Eating desserts to lose weight idea → $80k+/Month

Hello Rebels,

🏖️ Creative Entrepreneur fun one-liner:

Why did the entrepreneur always carry a magnifying glass? To focus on the details that matter!

Onto Today’s story….

Christine Moore had 3 children in 3.5 years and had gained a lot of weight.

She decided to get back in shape and couldn’t eat desserts.

She found a solution and built lil buff Protein into a 80k+/Month business.

Here is how she did it.

Christine was exhausted.

As a busy mom of three young kids and a full-time anesthesia provider at the local hospital, she barely had time to think, let alone exercise.

After having her third baby in just over three years, Christine gained a lot of weight and was feeling "frumpy and lumpy" and she knew she needed to make a change.

She decided to take up the sport of bodybuilding and put herself to the ultimate challenge of stepping on stage in a sparkly bikini in one year.

While training hard and eating clean, Christine struggled with intense sweet cravings.

She would even take secret bites of doughnuts, only to spit them out to avoid sabotaging her strict diet.

Christine realized she wasn't alone - countless dieters, diabetic patients and health-conscious people struggled to find sweet treats that aligned with their nutritional needs.

She decided to do something about it.

With a little protein powder, and some kitchen experiments, Christine created the first Lil Buff Protein cake.

One bite of this sweet, protein-packed creation was all it took...she knew she was onto something big.

She started eating protein cake every day and posting it on social media.

She couldn't believe the demand from people seeing her posts!

People kept asking her the recipes and how she made it.

With a little encouragement from some friends, she decided to start a business.

She had zero business background and no idea how to run marketing campaigns.

Christine took a leap of faith and launched Lil Buff Protein out of her home kitchen in Cleveland, Ohio.

She kept her full time job and started this on the side.

She sold Cake Mixes.

This was a gluten-free, high-protein cake mix that can be prepared easily in the microwave.

Each serving contains a whopping 26g of protein - the nutritional equivalent to a chicken breast!

Initially since she didn’t have the money, she put all of their materials on credit cards and then would slowly pay them off after they sold the product.

To see if there was demand for the product, she went to a local bodybuilding expo and took with her a variety of cakes to sample.

They scraped together enough supplies to take 300 mixes to sell.

They wanted to see firsthand if people liked the cake as much as they did, and secondly, if they liked it enough to purchase it.

Christine never conducted any upfront cost analysis, so she had no idea how much it was costing them to put the mixes together.

She just labeled each one $5 to see if they would sell.

To her surprise, they sold out the first night.

She launched her website the next day to sell mixes online.

To this day, they still sell their mixes for $5.

It turns out that it was actually the perfect price point and they’ve been able to improve margins to improve their profitability.

The biggest thing Christine has learned is that there is no perfect time to launch a business.

She says “You have to strike while the iron is hot and make some mistakes.”

Within the first month of launching their business, they grossed $5k.

Their social media following started growing like wildfire.

They leveraged influencers to help spread the word that one can, in fact, have their cake and eat it too!

This healthy cake was a game-changer for bodybuilders, diabetic patients, and any health-conscious dessert lover.

Excitement around Lil Buff exploded and soon orders were pouring in faster than the Moore family could pack boxes.

Growing their business was very time-consuming while they were both still working full time and raising 3 kids.

Many times, they would put the kids to bed at 8pm and work until 2 in the morning.

The long days brought in over $100k in Lil Buff's first year alone.

Their garage startup had officially taken off!

Of course with speedy success came woes and lessons to be learned.

One time, they received a letter saying we could no longer use the name “Lil Buff Bakery” due to trademark infringement.

Luckily they had a great trademark lawyer that helped them wiggle out of that problem and come out with a new name — Lil Buff Protein.

Christine did all of the design work herself. A graphic designer friend taught her the ropes of Adobe Illustrator and helped her with the initial branding.

In the beginning, they could only afford to hand apply a label to each pouch.

One time, they made a mistake and the label read “carories” instead of “calories”. Whoops!

They fixed it for all future shipments.

While challenging, these roadblocks taught Christine invaluable lessons.

Reflecting on the past, Christine says "Mistakes are where growth happens...There is strength in the struggle."

Rather than let mistakes take her down, she used them to build a better business.

She says… “Companies tend to get complacent when everything is going well, but the struggles force us to stretch, get uncomfortable, and become better at what we do.”

Fueled by obsession, tenacity, and high-quality products, Lil Buff's customer base expanded rapidly.

Their business continued to grow organically by word of mouth both online and offline.

Customers tried their products and were excited to share that they can enjoy cake while sticking to a healthy lifestyle.

They also included a packet of sprinkles with each cake mix to encourage creativity and fun while making the cake.

Customers wrote very good reviews on their website.

Sales continued to increase and both Christine and her husband quit their jobs and came full time on to the business.

They were very involved in their social media channels and answered all of their direct messages and commented back on all of their posts.

Their followers feel a connection to them that is different than other brands.

They also showed them behind the scenes, talked about their struggles and challenges, and put everything out in the open.

They created trust through this vulnerability.

They also started collecting emails of their customers and frequently send tips about making cakes, shared how their business is going and also sent special discounts.

The introduced new flavors of their cake mixes and also started speciality cake mixes like whey cakes and all natural Vegan cake mixes.

Christine started small with no business background, but through grit and tenacity created a flourishing business.

Sales continued to grow.

Now they are making more than 80k/month.

Christine says…

“There is no perfect timing. Strike while the iron is hot and figure the rest out later. “

“I’m not implying that this is a good business strategy, but there is something to be said for jumping in with both feet.”

7 reasons why she succeeded

1. Started her business while working a full-time job and raising a family

• Christine launched Lil Buff while working as a full-time anesthesia provider and raising 3 young kids

• She worked long hours, often putting kids to bed then working from 8pm to 2am

• Managing both was challenging but she proved it is doable.

2. Solved her own problem

• Christine struggled with sweet cravings while dieting for her bodybuilding dream

• She realized many others, like diabetics, likely had this problem too

• Christine created a delicious protein cake to solve her own need for a sweet treat

3. Tested demand with low cost

• Before launching the website, Christine tested demand by taking sample cakes and her cake mixes to a bodybuilding expo

• She sold 300 trial cake mix bags for $5 each and they all sold out in one night.

• This validated demand before she put more effort into starting the business

4. Priced experimentally at first

• Christine priced her cake mixes at $5 without any cost analysis, just to test what would sell

• The $5 price point ended up being perfect and is still used today

5. Leveraged social media and influencers

• Christine posted frequently about her cakes on social media

• Her followers kept asking her how she made them and if solves her sweet tooth while remaining healthy.

• Influencers also helped spread the word, leading to excitement and orders pouring in

6. Took challenges in stride

• She overcame mistakes like labeling issues and trademark disputes

• Rather than let these take her down, Christine used them to improve herself.

7. Created an emotional connection with customers

• She gave behind-the-scenes access to her struggles and challenges

• This vulnerability formed a trusting bond with her customers.

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Hope you enjoyed the story and their success tactics.

Keep Zoooming!

Yours “Anti-hustle” Vijay Peduru