Candace Nelson

I loved getting up every morning and creating something tangible and making something artful that I could give to someone and watch them enjoy.

Like it just was so simple, but it was grounding and it made so much sense to me.

And it was what I'd really been searching for in that time.

So even though I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like yet, I knew I was going to launch a business around my baked goods.

I was good at it.

I had a real sense of my own aesthetic.

And at first I tackled cakes, but realized that special occasion cakes, people don't buy that often.

It wasn't great business.

So again, that sort of idea of the cupcake tower kept coming back into my mind.

Meanwhile, at the time, as I walked through the supermarket bakeries, there were all these sad cupcakes stacked up, you know, in plastic clamshells.

They were shelf stable.

They were just made for kids' birthday parties.

And I thought, huh, what if I elevated the cupcake?

What if I reinvented it?

And so I became obsessed with this idea.

I thought it was genius.

Meanwhile, everyone around me was like, yeah, that's not a good idea.

That'll never work.

For one, there's a reason that there aren't any cupcakes, only bakeries.

Bakeries don't make very much money.