A Recipe for Sweet Success
Cupcake Artist looks for Help to Launch Her Cleveland Dream

Laura Williams is one of the many Clevelanders who has been affected by the downturn in the local and national economies. What makes this mother of two special is that she found a very unique way to turn lemons into lemonade, or should I say, lemons into gourmet lemon sunburst cupcakes. Now she's looking to the Cleveland community for help getting her budding cupcake business, LaBella Cupcakes, off the ground in an innovative way that will hopefully bring people together to grow the Cleveland economy, one business at a time.

Turning Lemons into Lemon Sunburst Cupcakes

Laura lost her job in 2009 and after a slew of resumes and a sprinkle of phone interviews, she realized just how difficult it would be to get back into the workforce. Friends and family had always raved about her cakes, advising her to start her own bakery. Suddenly it clicked for her, this was the perfect time to explore her baking talents. "I sat my husband down and asked him what he thought about me starting a cupcake business," says Laura. "He was immediately supportive and told me to give it a shot!"

Laura went to Gordon Food Services (GFS) and found a box of 500 cupcake liners and she set a mental goal. "When I saw the box of cupcake liners, I told myself I would make 500 cupcakes trying out the different recipes I had in mind," she says. "I gave them to family, friends and more until things were perfected. Then, I knew I was ready." Laura also wanted to differentiate her cupcake boutique from other local bakeries. "I wanted our cupcakes to look unique and beautiful," she says, "so I went to Pat Catans and tried to hand cut some cupcake wrappers." After a few hours of work, she realized creating wrappers for every cupcake was going to take a lifetime.

After a little online research, Laura was able to find another woman, in a similar situation, who had lost her job and turned it into a new venture creating intricate, beautiful cupcake wrappers. "Not only are the wrappers gorgeous, but they are environmentally safe, printed with soy inks and recycled," says Laura. There was also an appeal to supporting another woman in a similar situation, so Laura decided that her cupcakes would come wrapped for show!

Things were immediately successful for Laura. She had taken a business seminar before launching LaBella Cupcakes and the experts told her to set goals for how many cupcakes she would sell each month. They also told her to examine other successful business models and copy the parts that made them work so well. Laura's advanced planning paid off, and after just two short months she had regular customers and more than twenty gourmet flavors (now she has nearly thirty!) including sugar and gluten-free flavors. Laura was also expanding her business rapidly via social media, specifically on twitter.

"I did research on how to use twitter successfully and signed up for an account," says Laura. "My goal was to have 100 people following me, and by January I had well over 1,100 followers!" One of her newest clients is a referral from twitter. The client, a pharmaceutical representative, heard about LaBella Cupcakes from her brother. "One of my twitter followers, who works for a local news station, has been meaning to order cupcakes for a long time," says Laura. "I was surprised to get a referral order from his sister for four dozen cupcakes to share at her sales meetings on Valentine's Day." The twitter follower had never tasted the cupcakes, but based on the overwhelming amount of praise for her cupcakes on twitter, he was quick to share her story with his friends and family.

Sweet Success = Early Growing Pains

With such a successful business, deliveries have increased and Laura, who charges a minimal delivery fee, has been trekking around in the snow the past two weeks dropping off little packages of cupcake goodness. She knew that a retail spot was her businesses next step just from a delivery standpoint. Shortly after Laura opened the business, customers also started requesting just one or two cupcakes instead of an entire dozen. "I felt bad telling people that I couldn't make smaller orders," says Laura. After all, cupcake pans do tend to come in 6 or 12, as do recipes. "After more than a few customers asked, I went to my husband to see how he felt about opening a store. Again, he was right there with support and encouragement."

Laura would quickly find out that it's a challenge to get funding for a successful business that's only about five months old. "Most banks are looking for businesses that have been operating for more than 18 months," says Laura. Trying to balance the reticent banks and her enthusiastic customers who were hoping for a retail location, Laura searched out other financing opportunities. "During my research, a kind gentlemen referred me to WECO," she says. WECO (http://www.wecofund.com) is a Greater Cleveland provider of financial services and programs to low and moderate-income individuals and families and the companies, organizations and institutions in which they are involved. Their goal is to help people achieve financial stability in many ways, including entrepreneurialism. WECO chooses small businesses based on their business plans and other criteria, and funds them up to $35,000.

"We are hoping to receive funding from WECO," says Laura, "but we also know that in order to build a kitchen in our retail space, we will probably need closer to $50,000." The wheels in Laura's brain were turning, and she came up with a brilliant idea to fund her brand new gourmet cupcake boutique - why not ask the customers and Cleveland community members for help? "The idea was inspired by twitter," says Laura. "Twitter is a large community of people that help each other all the time." Laura is hoping that Clevelanders will be willing to give her a much-needed boost into a storefront.

It Takes a Village - To Build LaBella a Bakery Shoppe

Laura is asking the Cleveland community, and of course her current customers and friends, to help her with her Cleveland Cupcake Dream! Her webpage (http://www.labellacupcakes.com) features a new "sponsor our store" button and information on sponsoring. For as little as $1 (but hopefully more), you can become a sponsor of Laura's new bakery. It's easy to do, and can be done with a credit card or paypal account right on her website. She has pledged to return any funds donated if she is not able to raise the remaining funds and get the store opened. Learn more about her innovative funding request here

Laura [pictured with her husband Mike] has also come up with a unique way of thanking her sponsors. "As a thank you for their donation, sponsors will receive a mention on our Sponsorship plaque that will be posted in the new bakery and they will receive free cupcakes!" For every $2.50 donated, sponsors will receive the equivalent amount of cupcakes. "Sponsors will receive a punch card showing how many cupcakes they have received, and will be able to redeem 2 cupcakes per week," says Laura.

This innovative funding formula has earned the title "crowd funding," and has begun to emerge in funding campaigns across the country, though Laura had not previously heard of the concept. "I had no idea that what I was doing had a name until a reporter called for an interview on crowd funding," said Laura. Now she's hoping that the crowd of people enthusiastic about new businesses in Cleveland will come out to support her funding campaign.

"If you've had one of our cupcakes, you know how passionate I am about making sure that we deliver the best tasting cupcakes to our customers," she says. "I love making all of you smile when I deliver the cupcakes, and I want to continue to do that as we open our new store." Her plans are to make the store a community gem. "You can expect a warm, inviting place where you can read a book, relax, share good times and laughter with friends," she says. "We plan to have free Wi-Fi and a daily assortment of gourmet cupcakes and coffee on hand." Good luck Laura! We can't wait to stop by and sample something delicious!

LaBella Cupcakes has a "deal of the week," at the beginning of each and every week to give Clevelanders a chance to sample new flavors and get cupcakes at a great price. Check out the deal of the week here: here or, to learn about more great deals, follow Laura and LaBella Cupcakes on twitter here: http://twitter.com/LaBellaCupcakes .

Julie Cajigas is a Cleveland girl who grew up on the East & West Side and now lives near Akron – she’s got the whole town covered! Cajigas holds degrees in Communication & Music from Cleveland State University and is currently pursuing her Masters in Communication at CSU.

She is a professional freelance writer who occasionally writes in her blog in between gigs at http://www.inspiredfreelancer.com. Cajigas is also an avid musician and can be seen performing with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and as a violinist in the Allison Bencar band, http://www.myspace.com/allisonbencar.