A look behind the scenes of what it takes to scale a handmade, perishable gifting business: enthusiasm to exhaustion and waking up to do it all over again
I wore my long work days like a badge of honor
Wake up. Get the kids ready for school. Work until I had to make dinner. Put kids down. Work until midnight or later. Get into bed, physically exhausted but with my mind still running, I would start working on social media, strategy and planning until 2 or 3 am.
The last two weekends have been even harder with markets starting. Getting up even earlier, selling all day and turning on the ovens as soon as we parked, often sleeping less than 3-4 hours a night.
“I’m doing it,” I told myself.
It’s not just the physical work, it’s the emotional roller coaster, the context switching, the never-ending questions and to-do list
One thing I always knew but never truly understood is the weight of full accountability when you’re the boss. It’s the moment at 9:30 pm when I’m staring down hundreds of cookies on trays, waiting to be packaged. The team’s been gone for hours and the kids are finally down. Now, the second (or is it the third?) shifts starts.
But wait, I still have to get back to a few people, order more packaging, post to social, and I promised my seven-year-old he would finally have his favorite meal tomorrow.
When things got harder, I told myself that this is what I wanted.
I became obsessed with complexity, with hustling, with data, with feeling like “a real entrepreneur”. I became accustomed to praise and feared dissapointing others: my customers, my team, my kids, my husband, my friends, and myself. I didn’t want to say no to anyone. And in the process, I made so many mistakes, caused chaos, and missed the forest for the trees.
“What are you doing to take care of yourself today?” my friends and therapist would ask.
I couldn’t give them a real answer.
The goal posts keep moving, and the pressure never lets up.
The only time I would pause and celebrate our successes were during our Monday morning team meetings. Doing well became an expectation, and permission to ask even more of ourselves. While baking, I’d spend countless hours listening to business podcast and founder stories. I desperately wanted to relate to the success stories. I wanted to grasp onto something that felt more real, more tangible, something that would validate that temporary suffering would lead to reward. Yet it always made me feel like I could be doing more, that maybe I don’t have what it takes. So I kept doubling down.
The wake up call didn’t happen when we rushed my daughter to the emergency room
On Mother’s day, after a long weekend of sellout markets and minimal sleep, Charlotte had a pistachio exposure that ended with an Epipen to the thigh and a few hours in the ED. And yet as soon as we were home and she was safely back in her bed, I went back to work.
It wasn’t because work needed to be done, but because I was obsessed with work. Butter + Bow is like the air that I breathe. Plus, we needed to prepare for THE BIGGEST WEEKEND EVER.
Last week, we worked harder than we’ve even worked before. More people, more help, more cookies, more late nights.
Our best week ever turned out great. But not in the way I expected.
We spent an insane amount of hours preparing for a street fair where we ended up bringing home A LOT of stock.
We couldn’t hide our disappointment. Even though by all measures, we had a great weekend.
I missed my children. My neck and back were SO sore. I looked at our coolers full of cookies and felt a bit disgusted by it all. The overproduction, the ambition, what was it all for?
It was in that moment that I realized running a business is a slow burn.
Growing up in southern California, I know my way around a bonfire.
Sometimes, people throw gasoline on it and it flares up bright and burns out fast. But if you want a good fire, you need the kindling kind that’s built carefully, takes longer to catch, but once it does, it stays lit.
I know it won’t be easy to change. But tonight, I picked up Charlotte from gymnastics and gave the kids a good, long bath. I’m eternally grateful for the amazing connections we’ve built from our team to our customers and supporters. I don’t want to get used to the orders, the praise, the smiles and the oh-my-gods.
Now that I’ve taken a moment to reflect... let’s go bake some cookies. 🙂