Thread by @emilybinder

Business story behind "Chocolate Chip Cookies Baked in a Jar", 11/28/2009:

My 1st business was an Etsy shop. Started in Ann Arbor after college. Today you'd call it a #sidehustle.

I sold jar cakes: Desserts baked in a jar with a magical 1-month shelf life.

🚪Adore a Jar Bakery

Never made big bucks, just some pocket change for beer and the unfortunate fashion trends of 2010 like huge owl necklaces.

This was pre Amazon Fresh and way before Etsy IPO'd. It is so easy to order anything and start a business in 24 hrs today.

I had two or three other jobs at the same time.

When I got a corporate marketing job, I would still mail out the jar cakes at USPS on my lunch break.

I'd wait in line in Buckhead, praying the glass wouldn't break en route to Iowa or Vermont and no one would get food poisoning.

I never advertised. Just used Etsy's old school keyword tool and my $100 digital camera.

Hundreds of people ordered my weird but delicious jar cakes.

It was fun. I like physical businesses. I like digital businesses in a different way because they're unlimited.

Adore A Jar Bakery had low leverage:

The COGS was always X.
My labor was always Y.
My profit was limited by those no matter what because cake is a physical product.

If you build software your leverage is unlimited.

You can only paint so many toenails, groom so many dogs, or bake so many jar cakes.

Code is ~infinite.

But so what. I loved my little bakery. I made up boozy cake flavors, vegan, GF... It was creative passion.

What was your first business?
Even if it failed, do you miss it?

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