“WHEN YOU START A BUSINESS, THERE'S SO MUCH THAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT HOW TO DO THINGS RIGHT. [...] SO THE FACT THAT UJIMA HAS THAT PLAYBOOK AND IS MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO BUSINESS OWNERS IS EVERYTHING.”
Shironda White — Cupcake Therapy, Founder
Paige Curtis: Can you talk about the need for an endeavor like Cupcake Therapy in Boston, and how you came to start your business?
Shironda White: So I am a foodie with a lot of allergies. One of them is a very severe nut allergy. In the past, I've had several issues with cross contamination of allergens in bakeries and restaurants in the Boston area. So I've always been really careful about where I eat because of that. During the pandemic, I was running a Fintech company that specifically worked with schools.
When schools shut down during the pandemic, our business stalled, and from March to August of 2020 we had no business at all. So I began baking out of boredom, and at the time I was vegan and gluten free, trying different recipes. My friends loved my baked goods so much that I made a website so friends could order what they liked. By the end of 2020, we had so many orders! I actually received a really large order for 60,000 cupcakes, going to 60 different addresses for a virtual gala. I thought it was a typo. [At that] point we had to make it a legal business.
That's incredible! How big is your team now?
Right now we have two full time employees: myself and my mom. We also have some independent contractors who help us with deliveries and other tasks.
What are you most excited about in regards to joining the Ujima Good Business Alliance?
I don't have a background in the food industry. I went to school for entrepreneurship, but you don't really learn how to be an entrepreneur by studying, you learn by doing it. For me, the Good Business Alliance is about learning from people who are ahead of me and already doing the things that I want to do. I enjoy being able to learn from those entrepreneurs, while sharing what I've learned about running a good business.
Even when we talk about what we learned from entrepreneurship, whether it's in business school or through accelerators, you don't learn how to be a good business in the sense of fair processes. You may learn of financial and legal matters, but not how to be a good business, in terms of people, environment, and values.
Which of the Good Business Standards do you find most important?
In terms of labor, we are very committed to paying a living wage and providing good benefits. This is one of the most important things for us. No one on our team, whether it's employees or independent contractors, makes less than a living wage. We’ve started conversations about hiring students from the Madison Park culinary arts program. These are high school students who will be making a living wage, at least $20 an hour, in high school. It wouldn’t make sense to have people working for us who don’t make enough to afford to buy the cupcakes that we're selling.
In terms of the environmental aspects, in the pandemic, we started out using a lot of plastic containers. We've moved away from that. So now we use either compostable containers or paper boxes, and [are] doing our part to avoid a negative impact on the environment. So that's something else that's very important to us.
You might think of things like this as “expensive,” paying people a living wage and using sustainable packaging. But for us, it's the right thing to do. For instance, when you pay people what they’re worth, you get better employees who are more committed, right? So you make up for the costs in that way.
Where do you see Cupcake Therapy going next?
So we're actually working on our first storefront, which we hope to formally announce the location of in the next couple of weeks. If all goes well, it will open in the summer of 2023 and potentially a second space after that.
For the storefront concept, we're really leaning into the whole notion of cupcake “therapy.” So we want the space to feel inviting, comfortable and for folks to feel relaxed when they come in. We’ll be baking onsite, so it’s going to smell amazing too. It won’t just be about cupcakes, we’ll be able to do other bites as well, so it will have a dessert cafe type vibe.
Right now we also ship nationwide, so we’re looking to expand that. Now that we're in a larger commercial kitchen space, we're going to actually start advertising since we haven’t really been advertising. So we’re excited to really invest in advertising and increase our shipping nationwide as well.
Any final thoughts?
Well, I’m so glad the Good Business Alliance exists. When I first applied to the Alliance, there were so many questions that came up in the application form that we hadn't even thought about as a business. When you start a business, there's so much that you don't know about how to do things right. You may not necessarily think to have an employee handbook, or policies in place so your employees feel safe and comfortable. So the fact that Ujima has that playbook and is making it available to business owners is everything. ♡
Shironda White is co-owner of Cupcake Therapy, a premium nut-free, allergy-friendly cupcakery based in Boston that ships nationwide. Shironda has worked on philanthropic initiatives for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the HBCU National Resource Center, and has worked as a fundraiser for both nonprofits and individuals. An alumna of Spelman College, she received her MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from Harvard University.