For just about 4 years now, Brooke and I have built a small handmade cookie business from nothing but a thought or idea to a commercial/wholesale cookie and frozen cookie dough manufacturing business. If you’ve ever started a business from scratch then you know what it’s like. And if you’ve started a food manufacturing business from scratch then you know even more of what it takes and what goes into that process. I’m not going to go into all the details of the business but lets just say we leaned on our DIY mentality, we ran with a “trial and error” approach a lot of the time, we insisted on getting feedback from our customers along the way (we needed to know the good and bad), we learned A LOT, we had the support and following of hundreds to thousands of cookie fans, and we did all the work on our own. Let me clarify that last part: we had some amazing people help us early in our web design and graphic design for our logo which was huge to engage with professionals in very specific areas (thank you Stacy and Anna) and then we learned to take on those tasks on our own after that. I like to think that as our cookies got better and better, so did the potential of what could come of this… and we turned it into a business.
All of that is not without some reservations and some challenges, of course. In the summer of 2020 as the pandemic was straining families across the globe, we were no different. Except we had more of a struggle with Shane, our Autistic adult son, and our middle child. Our daughters; Ryan and Delaney who are both older and younger than Shane respectively were embarking on new directions with work and school and coping with their lives and what was going on around them. I was working full time in Retail Management and nearing about 27 years in retail at the time and Brooke had been working part time at a local restaurant for a while at that point. But we were strained a lot when Shane’s transition program (school) went to “virtual learning”. Ha, “virtual learning” for a non-verbal person with some severe behavioral challenges… that made us laugh at first… then reality set in. It became apparent that Shane was not going to engage in virtual activities and, thus, he was now home all day every day and we had to figure out life now in this capacity. It was always on our mind that we had to come up with a plan for him after his program was ending by 2022 anyway, but this forced us into something we weren’t ready for yet. Brooke took the brunt of the life at home as her part time job got shut down and I stayed on at my job for the time being. But that summer while chatting with friends and neighbors around a bonfire, we decided to come up with a “side hustle” to try to make some money while being home now with Shane. And since it looked like this was going to be the new life for a while we might as well find something we enjoy and can do from home. Long story a little shorter… The Cookie Lab was soon born. And we slowly grew it into a Cottage Food business, then online sales through our website started, then we went wholesale and started producing commercially in a large commercial kitchen, then we moved to Silver Lake, MN and moved cookie operations to another kitchen and we grew even more. All the while, it was still Brooke and I developing recipes, making dough, baking cookies, creating packaging and labeling, filling orders, etc etc. We had been doing it all. There have been so many late nights spent in the kitchen making dough or baking off cookies and bagging cookies. Late nights were when this work could get done a lot of the time especially when Shane had bad days. And, yes, Shane has a lot of bad days. By the summer of 2023, Brooke and I were both staying at home caring for Shane as his support staff. Once Shane’s transition program officially ended there was not a program or place for Shane to get in to. Not only are there very few options; but of those few options even close, the waitlists are extremely long – years and years long – but none of them are really set up to handle Shane and his specific needs. We knew this for some time and we knew it was going to be the two of us taking care of Shane. And we have welcomed this fact every single day regardless of Shane’s challenges (that’s all for other blog posts).
So The Cookie Lab grew more and more. We pushed our online presence and participated in local farmers’ markets and sales increased even more after moving out to Silver Lake. We even connected with restaurants and grocery stores who could sell and offer our cookies or frozen dough. And we still did it, just Brooke and I. Side note here: we would have loved to have brought on a person to help with this but the business was only making enough money to break even as we still work to pay down our debt from the start up and put everything back into the business growth. And we had several conversations with people across the country that wanted to be a part of our growth and partner with us and invest in our story and our vision and our cookies. But if we did that, we lose a lot of control and we lose some of our focus. So Brooke and I continued to make the business grow on our own. This isn’t a pity party for us at all; this is just telling how it is. Working like this to build something takes countless hours and focus and we put it all in. We recently realized we were on the brink of another growth phase which would normally be another exceptional feat for any small business. We had just plateaued a bit for a month or two and we were about to take on growing into another realm of resellers that would dramatically increase our production, our exposure, our sales, and our overall business operations. How could we do MORE? How were we going to be able to produce more, package more, deliver more, ship more? We knew we could do it – sort of. We had done hundreds and hundreds of cookies in one day so it was possible. But at what expense? You see, when Shane has a bad day at home it takes both Brooke and I being there to help get Shane back to himself and to calm the situations. It also takes both of us to distract Shane and handle other things around the house. Shane’s unpredictability is regularly steering our decision making. We both have committed to this life of caring for Shane and he is our priority, as are Ryan and Delaney. Thus, The Cookie Lab needs then get pushed back and pushed back and pushed back until we are up late at the kitchen making dough or we are bagging cookies at 2am for a big order the next day. It’s a lot and we’ve done it. And then we think about taking on so much more business this way and we realized that it wasn’t going to work to keep doing what we’ve been doing. So we’ve made the decision to shut down The Cookie Lab and operations will end this month after a nearly 4 year run. All of the short 4 year history has been memorable for us and many others. But I think now about HOW we even got here and it hit me recently. Relevance.
I worked hard for a long time in my retail leadership roles. It was a career I did well and I truly believe I was a good leader for many and helped many people become great leaders in their roles and in their lives. I know I made an impact. I made relationships for life with my teams and my customers. In my heart, I am a people person and I engage with people and I have always had a strong business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit – which has always made business ownership appealing. As I look back now and think of one of the driving forces that kept me going and being in the roles I was… relevance. I felt I was a relevant part of the business. I was needed. I was sought out. People collaborated with me and I reciprocated. That all was going away when Brooke and I made the decision to leave our jobs and stay home with Shane. I lost my relevance, especially in my professional career and The Cookie Lab had slowly become my way to gaining it back. Talking about cookies or building a business or website design or marketing – it was happening again. I was engaging periodically and it was nice to have our success story to help be relevant again. In all that time it never really occurred to me that was such a huge driving force behind doing what I do or having such a passionate mind and innovative spirit. But was is it necessary? Well, necessary or not, it has been a part of who I am either way. I think I need to take a step back from that and live back among the shadows again for a while.
I am SO proud of Brooke and I for what we have accomplished with The Cookie Lab. But, I am MORE proud that Brooke and I continue to focus on our family needs. Our children are all adults and we will continue to support them in their needs and goals for as long as we are able. THAT is the “relevance” that matters most. It has taken a long time to realize this. My relevance in my professional career what just that, and now that is gone and in the eyes and hearts of my family, my relevance lies with them. It’s all that matters.
I've Been Thinking 