only bake geren. It
Speaker 1: was really kind of the first ever I hate this word,
Speaker 1: but it has some meaning gourmet cupcake. Right. It was
Speaker 1: the first time cupcake had really been elevated. So people
Speaker 1: were already saying, like, hmm, there's a reason bakery sell
Speaker 1: lots of things. Then we're also opening this concept in
Speaker 1: l A, which, as we know, people don't really think
Speaker 1: of people in l A eating cupcakes. They think of
Speaker 1: a more as you know, doing yoga and drinking green juice.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, the South Beach diet
Speaker 1: was like on the New York Times best selling list.
Speaker 1: It was low carb, like everyone I knew was eating
Speaker 1: low carb. I was even eating low car but it
Speaker 1: was still I could have a dessert afterwards. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, I think one thing that was really important
Speaker 1: is that because I was coming from somewhere else, I
Speaker 1: really was able to see l A through clear eyes,
Speaker 1: not through these sort of ideas of what l A
Speaker 1: is like, not not through the stereotypes, and so I
Speaker 1: was driving around looking for retail locations and I was like, jeez,
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot of donut shops and burger joints
Speaker 1: in this town, like a feeling people might be eating
Speaker 1: cupcakes more than they are letting on. So, when did
Speaker 1: Sprinkles leave your apartment? I was ready to sort of
Speaker 1: you know, sign on the dotted line a lot earlier
Speaker 1: than we could find a spot. So I ended up
Speaker 1: you know, selling out of my home kitchen probably for
Speaker 1: a year and a half and then went dark for
Speaker 1: a little bit as we were building the store. But
Speaker 1: it was really really tight. I mean it's so different now, right,
Speaker 1: like you can find retail space out post pandemic, but
Speaker 1: at the time, like it was really hard to find
Speaker 1: retail space. And there were a couple of locations that
Speaker 1: fell through that I think, you know, the heavens that
Speaker 1: they did because they were kind of in so so areas.
Speaker 1: And the thing with retail is my god, location, location, location, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Sprinkles of mid City or the Sprinkles
Speaker 1: of Deep Venice wouldn't have had the trajectory that is
Speaker 1: Sprinkles Speverly Hills. Did we opened, All the agents were,
Speaker 1: you know, lining up. All the stars were coming to
Speaker 1: see us after they visited their agents. All the tourists
Speaker 1: were coming by after They couldn't buy anything on Rodeo Drive,
Speaker 1: but they could they could buy three dollar cupcake and
Speaker 1: feel like they were partaking in you know, Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: Hollywood culture. And so it was the location itself played
Speaker 1: such a large role. And you know, even when we
Speaker 1: expanded to other areas like you know, Dallas, we were
Speaker 1: the cupcake shop from Beverly Hills that ended up becoming
Speaker 1: our our reputation and now a quick break. As you
Speaker 1: grow a business, obviously it creates a lot of stresses
Speaker 1: that you don't expect. And here you were a newlywed
Speaker 1: running a business with your husband for the first time.
Speaker 1: How did that relationship evolved? Did you experience any kickups
Speaker 1: along the way or was it always smooth sailing? Oh?
Speaker 1: Come on now, no, But I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: all of my friends are like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you work with your husband, co parent with him, live
Speaker 1: with him, socialized with him. You guys still seem to
Speaker 1: like each other. And it's definitely not for everyone. But
Speaker 1: I think you know, in general, having a co founder,
Speaker 1: I believe is really important. Not that there aren't like
Speaker 1: incredible solo founders out there like killing it obviously, then
Speaker 1: it comes down to just a really strong team. But
Speaker 1: having Charles's support for me at the beginning was really everything,
Speaker 1: because I really didn't have the confidence at the time
Speaker 1: to take that first step. It wasn't what I had
Speaker 1: been brought up to do. I was like brought up
Speaker 1: you know, my dad was a lawyer. We were all
Speaker 1: very risk averse in our household, and so having his
Speaker 1: support was really important initially and then going forward we
Speaker 1: were able to choose our lanes. You know, I was product,
Speaker 1: I was marketing. I became the face of the brand,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, signing the leases and
Speaker 1: doing the contracts and you know, managing the people. But
Speaker 1: he's he's a great manager. So we really have complementary
Speaker 1: skill sets. Now, one thing that I'll say is I
Speaker 1: knew that I could work with him. And the reason
Speaker 1: I knew that is because we actually did work together
Speaker 1: before we started dating. We worked together in the in
Speaker 1: the investment bank, and we would be you know, putting
Speaker 1: together pitch books late at night, you know, sixteen hour
Speaker 1: grueling days at the investment bank, and he was always
Speaker 1: the one with the sense of humor, and he was
Speaker 1: always the one who of all the people who worked
Speaker 1: at the bank, like knew the parking attendance names, and
Speaker 1: knew like their family and knew what sports team they
Speaker 1: were cheering for. So I knew that, like we could
Speaker 1: work together under dress, and I also knew I just
Speaker 1: really liked how he dealt with people, right, like how
Speaker 1: he interacted with people. So you signed your first lease,
Speaker 1: and at what point did you feel like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: brand is exploding? You know, there were definitely a few
Speaker 1: different moments where we kind of exploded. The first explosion
Speaker 1: was really day one because Daily Candy had written about us,
Speaker 1: and for those people out there who don't remember, Daily
Speaker 1: Candy was sort of the original email newsletter telling everyone
Speaker 1: in town what was hot and happening, and it had,
Speaker 1: as you probably remember, you guys, like the most incredible,
Speaker 1: incredibly loyal, like fanatical following people did what Daily Candy
Speaker 1: told them to do. Did you pitch ta get Daily Candy?
Speaker 1: They reached out to us, and I was like star struck.
Speaker 1: The Daily Candy had reached out to me from my
Speaker 1: little home apartment, and it was so powerful that actually
Speaker 1: we wanted to push the opening, and they said, we'll
Speaker 1: pull the story if you don't hit that date because
Speaker 1: that's the date that emails going out. We're like, we're
Speaker 1: going to open that day. So we we absolutely frantically
Speaker 1: tried to get it together as best we could. But
Speaker 1: even then, you know, I baked through the night. I
Speaker 1: baked all the cupcakes. I could have possibly thought somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, people would come in and buy that day
Speaker 1: and more. I filled the display case. I think we
Speaker 1: had two hundred cupcakes, right, And the assumption was that
Speaker 1: people would come and buy one or two. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that how people enjoy cupcake? No, No, people were
Speaker 1: buying one to two dozen. And at the time, my
Speaker 1: little mixers. I was literally, I mean, this is how
Speaker 1: naive like, I mean, I just laugh when I think
Speaker 1: back to it. I was working with little mixers that
Speaker 1: yielded one or two dozen. So people were coming in
Speaker 1: one at a time and there was a mob, and
Speaker 1: so we were we were sold out by noon, and
Speaker 1: then all these customers were so excited come have a
Speaker 1: taste of sprinkles. Were like our happy line turned into
Speaker 1: an angry mob and I just was hiding in the back,
Speaker 1: baking as fast as I could, and Charles was like,
Speaker 1: you know, pouring on the Oklahoma's city charm as best
Speaker 1: he could. But we had, you know, people yelling at us.
Speaker 1: We had agents assistants like standing their sweating because they
Speaker 1: had been told not to come back without two dozen cupcakes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like the parade of humanity
Speaker 1: we saw, and just the range of emotions was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So that first burst was daily Candy. Then a few
Speaker 1: months later, Katie Holmes was on Entertainment tonight, one of
Speaker 1: the entertainment shows on some press junket for for a
Speaker 1: movie she was coming out with, and she talked about
Speaker 1: sprinkles as being her little secret in Beverly Hills. And
Speaker 1: that was again a little history lesson back when Tom
Speaker 1: Cat days. Tom Cruise was courting Katie Holmes and that
Speaker 1: a media frenzy and the one thing the media knew
Speaker 1: that she liked were sprinkles cupcakes, so they were always
Speaker 1: trying to apply her with sprinkles cupcakes on the right
Speaker 1: carpet to get the interview. And so we somehow we're
Speaker 1: part of that old phenomenon, and then eight months in
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey called and said she wanted the cupcakes for
Speaker 1: her studio audience on the show. And that was just like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that was a pinch me moment for sure,
Speaker 1: getting that call from Oprah and then fulfilling those orders.
Speaker 1: At that point, did you say, okay, we gotta open
Speaker 1: in multiple cities or how did you react to the Oprah?
Speaker 1: So we had lines, you know that wrapped around the
Speaker 1: block for probably months, I mean probably a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of sad. I mean, with any
Speaker 1: sort of growth, there is some loss that comes with it,
Speaker 1: you know, in so many, so many different areas, right.
Speaker 1: I sort of liken it to raising a child too,
Speaker 1: write like you you you want to raise the child
Speaker 1: or the business to get to us age where it
Speaker 1: can grow. But in the growth comes change. And so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like we had all these great regular,
Speaker 1: you know, neighborhood customers and they were like, I can't
Speaker 1: get in anymore. And so we kind of like all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we burst onto the scene. We were
Speaker 1: like this international brand because of Oprah and the people
Speaker 1: who got us there. I felt like we couldn't service anymore.
Speaker 1: That was sad for me, but it was also a
Speaker 1: wake up call because it was time to scale and
Speaker 1: I had to let go of my control and my
Speaker 1: perfectionism and hire that team because for some reason back
Speaker 1: in the day, my husband and I were still like
Speaker 1: the main labor and granted we were really helping with
Speaker 1: the profit margin because we basically had no employees, but
Speaker 1: we were about to die. We were literally about to die.
Speaker 1: Like there were moments where we just slept like after
Speaker 1: work with an april enrolled under our head. It's such
Speaker 1: crueling work. And the way that we were doing it,
Speaker 1: which was I'm the only one that can make my
Speaker 1: cupcakes and he's the only one that can box the
Speaker 1: cup akes, was ridiculous, right. So I remember hiring the
Speaker 1: first baker and I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is like the biggest, you know, leap I've ever made.
Speaker 1: And then within a week he was like making the
Speaker 1: cupcakes great, and all these people were frosting my cupcakes
Speaker 1: better than I could have ever frosted them. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, oh right, they can do it too,
Speaker 1: They can actually do better than me. All right, moving on,
Speaker 1: so then we, you know, a year in we opened
Speaker 1: in Newport Beach, and we had great success in Newport Beach,
Speaker 1: and then the next step for us was proving that
Speaker 1: we were a national brand. So instead of continuing to
Speaker 1: grow in Southern California, where a brand was fantastic and
Speaker 1: it would have been like an easy win, we took
Speaker 1: a risk and went to Dallas, Texas as our third location.
Speaker 1: And the idea was that a lot of people were saying, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just a trend. You know, this is only something
Speaker 1: that could fly in southern California where everyone so air
Speaker 1: musing air quotes shallow, and we were like, no, I
Speaker 1: think there's more to this, Like cupcakes are innately a
Speaker 1: mirror a can. People love a cupcake, and we're just
Speaker 1: giving them more reason to love a cupcake. Everyone has
Speaker 1: a birthday and there's lots of celebrations, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons for people to buy great cupcakes. So
Speaker 1: we went to Dallas to prove that our concept head
Speaker 1: legs on a national level. How did you go from
Speaker 1: having difficulty letting someone else bake the cupcakes to being
Speaker 1: in a different city than your brand. That is definitely
Speaker 1: releasing control and that was hard for me. But what
Speaker 1: we did and granted I was nine months pregnant at
Speaker 1: the time we moved to Dallas. We moved to Dallas
Speaker 1: for three months. We hired, we trained, we worked alongside everyone,
Speaker 1: and we made sure like with with you know, kid
Speaker 1: gloves like that this we were going to launch this
Speaker 1: business exactly the right way, with the right company culture,
Speaker 1: with the exacting standards. And that's really what it took.
Speaker 1: Then when you went to other cities, did you have
Speaker 1: to do the same thing or were there no other cities.
Speaker 1: So as we grew, we were able to grow our
Speaker 1: team right, and we loved promoting from within. So literally
Speaker 1: the people who were becoming regional managers had started, you know,
Speaker 1: as cupcake associates, boxing cupcakes, but we knew that they
Speaker 1: like lived and breathed sprinkles, and they understood the company culture.
Speaker 1: They were the company culture. They had been raised with us,
Speaker 1: They've been brought up with us. So we were able
Speaker 1: to spend less time in each market, but certainly we
Speaker 1: still went to every market, and you know, ultimately that
Speaker 1: was what was hard in terms of as my kids
Speaker 1: started to get a little older and they started to
Speaker 1: approach school age, I couldn't really do that anymore. And
Speaker 1: that was that was one of the reasons why we ultimately,
Speaker 1: eight years in, decided to pursue a sale, a significant
Speaker 1: sale of the company. What was that process like, because
Speaker 1: we talk a lot on this show about the process
Speaker 1: of building a company and growing a company, and we
Speaker 1: rarely get a chance to hear from one who solicited
Speaker 1: a buyer and successfully sold. It's so interesting because I
Speaker 1: was definitely raised in that culture, going back to the
Speaker 1: banking days, where that's the dream, right You you found
Speaker 1: your company, you scale it, and you sell it. That
Speaker 1: is what every founder wants, and it was what I wanted.
Speaker 1: But again with the growth and the loss, there was
Speaker 1: so much loss in that process for me, and I
Speaker 1: think the hard part two is the best time to
Speaker 1: sell your company or get strategic investment at great valuations
Speaker 1: when everything is going really well, right, and so things
Speaker 1: were just going gangbusters for us, and ultimately my husband
Speaker 1: wasn't ready, which is weird because it was really you know,
Speaker 1: it's mostly was like my first child. I identified with
Speaker 1: it so much, and I was I mean, they called
Speaker 1: they called us Mrs and Mr. Sprinkles for God's sake,
Speaker 1: like it was our identity. And you know, we kind
Speaker 1: of had a family meeting about it and basically convinced Charles,
Speaker 1: like this was the way. Like I had kids, now,
Speaker 1: I'd grown up moving all the time, I wanted roots.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be on the road when my
Speaker 1: kids were supposed to be you know, at soccer practice.
Speaker 1: And so it was really a personal decision for me,
Speaker 1: and I think kind of a sacrifice for me because
Speaker 1: I was sacrificing one thing for the other. And ultimately
Speaker 1: we found an incredible partner and everything has been amazing.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't prepared for the journey that I would
Speaker 1: have after that, just in terms of letting go of
Speaker 1: something that it's like so important to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I walked into I'm getting emotional thing about it. But
Speaker 1: I walked into the baker the other day and like
Speaker 1: the entire staff were the people that I trained, like
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, still working there, and they all,
Speaker 1: I mean, these people gave me my baby shower, right Like,
Speaker 1: they all came and gave me hugs, and I just
Speaker 1: was like, it's still so visceral, right, It's so emotional
Speaker 1: for me. It wasn't just a business, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because throughout this process I really had to
Speaker 1: figure out, like, Okay, clearly I was over identifying with
Speaker 1: my business, like who is Candice Nelson? But got to
Speaker 1: spend some amazing time, you know, like building a home
Speaker 1: for my children, taking them to school, you know, leaning
Speaker 1: into the charity events and being like, you know, the
Speaker 1: PTA person for a little while. And I got to
Speaker 1: have some of that time, which was such a privilege
Speaker 1: and such an honor, and then ultimately found myself back
Speaker 1: in the food business with Pizza on Us. So I
Speaker 1: didn't learn my lesson the first time clearly, And what
Speaker 1: were the logistics of the fail like take us through
Speaker 1: how you let people know that you wanted to sell
Speaker 1: your company. Well, we hired an investment banker who was
Speaker 1: sort of you know, well known for this sort of transaction,
Speaker 1: and put together a pitchbook and you know, be serviced
Speaker 1: it to everyone we thought strategic and financial buyers and um,
Speaker 1: you know came back with initial interest and based on that,
Speaker 1: we had meetings and you know, it's like any relationship.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a financial part of it, but there's also
Speaker 1: just who is gonna be the right person to carry
Speaker 1: care for your child that's growing up? Right? And I
Speaker 1: also had seen in the investment banking days this idea
Speaker 1: of founder syndrome where and I knew that I could
Speaker 1: be I could be guilty of this right where the
Speaker 1: founder doesn't want to let go because they think that
Speaker 1: they know best and only they know best. And I
Speaker 1: had been that person, as we discussed. But ultimately Sprinkles
Speaker 1: became a national retail brand. That meant that there was
Speaker 1: never a time in any of the twenty four hours
Speaker 1: where there wasn't someone at a store, where there wasn't
Speaker 1: some time where the oven could be breaking, and we
Speaker 1: beginning calls in the middle of the night. Became an
Speaker 1: operational challenge. And ultimately what rules me is the creative part,
Speaker 1: the ideation, the concept that you know, building the brand,
Speaker 1: go to market, all of that is what I love
Speaker 1: and what I'm best at. And so I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be the one who was sort of choking the
Speaker 1: growth of my company potentially because I wasn't the right
Speaker 1: person to be scaling a national brand. And so we
Speaker 1: ultimately found a private equity firm great with restaurant in
Speaker 1: retail and and really got like the specialness of the brand,
Speaker 1: and so it was a great process. I mean, my
Speaker 1: own emotional issues aside. What do you think to find
Speaker 1: the culture of Sprinkles and has it changed since the investment.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I hope not. I'm not operational day
Speaker 1: to day, but I think the fact that I walked
Speaker 1: in and all those incredible employees were still there really
Speaker 1: speaks to the fact that that we built a strong
Speaker 1: culture that was able to exist even after we were
Speaker 1: no longer involved in the day to day. You know,
Speaker 1: Sprinkles was always about joy and delight, eight and fun,
Speaker 1: and it was conceived during a time of real darkness.
Speaker 1: And I've always found I think the thing I love
Speaker 1: about food is this idea that it unifies and it
Speaker 1: connects people in a way that's not complicated, because we
Speaker 1: live in a really you know, divisive, fractured time and
Speaker 1: there are very few things that can do that authentically.
Speaker 1: And so I love that about food in general, you know.
Speaker 1: And and that's kind of my mission is to just
Speaker 1: inject a little It's not it's not a heavy heavy lift,
Speaker 1: it's it's just a little something. But you know, customers
Speaker 1: would come in to feel better after a breakup, or
Speaker 1: they'd come in to celebrate, and we made any moment,
Speaker 1: whatever it was a little bit better. And now a
Speaker 1: quick break. When did Cupcake Wars arrive in your life
Speaker 1: and what role had that played? Oh my gosh, Cupcake
Speaker 1: Wars came out of nowhere. I literally was like the
Speaker 1: baker in the back with my baseball hat on, and
Speaker 1: granted media would come. There was definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: media that you know, featured sprinkles, and I would come
Speaker 1: out sort of reluctantly from the back and be like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is my business. And you know, I definitely had
Speaker 1: no glamor, I had no media training. I was not
Speaker 1: I was yeah, I was not ready for the camera.
Speaker 1: But then this cupcake thing just wouldn't die. And there
Speaker 1: was a producer who was driving down Little Santa Monica Boulevard,
Speaker 1: which was our first location in Beverly Hills, and she
Speaker 1: drove by our store and then she drove by a
Speaker 1: block later a new store that had come into town
Speaker 1: from New York that was also selling cupcakes, and she's like, goddamn,
Speaker 1: cupcake were out there, and she's like, oh, ding ding
Speaker 1: ding ding, Like producer like, that's a show, And so
Speaker 1: she pitched the Food Network. They decided it would be
Speaker 1: best as a competition show. And they had to come
Speaker 1: after the Queen of Cupcakes. Our pilot was filmed under
Speaker 1: a tent on the grounds of U c l A.
Speaker 1: I mean it literally was like so just like piece
Speaker 1: together with like tape and uh duct tape, and it
Speaker 1: got picked up and it went on to become a
Speaker 1: hit show. I filmed over a hundred episodes as a
Speaker 1: cupcake Judge. It was syndicated internationally. It's still airing. Aired
Speaker 1: for a while on Netflix. Now it airs on like
Speaker 1: Discovery Family Channel. But it's funny because I recently started
Speaker 1: a TikTok account, and I can't tell you how many
Speaker 1: people out there are like, I remember you. I grew
Speaker 1: up with you. Like my family used to watch Cupcake
Speaker 1: Wars all the time. And that's like I mean, aside
Speaker 1: from the fact that makes me feel really old, I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of that show. I definitely got sick of
Speaker 1: eating cupcakes, particularly when the challenge ingredients were like fried crickets.
Speaker 1: That was problematic, but it was really fun to be
Speaker 1: part of that. And honestly, I think Cupcake Wars really
Speaker 1: shined a spotlight on what was going on in the
Speaker 1: industry in general, because in two thousand eight, you know,
Speaker 1: the bottom dropped out from the economy nationwide, not just
Speaker 1: in the tech industry, and a lot of people lost
Speaker 1: their jobs, and a lot of people turned to opening
Speaker 1: cookcake bakeries as their form of entrepreneurship because they had
Speaker 1: seen this model be successful. We were known all around
Speaker 1: the country are all around the world really for our
Speaker 1: lines at the door, and there's not much of a
Speaker 1: barrier at entry, like as far as starting a business,
Speaker 1: you know, opening a cupcake shop is not that expensive
Speaker 1: or hard. And so there were all these people across
Speaker 1: America opening these cupcake shops and then coming to Cupcake
Speaker 1: Wars to like, you know, stake their claim to the
Speaker 1: best cupcake out there. So it was it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was really actually a phenomenon that was very real.
Speaker 1: Wasn't just for TV. Now, tell us about Pizzana. You know,
Speaker 1: I love my food. I in particular clearly love my
Speaker 1: handheld foods in my like you know, comfort foods. I
Speaker 1: met our executive chef, Daniel A. U d T at
Speaker 1: a pizza party. He was catering, and I took one
Speaker 1: bite of his pizza and was blown away. So of
Speaker 1: course I went to go meet him and we spent
Speaker 1: the rest of the party like paking out to bakers basically,
Speaker 1: you know, like we deal in different types of dough,
Speaker 1: but we were two chefs and bakers that were just
Speaker 1: sort of sharing mutual admiration. He loved sprinkles, he's the
Speaker 1: sweet tooth, and I loved his pizza. And he shared
Speaker 1: his incredible story with me, which is that he had
Speaker 1: immigrated from Naples, Italy, with two in his pocket and
Speaker 1: his grandmother's sour dough starter, which is still the starter
Speaker 1: that we used to make all of our pizza doughs.
Speaker 1: And he was just saying like, I would love to
Speaker 1: have a restaurant one day, and I literally could not
Speaker 1: stop myself from blurting out, I would love to do
Speaker 1: that with you. And so that match was lit, and
Speaker 1: you know, we built a brand around him, um, created
Speaker 1: a menu and found our first location in Brentwood, and
Speaker 1: it's been incredible to watch his star rise, him come
Speaker 1: into his star power as a chef and like a
Speaker 1: worldwide known pizziolo. Now, what's your favorite topping for pizza?
Speaker 1: I like classic flavors. I like simple flavors. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, something simple done really really well is like
Speaker 1: the holy Grail, right, like always in cupcake Wars, people
Speaker 1: could pull all these bells and whistles, but the cupcakes
Speaker 1: I remembered were like the insane chocolate cupcake, like a
Speaker 1: chocolate cupcake that you would dream about with nothing else, right,
Speaker 1: because that's really hard to do. And so for me,
Speaker 1: the margarita pizza is how I judge any you know,
Speaker 1: pizza place or or pizza maker, and there's really I
Speaker 1: don't think you can really improve on it, although I
Speaker 1: will say the caccio epepe which Danielle is known as
Speaker 1: a bit of a pizza maverick, where he will like
Speaker 1: mess with tradition and he has used traditional pasta flavors
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, the most famous one being
Speaker 1: this catchoe a peppe pizza to translate onto the top
Speaker 1: of a pizza, and he inspired his own like now
Speaker 1: you find catchuo peppe pizzas like on menus across the
Speaker 1: word old. But that was his creation and it is
Speaker 1: incredible because it's just creamy and peppery and like chewy
Speaker 1: and crunchy. It's just like got all the things going on.
Speaker 1: But I also have to say, you know, because we're
Speaker 1: in l A and uh, we do have our you know,
Speaker 1: non pizza eaters. We've got great salads and other you
Speaker 1: know antipasta too. How often does your own family eat there?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you feel like your kids at this
Speaker 1: minn are sick of pizza and cupcakes? Honestly, we rely
Speaker 1: on it entirely too much. And now I mean talk
Speaker 1: about like the pinnacle of laziness. We are now shipping
Speaker 1: our pizzas frozen nationwide on gold Belly. But so we
Speaker 1: have all these frozen pizzas in our freezer so instead
Speaker 1: of I mean, we're not that far away from our
Speaker 1: West Hollywood location, but even then we're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: just pop a pizza on in the oven. So we
Speaker 1: rely on it entirely too much. But it's fun, I
Speaker 1: have to say, like peddling in all the kid foods.
Speaker 1: It's you know, my kids friends are always happy to
Speaker 1: come or and have a play date because we know
Speaker 1: they're going to be fed. Well, what is the biggest
Speaker 1: difference for you between starting the two businesses, Like you're
Speaker 1: now a seasoned entrepreneur, Like, how does it feel different
Speaker 1: this time? If it does, well, definitely feel like I
Speaker 1: have some experience this time, and we were bootstrapping from
Speaker 1: the very beginning. With Sprinkles, we had a little bit
Speaker 1: of money that we just knew we had to stretch
Speaker 1: as far as possible before we couldn't pay our rent.
Speaker 1: And this time we were able to build a team.
Speaker 1: But there were still so many, so many learnings. I mean,
Speaker 1: the nature of a restaurant is so different than than
Speaker 1: what we were doing at Sprinkles. I mean just with
Speaker 1: you know, front of how staff and our guest experience is.
Speaker 1: Really it can be like an hour and a half
Speaker 1: with a guest, right, so there's a lot of opportunity
Speaker 1: to infuse that with something special, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity for stuff to go wrong. Versus Sprinkles. We've
Speaker 1: come in and we just had to like infuse that
Speaker 1: five minutes someone had in the store with a lot
Speaker 1: of joy. So yeah, definitely a lot of learnings. I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think leaning into the fact
Speaker 1: that we were able to build a team from the
Speaker 1: get go, that was really that was really nice. It's
Speaker 1: O Cannice, do you have a new book? So the
Speaker 1: book is Sweet Success, and it is about turning your
Speaker 1: passion into profit, which is exactly what I did. With Sprinkles.
Speaker 1: It's a guide to entrepreneurship. So anyone out there who's
Speaker 1: entre pre curious or has just started a business as
Speaker 1: a first time founder. It may not be you might
Speaker 1: be someone else in your life. This is the perfect
Speaker 1: book for them because I share sort of the I
Speaker 1: show the inspiration, like I definitely give the mindset piece,
Speaker 1: but I also give really tactical tools for how to
Speaker 1: approach building a business and building a brand and going
Speaker 1: to market. And um, it's told through the lens of
Speaker 1: me bootstrapping, building and ultimately selling sprinkles. So I think
Speaker 1: it's really digestible for people. I think, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of times entrepreneurs are glamorized in the media and
Speaker 1: the ones that are building rocket ships and maybe they're
Speaker 1: engineers or tech savants, and that seems really intimidating. And
Speaker 1: ultimately what I did as I built a business out
Speaker 1: of something that anyone could do, like my kids bake cupcakes.
Speaker 1: So I really am trying to break down the barriers
Speaker 1: to entrepreneurship and bite more people around the table to
Speaker 1: use my food analogy there, because historically a lot of
Speaker 1: people thought that entrepreneurship can't be for them. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to change that because I think that it's the
Speaker 1: fastest entrepreneurship can be the fastest way to generational wealth,
Speaker 1: and that opportunity needs to be spread around a little
Speaker 1: bit more so with Sweet Success, I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: finally share my story about how I did it with
Speaker 1: Sprinkles and hopefully help a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: to do it too. And so I wanted to create
Speaker 1: something that could be a larger platform for me to
Speaker 1: inspire and help new founders. Should we go to our
Speaker 1: speed around now? So, Candice, and what are you reading? So?
Speaker 1: I'm reading something that is very unlike my typical reading material.
Speaker 1: It's called The Idea of You and it was recommended
Speaker 1: by one of my best friends who saw how stressed
Speaker 1: out I was in the marketing of my book and
Speaker 1: just how relentless it was, and she recommended that I
Speaker 1: take my mind off things for a little bit with
Speaker 1: this really fun read. Who is your personal Board of Advisors?
Speaker 1: I am so lucky. I have the best girlfriends in
Speaker 1: the world. A lot of them are entrepreneurs, angel investors,
Speaker 1: but some of them aren't. And you know, we're just
Speaker 1: we weren't. We've got this text train, We take girls
Speaker 1: trips together, we like get together for dinner. We keep
Speaker 1: it very real, we keep it very tight, and we
Speaker 1: are incredibly supportive of one another. And I just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel so grateful for them. I
Speaker 1: just feel like these women are the ones that just
Speaker 1: they have my back. They're always thinking about ways to help,
Speaker 1: and when I'm not asking for help, They're just always thinking.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think just having that level
Speaker 1: of friendship and support in your life is everything. Who
Speaker 1: leaves you star struck. Oprah Winfrey. I love her And
Speaker 1: I got to see her backstage when we brought our
Speaker 1: cupcakes to the show and we were there early because
Speaker 1: we've taken a red eye, which I didn't share, but
Speaker 1: that's how we got the cupcakes. That we took a
Speaker 1: red eye, got him on the plane, rolled off. I
Speaker 1: was still in my clothes from the day before, and
Speaker 1: so were there like three or four in the morning,
Speaker 1: and she rolled in like pre you know, hair and makeup,
Speaker 1: and I just it was like, oh my god, Like
Speaker 1: the presence of that woman is something else. It's palpable,
Speaker 1: like it that energy. I just was so star struck.
Speaker 1: I could barely breathe. I literally, I mean I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: to say that I could like barely breathe. What is
Speaker 1: your favorite thing about yourself? I think it's my beginner's mindset.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I'm always trying new things. Some sometimes I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: why can't I just like rest on my laurels a
Speaker 1: little bit? What I gotta like, now, try this and
Speaker 1: try that and risk failure again and all of that.
Speaker 1: And it's like, because I have to practice what I preach, right,
Speaker 1: And I also feel like when you're when you stop
Speaker 1: learning and you're not curious anymore, you stop growing, you're dying, right,
Speaker 1: So I am always trying to I mean, whether it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to take on TikTok now and my
Speaker 1: kids just can't you know, they're just like mom no cringe,
Speaker 1: e cringe, cringe all day long, or trying to learn
Speaker 1: web three. I took a class on web three this
Speaker 1: summer and it was so funny because one of my friends,
Speaker 1: a younger friend who used to work at Instagram and Facebook,
Speaker 1: she was like, kumis, she was kind of surprised to
Speaker 1: see me there, and I was like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: this is me, Like I am always just like out
Speaker 1: there asking the dumb question like putting ego aside as
Speaker 1: much as possible all the time to be able to
Speaker 1: learn and grow. What do you want your career to
Speaker 1: look like when you're sev I think I realize now
Speaker 1: that as much as I love starting companies, it takes
Speaker 1: so much focus and so much time you have to
Speaker 1: be all in. And as my life, you know, becomes
Speaker 1: bigger in the sense that you know, my kids are
Speaker 1: getting older, and I have other commitments outside of work now,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's rich and it's full. I can't
Speaker 1: always just take myself completely off the map to start
Speaker 1: a new business. And so I've found the joy and
Speaker 1: beauty in angel investing now and and being able to
Speaker 1: champion other founders who are the ones in the ring,
Speaker 1: and I get to kind of sit back, not sit
Speaker 1: back like I amplify in terms of my network obviously
Speaker 1: you know, writing a check and also you know, however
Speaker 1: I can mentor ship and more, but ultimately the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it's not up to me. And so
Speaker 1: I like the fact that I can keep my hands
Speaker 1: in a lot of things that way. And I also,
Speaker 1: speaking of beginner's mindset. I love learning from these founders.
Speaker 1: I mean I can bring stuff to the table, they
Speaker 1: bring stuff back to me in space. So UM, I
Speaker 1: think at seventy I would love to be have like
Speaker 1: an incredible portfolio of UM companies and like this wonderful
Speaker 1: network of founders that I've supported, and just be sort
Speaker 1: of passing along and amplifying that next generation of change
Speaker 1: makers as much as possible. Since you and your husband
Speaker 1: worked together, I would imagine you also have to be
Speaker 1: deliberate about spending non work time, non parenting time together.
Speaker 1: What with the last day E went on, it was
Speaker 1: for our anniversary. We just celebrated twenty one years and
Speaker 1: we went out to We left our neighborhood, which you
Speaker 1: know is has become increasingly rare these days, just because
Speaker 1: life is busy and there's lots of traffic in l
Speaker 1: A and so you tend to kind of like exist
Speaker 1: in this little you know whatever ten block radius sometimes.
Speaker 1: So we went to the other side of town and
Speaker 1: went to this really cool sushi restaurant and it was
Speaker 1: just like it was awesome. Well, Candice, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You guys, thank you for being models of like just
Speaker 1: badass female founders and entrepreneurs out there, and for everything
Speaker 1: you do to amplify other entrepreneurs and just women trying
Speaker 1: to live out their dreams. I really, I really respect
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing. The things that I cannot
Speaker 1: get over after the conversation with Canvas is how positive
Speaker 1: she remains about entrepreneurship because it is a roller coaster
Speaker 1: and she you know, of course she said, there are
Speaker 1: roller coaster moments, but like to see somebody who's build
Speaker 1: a company to go back and do it again and
Speaker 1: to support other entrepreneurs and made me happy. She really
Speaker 1: seems to have kind of coasted through it with a
Speaker 1: really upbeat, positive take on it. It does sound like
Speaker 1: she has a dream partnership with her husband in terms
Speaker 1: of their roles and their division of labor, and that's
Speaker 1: something we just don't see that often completely. I was
Speaker 1: so interested in learning about that partnership in business. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think I could run a business with my
Speaker 1: husband and family. We tried once. It's really hard. It's
Speaker 1: really hard, yeah, but it is really interesting and it's
Speaker 1: very cool and like what a show of support at
Speaker 1: the beginning when Kandice had this idea and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll do it with you. Like, that's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable, I agree, especially coming from the very patriarchal, male,
Speaker 1: chauvinistic world of investment banking. He's obviously super confident guy
Speaker 1: and you know, believes in her and them, and I
Speaker 1: love the story. I also thought it was really interesting
Speaker 1: that they to go to Dallas and make sure that
Speaker 1: the quality was kept. They had to move to Dallas
Speaker 1: for a few months, and I think that those are
Speaker 1: the stories that we don't often hear, right we here,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it just blew up. Sprinkles was chosen
Speaker 1: by Oprah and then it became this national, worldwide brand.
Speaker 1: That's not what happened, right. They put in such hard
Speaker 1: work and they put in grueling hours to make the overnights.
Speaker 1: There is no such thing as overnight success. And you
Speaker 1: and I talked about that a lot. We do talk
Speaker 1: about it a lot, and there's not and that's why
Speaker 1: I think you know, you and I both I found
Speaker 1: us both asking questions to her that we're very kind
Speaker 1: of the tactical, but wait, what happened here? What was
Speaker 1: this like? Because you want to know that piece of it,
Speaker 1: because I think it's really unfair to paint entrepreneurship for
Speaker 1: anybody something that doesn't happen without just a ton of blood,
Speaker 1: sweat and tears. I know you know, you and I
Speaker 1: are both still in it with our first versions of
Speaker 1: these companies are running now. But it's um it's everything.
Speaker 1: It's all day long, it's every day, and it's never easy.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy.
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