Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Alexis Cobham, co-owner of DIY Cheese Maker, located in Colwood, BC, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We are a unique retail business that sells Do It Yourself (DIY) Home Cheese Making Kits. We sell a variety of cheese kits that offers fresh, soft cheeses, like Boconccini Mozzarella and hard, aged cheeses, such as Cheddar. These cheese-making kits are used by all ages, from kids to adults. All you need to do is love cheese and be willing to try something new.
Tell us about yourself
I love food, nature, and people! I'm usually looking for a way to connect myself and others to authentic, comforting, and new experiences, so when I decided to start my own business. I knew it had to be something I could connect with on a deeper level. Fifteen years ago, I competed for a 1-year culinary certificate so I could learn how to be a chef and build my own catering business. I wanted to teach myself how to build a business from nothing. So I worked for eight years and built a successful catering business, which taught me most of what I needed to know about small business ownership. During those eight years, I was learning more and more about making my own foods from scratch, and I came upon the art of home cheese making book, so I started teaching myself how to make cheese. This led to many more years of cheese-making workshops and cheese-making education. Eventually, I began teaching myself cheese-making, which ultimately led to the beginning of my DIY Cheese Maker business.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I have operated for a while now with an acute awareness that I need a certain level of risk, intelligent decision-making, and personal involvement to sustain a viable and successful company. Risking new ideas has led to tremendous growth, and keeping myself involved in the business details has ensured the product continues to maintain the highest possible standards.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Burnout, financial management, and staffing. Learning how to manage even just one of these things well is difficult, let alone all three. During the earliest stages of starting your business, I highly recommend you work as hard as possible in each of these areas by slowly building them up to help safeguard and balance the responsibilities so that you have reliable staff, positive cash flow, and consistent time away from the business.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
The most challenging aspect of being an entrepreneur is allowing yourself a good balance of creativity, flexibility, and time away from your business. If those words and practices are not a part of your repertoire, then you are setting yourself up for extremely challenging times. Burnout and complacency are some of the largest causes of business failures. So I try to steer clear of working too much, and I make sure I push myself to grow my business carefully, keeping it relevant. I would also advise that you build a really good support team to surround you so that you have reliable people you can trust to branch away from the daily responsibilities and learn to focus on big picture development.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://cheesemaker.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CheeseMaker.ca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheesemaker.ca/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.