Scaling CPG - Execution versus organization

[Knowledgefactry]

Hello Fastlaners. It’s been 8 months since I’ve been active In this chat and a lot has changed. I went from senior in college with big aspirations, to plotting my rat race escape stuck in a 9-5. I can’t really complain too much though as I found a young startup that suits my personality and keeps me on the cutting edge of tech and Venture capital. Point being, the rat race is tolerable while I learn from many great people around me. It’s truly a conducive environment for an entrepreneurial soul who hasn’t made his jump yet.

My long time gf though isn’t so lucky. She just recently had her FTE with her job she’s been working which she hates more than anything in the world. Lucky for her, she is dating a guy who has read all of the Mj books - I saw this coming and have been preparing for it.

With the blessing of the most important people in her life (mom, close friend, me) she is finally about to quit and go all in on what used to be just a side hustle. She makes custom baked goods, and they’re damn good and beautiful. It’s a special kind of baked good, imagine a cookie shaped like a cupcake, with filling inside (snickerdoodle cookie with apple pie filling, chocolate chip cookie with Nutella filling…).

We’ve been selling at farmers markets around ATX to get pricing feedback and to test flavors. It’s a humble weekend hustle bringing in a few hundred dollars a week. But now she’s serious. The real money is in catering large company events and wedding (she’s already done 4 massive orders).
She’s going all in and bartending on the side. I’ll pour as much money into the business as I can from my job until we’re making enough from it for me to quit. I work sales and I’m the top performer so I make good money for a fresh college grad - more than enough to begin investing into typical small business startup costs.

She’s the ceo, I have a background in finance and sales so I’m interim cfo and head of marketing/sales.

With all of that context out of the way, here’s my point: I am overwhelmed with decision paralysis and I don’t know what to focus my time on since I’m working full time. Question is, at this stage, is it better to focus on getting organized and having infrastructure (getting your numbers right, building a good website, making landing page/building a sales cycle) or just to help her bake and pump out as many of these baked goods as possible…

Side note, I don’t believe this is action faking. We are making real, albeit slow, progress and the demand is there- we sell out at every market we go to and when we run Facebook ads, we can’t keep up with orders and have to turn them off.

Some direction from someone who has scaled a cpg/food business would be great. She’s definitely the visionary and doesn’t need direction. I however do need to see examples to derive inspiration. Also, I want to turn this into a Fastlane business. I believe it’s very, very scalable with a franchise model, while I think she’s more focused on making it a well paying job that she actually enjoys. Pros and cons of both paths would be interesting to hear as well. Thx in advance, love this group.

 

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