How this Gen Z cookie entrepreneur took her part-time business full-time

Cookie in the Kitchen Cookie in the Kitchen Founder Emily Henegar started baking in 2011, when she was just 11 years old. Her older sister had a business on Etsy at the time and Henegar felt inspired to follow in her footsteps. “I got some help from my sister to draw a logo, my mom helped me set up a WordPress blog, and we printed out some business cards on Office Depot paper,” said Henegar. From there, she made her first tray of cookies and walked around the neighborhood asking if anyone wanted to buy some and if they’d like to sign up for more. That first foray into sharing her baked goods resulted in 19 orders for a dozen cookies each, Square reports.  Through middle school and high school she continued to sell cookies when she could, at school and church. Two years became four and soon her orders started coming in from people who she didn’t know. Her cookies started standing out for the decoration work and went from a larger array of drop cookies like chocolate chip and peanut butter to a focus on sugar cookies. Focusing On a Niche Cookie in the Kitchen In her sophomore year of high school, Henegar took a graphic design class. Something clicked for her–decorating cookies was graphic design, but applied to a cookie canvas. From there she moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University where she studied graphic design and entrepreneurship. Throughout her college tenure she continued baking at friends’ houses and apartments then took the cookies back to the residence hall kitchenette to decorate them. The Cookie in the Kitchen business would ebb and flow based on her class schedule and access to resources. Once COVID-19 hit, she began hybrid online and in-person classes, finding time to dedicate more of her schedule to baking. “I knew after I graduated I would continue with cookies and see what that would look like full-time” said Henegar, who has now been working for over two years full-time on her cookie business “The logistics of figuring out how to book orders, how many to take on, and communicating that with people has always been challenging for me.” Henegar says these challenges have scaled with her business. With such a high volume of orders, there isn’t someone telling her how many cookies she needs to make or what to sell them for, much less how many hours of sleep she should get.  “I spent three days in August working through my accounting for the first year and found a free software to sort transactions. I’d gone through a few accounting softwares and it was just too much information,” said Henegar. She needed a better way to see how much money the business was spending and how much was coming in. She says taking a look at the accounting herself will help her know how to hire in the future and give her a way to truly understand how her business operates so she can be more collaborative. Growing the Cookie in the Kitchen Team As for what’s next, Henegar says she’s currently looking to hire for positions around social media and partnerships.  “I started getting a lot of orders from different music business companies. In the beginning it was very small, intimate Indie shows. Now I make cookies for Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, and it blows my mind,” said Henegar. Although she gained her initial following on Instagram, with the help of a friend, she was able to strategize how to make content for TikTok, which opened many doors to new partnerships. This influx of new opportunities left Henegar to figure out how to quote for larger and unique orders beyond a standard custom dozen cookies and prompted the hiring of someone in-house to edit social media videos as well as an attorney to draft partnership contracts.  For now, Henegar is making sure she can fill the orders coming in, but in the future she hopes to move into a commercial space to make her cookies, hire more staff, and maybe even explore wholesale or retail around Nashville. “It has always been my plan, dream, and hope to open a bakery in Nashville.” said Henegar, a dream that crystallized once she moved to the city. “What I’ve been focusing on right now is systemizing my business and understanding it, especially moving from part time in school to full-time. How the business operates on a small scale is not as functional when you are growing so I’m trying to figure out how I can organize it in the most effective way so as I grow towards a bakery, that growth is sustainable.” This story was produced by Square for its publication The Bottom Line and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.