Today we’d like to introduce you to Alona Gutierrez.
Alona, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My enjoyment of cakes started when I was a little girl. I started baking boxed cakes, brownies, and muffins for friends and family with one of my sisters, Katrina. We both loved watching the cake challenges on FoodNetwork and we fell in love with the creations these bakers would put together in just a short amount of time. My dream as a cake decorator grew from there. After high school, I was indecisive of what I really wanted to do because I grew up in a household was making good money and being able to provide for your family was the most important factor when choosing your career.
Unfortunately, a cake decorator didn’t seem like a “practical” career in my parent’s eyes. While I was going to college, I decided to keep baking but just for fun. It was thanks to my eldest sister, Chassie, who gave me an opportunity to make my caketots (aka cake balls or cake pops without the stick) for her wedding giveaways in 2012. She sat with me and motivated me in pursuing a business with my caketots. This is when AlonasCaketots was born. It started as a word of mouth thing. My main marketing source at the time was Instagram, where I developed a small following but not enough to make a consistent income.
At the start of this business, I was still very young, just freshly 21 years old, my priorities in life were all over the place, still struggling to find my identity. In 2015 I put my dream aside and decided to move to San Jose for a couple of years to study and get my bachelor’s degree in Business Management. When I returned to San Diego, my main focus was to find a career path in business management and AlonasCaketots stayed on the back burner. While I was getting discouraged struggling to find a career path in business management, I started perfecting my craft in cake decorating and slowly started my business back up where I would take orders here and there. It took a while to really focus and figure out how I can start a professional career in business management while still pursuing my dream of being a cake decorator.
I finally landed a career with this amazing company that strives to see their employees flourish. I am completely happy on this new journey with them and being happy with my company actually inspires me to still work towards my dream of being a cake decorator. Just a couple of months ago, I finally got to a confident place where I wanted to solidify this dream. I decided to sign an LLC and get a business license for AlonasCaketots so I can really call it my own. I am very proud of how far this business has gone and I am excited to see what else is in store for me.
Has it been a smooth road?
Oh, the struggle was and is still very real. Anyone who is a self-made entrepreneur and a freelance artist knows the struggle of motivation and overthinking. Because I started from scratch, I worried about resources, equipment, and how can I make money with no money? Also, being a local home baker requires self-confidence to market myself, get my name out there, and get people to like my product. Sometimes that gets difficult when things in my personal life pull me the opposite way where I want to retreat from a social life. These are just some challenges that I have come across but I think what keeps me going is remembering WHY I started doing this in the first place. I wasn’t for the money. The reason why I started baking and cake decorating is because I enjoy it. For me, it is an outlet for creative expression and I always keep in mind the fulfillment I get from seeing my clients smile when they receive my cakes and caketots.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the AlonasCaketots story. Tell us more about the business.
AlonasCaketots is a business of home-baked sweets, mainly cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops (or what I call “caketots”). The thing I am most proud of as a company is being a resource to the community by showcasing personalized creativity and making others happy simply by using cake. Whether it’s a birthday, baby shower or celebrating life in general, it’s not a party if there’s no cake, am I right?
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
People are always celebrating something, whether it is birthdays, weddings, holidays, or just because. The industry of specialty cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops is not going anywhere. With prominence of social media, the people are always ready to take pictures of things that make them happy and are pleasing to the eyes, especially when they are celebrating something. For instance, “dessert tables” are a very popular thing right now and my specialty cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops have had the honor to be showcased on some of my client’s dessert tables.
I look forward to having more opportunities to be apart of special events, be it showing up solo or collaborating with other dessert artists.
Contact Info:
- Email: alonascaketots@yahoo.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/alonascaketots
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