When starting your bakery, it’s likely that you already have a concept in mind. Maybe it’s French-Asian fusion or Latin inspired pastries. Whatever it may be, you should start creating your menu by thinking of three main things:
- What type of lifestyle do you want?
- Are there products that you think you can make that other’s aren’t, or products that others make but that you can vastly improve on?
- What are the limitations in front of you now and potentially continuing on?
Lifestyle and limitations in some ways go hand-in-hand. You’re building a business that you presumably will run for a not-insignificant amount of time. In order to stay sane and able within that business, I’ve realized it’s best to think about what kind of life you like and want to lead and how your business can integrate into that. If you don’t want to get up early mornings everyday, that’s possible. If you like the ritual of getting up for early morning bakes, you can certainly do that too! When I was starting, i also thought through the limitations I had in front of me, and how those limitations would potentially with the development of my business model. For instance, do you want to have a storefront or be at a farmers market regularly? Do you want to make fresh pastries daily or have a product with a naturally longer shelf life that you can make further in advance? Answering these questions will also help guide you in the menu that you eventually put out and iterate on.
When thinking about what products to launch, it’s helpful to think through what products are not already out there in your chosen category. It could be that there is a product in your niche that isn’t out there, or a product that exists but that you think you can vastly improve on. That should be your starting point.
For Little Moon Bakehouse, I knew that I wanted to make vegan versions of nostalgic Asian pastries. I thought through what I used to eat growing up. I also knew that I wanted to be able to ship my products without having to overnight them or use dry ice / ice packs. I also did not want to use preservatives or TONS of sugar. Ever since then, I consider these details when developing all new products.
In the next episode, I’ll talk about how pricing impacts all of this as well.