Count Baked by Melissa founder Melissa Ben-Ishay is one of those entrepreneurial success stories based on breaking away from the competition.
Before founding his company, Ben Ishay worked at an advertising agency in New York City, but found the role unfulfilling. “It made sense to me” the day he was fired, he recently told CNBC. She visits her brother at work, and he suggests they start a business selling her cupcakes. They quickly created a website and photographed images of cupcakes against a white sheet.
Back in 2008, Ben Ishay was doing it all. He handed out cupcakes to tasters, called the caterer from his bedroom, and once the order was placed, he boarded the subway with a white cardboard deli box filled with his trademark tie-dyed treats. . At the time, all the cupcakes were made in the kitchen of her small apartment in New York City.
Bake by Melissa would spend the next few years distributing bite-sized cupcakes in tie-dyed boxes all over town, until the owner of Café Bali, who fell in love with bite-sized cupcakes, made an offer to Ben. This led to her big break. In exchange for selling cupcakes at cost price at a holiday market in New York City, Ishay was given the opportunity to use a commercial kitchen.
“Seven months after starting the company, my dad drove up from Bergen County and helped me move all my stuff from my tiny little kitchen to the basement of Café Bari,” she says. recalled at a recent CNBC event.
The cafe’s owners became shareholders in Baked by Melissa, allowing the company to continue using the space for many years. Ben Ishay said organic foot traffic was already profitable, but once the press started paying attention, people started lining up around the corner. A year after moving into the Cafe Bari space, Baked by Melissa has opened a second location in Union Square.
Photography: Sarah Lindsay
Since then, Baked by Melissa has become a global business with 14 brick-and-mortar locations, shipping nationwide, and more than 2.5 million followers on TikTok. Ben-Ishay also serves as CEO and recently published his second cookbook, Come Hungry.
Social media is becoming increasingly important in building a “cupcake empire.”
In 2021, Ben Ishay’s “Green Goddess” salad recipe went viral on TikTok, becoming the sixth most searched recipe on Google in the U.S., and was searched 1.6 million times in 2022. The recipe has been recreated by celebrities like Cardi B and Lizzo.Ben Ishay appeared on the Today Show and later posted the “Green Goddess” Ranch recipe, which received nearly 2 million more views than the original recipe. Collected. Currently, fans are monitoring the recipes and routines that Ben Ishay shares on TikTok.
“Social media can be a great tool,” she told CNBC via email. “If you maintain the right attitude, you can do anything… show up every day (i.e. make it your job), listen to your audience, and strive to create quality content. ”
Ben Ishay declined to comment on how the US ban on TikTok would affect her.
Buoyed by his social media success and becoming a cookbook author, Ben Ishay has been able to expand beyond his cupcake brand.
“I wanted to share that philosophy and way of eating that prioritizes nutritious ingredients at every meal,” she said. “I hope that through my recipes readers will gain confidence in the kitchen and be able to use any ingredients in the future.”
Barriers to success for female founders and CEOs
Research shows that women face higher hurdles in entrepreneurship, with significantly lower access to capital than male founders and high levels of skepticism from the male-dominated world of investors. are. There are signs of improvement, such as an increase in the rate of new business creation by female entrepreneurs and an increase in the number of women investing in companies founded by women. These capital market issues are despite evidence that women-owned companies often outperform the market, leading to the creation of ETFs that track women-led companies. This is a contributing factor to the survey finding that many people lack confidence in starting a business.
Ben Ishay said he had first-hand experience with gender-based disabilities.
“It’s difficult to be successful in business regardless of your gender,” she says. “(But) I find that some challenges are unique to women. I think men are often overconfident and women are underconfident. Even when I took over in 2019 and was CEO, I made the mistake of thinking that I couldn’t do it.”
Now a successful CEO and social media personality, Ben-Ishay is building his own brand. And the freedom and unpredictability of entrepreneurship allows her to feel fulfilled. She said she loves stepping out of her comfort zone and putting out fires.
“I accept that,” she said. “That’s when we learn and grow the most.”
