From Bakery Owner to Digital Marketer | Brooks Nguyen on Navigating a Business as a Woman

Brooks Nguyen is the Director of Operations at The Food Connector, a B2B marketing specialty provider for the food industry, helping generate leads, sell products, and scale brands. As a 20-plus-year veteran in food service, she has created strategies to define operational goals, maximize profit, and support management. Brooks began her pastry career at the Culinary Institute of America in California and has worked across various verticals in the industry, including restaurants, bakeries, distribution and manufacturer sales, and consulting food startups. She also founded Dragonfly Cakes, a mail-order cake company that she exited and sold after 12 years.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Brooks Nguyen reflects on her start in the food industry and starting Dragonfly Cakes
Rebranding after purchasing an existing business
Brooks shares her experience authoring a book about petit fours
How to determine when it’s time to exit a business
The challenges associated with being a woman business owner
Operating in a post-COVID food industry
Life after exiting a business in the baking space

In this episode…

Many bakers start their businesses to pursue their passion for the craft and creative freedom. However, women in the industry face challenges they don’t always discuss. Learn firsthand about one woman’s inspiring journey through the craft.

Brooks Nguyen had always dreamed of becoming a pastry chef. After graduating from a prestigious culinary school, she capitalized on an opportunity to purchase and operate a baking company. Brooks designed her business model to create a work-life balance. However, she notes that many women have multiple roles to fill in their personal lives, like caring for their children and elderly parents. As entrepreneurs fulfilling versatile roles, can women create balanced lives?

Join Odette D’Aniello on the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast as she interviews Brooks Nguyen, Director of Operations at The Food Connector, who shares the obstacles associated with being a woman entrepreneur. Brooks reflects on her journey into foodservice, rebranding an existing business, and operating a bakery in a post-COVID food industry.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

Today’s episode is brought to you by Celebrity Cake Studio, a family-owned and operated cake boutique.

Celebrity Cake Studio has been baking joy into all of their artistically designed cakes and desserts for 21 years.

They are proud to work with a vibrant team of cake designers and bakers that help you celebrate the sweet moments in your lives.

They have received numerous awards, winning Best of Western Washington for many years in a row and various small business accolades.

To learn more about how you can celebrate yourselves or the ones you love, visit www.celebritycakestudio.com or email them at info@celebritycakestudio.com.

Episode Transcript:

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast, where we feature top bakery and specialty food entrepreneurs from around the world and share stories and tips on how to create a successful life in the baking world.

Odette D’Aniello 0:23

Hi, I’m Odette D’Aniello,, the host of Celebrity Gourmet Podcast where I interview women in the bakery industry to hear how they live fun lives with financial freedom while running their businesses. I want to encourage you to go back and check out our past episodes with Katie Poppe, Founder and CEO of Blue Star Donuts of Portland. She uses her neuropsychology background to create a remarkable donut experience for her customers. You also hear about Olga Sagan of Seattle’s Piroshky Piroshky’s brilliant pandemic pivot, and hear how Sarah Brook of Dessert Gallery in Houston bakes love into everything she does. Today, I have a very special guest, my friend and former owner of Dragonfly Cakes and Petit Fours. I have here Brooks Nguyen, Brooks and I met in 2016 when my sister Mary Ann and I heard about her company that she was selling it and it was after Thanksgiving, and we flew to Sausalito to visit her bakery. Three weeks later, we were the new owners of her company Dragonfly Cakes. And since then, Brooks has been a constant cheerleader, a friend, a confidant, and just an overall great friend to us. Today’s episode is brought to you by Celebrity Gourmet Ventures, Inc, Celebrity Cake Studio and Dragonfly Cakes. We are a family-owned and operated specialty bakery in Tacoma, Washington. At Celebrity Gourmet, we have been baking joy into all of our artistically designed cakes and desserts for 25 years. We are proud to work with a vibrant team of cake designers and bakers, who help you celebrate this sweet moments in your lives. To learn more about how you can celebrate yourself to the ones you love, visit celebritycakestudio.com and dragonflycakes.com or email us at info@celebritystudio.com. Before introducing today’s guest, I want to give a big thank you to Deb Mazzaferro. She is Coach Deb to all the people in the food business, because Deb, who I met at the Fancy Food Show back in 2007. We have stayed friends and Deb has kindly told me about Brooks. And it was Deb who introduced Brooks’ business to us. And I give her a lot of credit for kindly considering of the opportunity of buying Dragonfly Cakes. So that’s a big shout out to coach that if you ever need coaching in the food space. You can find her in LinkedIn. Deb Mazzaferro. If not email me, I’ll give you her at her her contact. So, okay, Brooks, how are you my friend?

Brooks Nguyen 3:32

Nice to see you.

Odette D’Aniello 3:35

Thank you for being here. I wanted to been asking you to be a part of my podcast because I want you to tell the story of how Dragonfly Cakes got started or how you got started in the industry.

Brooks Nguyen 3:49

Why my the years are going fast. I actually started my whole career in marketing and sales. And I always had a passion for pastry. My parents were not enthusiastically embracing culinary school. They told me I had to go get my undergraduate degree first. So I went, got my undergraduate degree in psychology and then wound up working in corporate America during the 2000, and I took the money from my first big corporate job, saved it all and put myself to culinary school in 2001. And that’s how I wound up in California. I went to the Culinary Institute in St. Helena, which is gorgeous. I did in my nine month baking pastry program. I’ve always loved pastry. I’ve always loved food, but it’s been a big part of my family’s life. And so I soaked up every minute of it, worked in different businesses, worked in restaurants, endu up doing wedding cakes, and then went back into sales. And I was in a sales job actually, when Dragonfly I came to be, I was selling chocolate from a master importer in San Francisco. And I was selling chocolate to a gentleman named Gary Hart. And he was making petit fours. And I thought, oh my gosh, this product has so much potential because it can be stored frozen because it can be sold through mail order. All the designs are beautiful, they can be you know, there’s so many like a palette, you could go so many different places with it.

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