Exploring Life & Business with Breona Herring of BreezKakes

Today we’d like to introduce you to Breona Herring.

Hi Breona, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
First, I’d like to tell a little about myself. I am a 30-year-old mom of two beautiful daughters. I’m originally from San Diego, CA but grew up in Tallahassee, FL. I moved to Atlanta in 2012 to start my nursing career. Now to get into the story of BreezKakes…

It all started around the Thanksgiving Holiday of 2009. I was in my sophomore year of college at the University of Florida. (Go Gators!) My mom decided that it was time for myself and my brother to contribute to the menu. We were instructed to select a dish of our choice to make. I absolutely love cheesecake!! I thought this would be the perfect time to make my very own cheesecake. Instead of making a whole pie, I decided to make mini pies. Mini is cute! I’m a sucker for “mini” things, plus I could never eat a whole pie by myself and would end up throwing much of it away. Thus the creation of my very own mini plain cheesecake came to fruition. From that point forward, each Thanksgiving Holiday, I would bake my infamous cheesecakes to share with family and friends.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving of 2016, I brought some of my delicious cheesecakes to a co-worker who then suggested that my cheesecakes were really good and that I should sell them. I took my co-worker’s suggestion and put it in the back of my mind. In 2018 the idea to sell my cheesecakes came back up. A little voice inside my head whispered to me that this would be a good time to try to sell my cheesecakes. So the day before Thanksgiving, my sister, her boyfriend (now fiancé) and niece, who all came to visit me from Chicago, sat in my living room and we brainstormed names. It then hit me! I should name my mini cheesecake business BreezKakes! It’s a play on the word “cheesecake” by incorporating my nickname Bre with cheesecake. I thought of new flavors to try. The creation of the Oreo, Apple Pie and a non-dairy version of the plain cheesecake came about. I created an ad using PicCollage on my iPhone and uploaded it to my Instagram page. The selling price at that time was $4 for each pie. I made my very first sell!! However, the dream of selling my cheesecakes was short-lived as I did not take it seriously. At the time I just wanted to see if I would be able to sell my cheesecake and I was. I did not pick the cheesecake business venture back up until a few months later in April of 2019.

One weekend when I was kid-free and did not have any plans but to sit home and maybe read a book or watch Netflix, the little voice in my head whispered to me again and said hey you should make more cheesecakes “caramel ones” and sell them! So I did. The creation of the Karamel Sensation, Turtle Dove and Kandi Apple cheesecakes came about. My first sale from this batch of 12 came from my neighbor! She bought 2! This gave me motivation to try to sell the rest of the cheesecakes and so on that Monday I took some cheesecakes up to my daughters’ daycare and sold them to the staff. They absolutely loved them! They asked if I could make more and leave them up there as they would sell them for me! So I did and sold all of them!! This gave me all the ammo I needed to take this business venture seriously. So as of April 6, 2019 BreezKakes became a reality. I have been continually receiving orders, participating in pop-up events, selling at farmers markets and growing my customer base since then.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. Becoming an entrepreneur (I like to call myself a mommie entrepreneur or mompreneur for short) has been no easy task. For me, I am a nurse (BSN, RN) by trade with a Masters in Healthcare IT so I do not consider myself business-savvy. I had to learn how to market a little, learn how to sell my product, and just have the guts to take the risk to go out there and do it. Some struggles I have encountered is figuring out how to balance my work life, mom life, social life and now my newly found entrepreneur life. It can become a bit overwhelming at times and when I find myself there, I have to take a step back, breathe and re-order my thoughts. Sometimes I have to put BreezKakes on a lower-priority list so that I can focus on other things that may need more attention.

Another struggle I encountered was that I just did not know where to start. I used Google to help me figure some things out, I asked my brother for advice (he has an online clothing business) and I also reached out to my pastor for some business advice as he has a niche for helping small business owners/entrepreneurs. Other challenges I faced was going up to strangers to spark a conversation about my business. Learning how to network was difficult for me mentally because I tend to wait until someone comes and speaks to me first. It took me out of my “comfort zone” to have to be the one to approach someone. I’m glad I was able to grow from that and now I have no issues approaching individuals and speaking to them.

One last struggle I would like to mention that I encountered is shipping. Shipping cold foods is not as easy as you think. Trying to ship cost-effectively while maintaining the quality of the product is a task that I have yet to conquer. I will get it through one day. Oh, wait there’s one more! Licensing! Making sure that I had all the proper licensing and meeting all the requirements to become licensed was a task in itself.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
BreezKakes is a business specializing in hand-crafted mini and bite-sized cheesecakes. We like to consider ourselves to be a cheesecakery. Our cheesecakes are made fresh from scratch with ingredients sourced from local grocers. We offer a variety of flavors such as Strawberri, Peanuh Butta Kup and Peaches to name a few. BreezKakes’ mini size allows for our customers to delve in one of life’s pleasurable eating experiences guilt-free. As a company, I am most proud of the smiles we put on people’s faces as they take their first bite! (It’s a very similar reaction that you see when someone tries SluttyVegan for the first time!) I am also proud of the amount of growth the company has acquired in the past year. Interested in getting your hands on our Kakes? You can catch us at a local farmer’s market this year! We also deliver but for a fee of course! Please, make sure to visit us on IG or our website.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
First, I’d like to give thanks to GOD, without Him I wouldn’t be where I am today. I would also like to shout out my friends, family and all of my kakesters (customers) for their constant support of BreezKakes! Thank you!

Pricing:

• 3ct Bites – $10
• 12ct – Bites – $30
• Individual Kake – $15

Contact Info:

• Website: www.breezkakes.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/BreezKakes
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/BreezKakes

Image Credits
Marc Aaron