EP24 SusanKellerman Youtube
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Serena Reynolds: [00:00:00] Welcome to Fearless and Flawed. Today, our fearless female founder is Susan Kellerman. She’s the definition of badass. She’s an American who moved across the world and built her business Tasty Cakes from scratch In Madrid, Spain, Susan didn’t just follow a recipe for success, she baked her own from the ground up.

Serena Reynolds: I’m Serena Reynolds. I am one of the hosts at Fearless and Flawed, and I make brands stand out from the noise elevating thought leaders into go-to experts.

Sara Ferrer: I’m Sara Ferrer Serena’s co-host in an email marketing pro converting clicks into cash. And together Serena and I are two women in charge, diving into the fearless Lord and fabulous journeys of female entrepreneurs.

Sara Ferrer: So welcome to the podcast, Susan. We’re so happy to have you.

Susan Kellerman: Thanks so much for inviting me. It’s a lovely day to be on a podcast.

Sara Ferrer: Yes. And for [00:01:00] anyone who is watching us on YouTube, Susan is in full Baker mode right now. She’s in the kitchen. She has the cutest little bow headband on that,

Serena Reynolds: like Sally, the Riveter, just saying

Sara Ferrer: yes.

Sara Ferrer: She’s giving us total badass baker vibe. So I must ask Susan, just let’s dive right into it. How did you turn? Selling American baked goodies, the cakes, the cookies, all the yumminess. How did you turn that into a business in Madrid with tasty cakes?

Susan Kellerman: A lot of ignorance is bliss mentality. A lot of, probably a little, a lot of naivete, I think, but just kind of badass, go for it kind of thing.

Susan Kellerman: And it was a lot of pushing from friends, to be honest with you. I had. From, from when I moved here in 2008, started baking. I mean, comes Christmas, what do you want? You want Christmas cookies, right? They don’t really do that here in Madrid. So you gotta bake your own. And [00:02:00] it’s what I did growing up with my mom and my sisters.

Susan Kellerman: So it was also something for me to have that connection back to home in those first couple years when it can be a bit of a difficult transition and noticing that what I thought were the same ingredients here, were not, um, behaving as I expected them to. So that. Just kind of thought, got me thinking, okay, why?

Susan Kellerman: What’s going on? And I do have that kind of innate in me, like, I wanna know why and I wanna see how things work. So it just kind of started from there. And some friends were like, ah, when are you gonna open your cafe? Ha ha. I’m like, I’m never gonna open my cafe. Ha ha ha. And I still have not. And I still, well, I’m not gonna say never.

Susan Kellerman: I’ve learned to never say never. But it just kind of went and I started making cakes for. Baby showers, birthdays, wedding showers, basically because nobody else would like, well, if nobody else can, I can do it. I can take a crack at it. Moved to Tanzania in [00:03:00] 2014. More cakes there, even less of a culture of baked goods in Tanzania and I wasn’t in the city.

Susan Kellerman: I was out near Kilimanjaro, kind of in the bush. So got back to Madrid and it just, it kind of rolled it just. Kind of kept going. And finally I did have one friend who called me up one night on a I, I believe it was Wednesday. Don’t ask me why I remember or how I remember, but I do remember I was getting ready for bed, so probably like 10, 10:30, and she goes, okay, here’s the deal.

Susan Kellerman: Baby shower coming up. You’re obviously invited. You’re my friend, but I’m gonna be your first client. You need to sell me, uh, cupcakes. ’cause I want cupcakes at my baby shower. And she literally did not let me get a word in edgewise and said, here’s what you’re gonna do, here’s what I’m gonna do, and then we’re gonna agree a price and that’s gonna be it.

Susan Kellerman: And I said, do I have a choice? And she said, no, you don’t. So. Right then and there at 10, whatever, on a Wednesday night at, I think it was 2018, if I remember correctly, 2017, I don’t know, was the birth [00:04:00] of Tasty Cakes? No pun intended, as it was a baby shower, so it took a friend to shove you off that cliff.

Susan Kellerman: Oh, oh God. Yeah. I mean it, it wasn’t a shove, it was a gentle nudge. I will say. She would say it’s a gentle nudge. I would probably say it’s a little bit more. Um, but that’s just how we are as people. But I was definitely getting to the point as, because I was a full-time teacher at the time, getting to the point where it was time to make a shift.

Susan Kellerman: Either from being in the classroom a hundred percent to like more of an admin position. Something needed to change because I knew I could not continue what I was doing for another 20 whatever years until I retired. And I did not wanna be the crotchety old music teacher that people complain about in their forties and fifties when they were that old.

Susan Kellerman: I, I just, I knew that’s not, it’s not what I wanted to be, and the only other thing I had was baking in my mind. I realize now that that’s probably not the case. There’s probably other things I could be doing, but. Why not bake all day and like give people cupcakes? I [00:05:00] mean, I don’t give them, but they buy them.

Sara Ferrer: It sound, it sounds like a dream. Let me ask you this, because I think we all have a moment where we wanna be a cafe owner. We wanna be the bakery owner, right? I mean, I think that there’s a little bit of this romanticized idea that you’re just serving out cupcakes and cookies and all the little kids in town are coming and you’re kind of like the Willy Wonka of baked goods, but.

Sara Ferrer: But it’s much harder than that. Can you, so can you really kind of give us a a i Serena wants to say something what you’re, you’re

Serena Reynolds (2): I do, I do. I’m desperate because when we’re kids, when you bake cakes with your mom, it’s like a, it’s a treat. It’s, it’s, it’s our fun, it’s our fun little thing that we do as possibly more little girls than little boys.

Serena Reynolds (2): But as the girls baking cakes and frosting them is, is so much fun. But we only do it two or three times.

Susan Kellerman (2): Exactly, and you know what? You know what’s funny about that is that I don’t remember the fun part [00:06:00] being the frosting and the baking. When I was little. I just wanted, I just liked being with my mom and my sisters.

Susan Kellerman (2): It was more, it was just the time that I was spending with my family. For me, looking back on it, I probably did have fun.

Serena Reynolds (2): I can probably completely agree with you. I remember licking the spoon thinking that was like a big treat, but it was, it was the fun of being together and doing something,

Susan Kellerman (2): which is why, and I’m kind, I’m sorry, Serena, I’m getting off of the question that you asked me.

Susan Kellerman (2): We will get back to that, but I think it’s important to note that for me, one of the things that I noticed between food and music, what I taught is this idea of community. And to me that’s very important. And I very much believe that food brings people together. Does it baking or cooked food? And that’s.

Susan Kellerman (2): At least it wasn’t my family. And I do, even if it’s not with your family, perhaps with friends, with just your close group, you share a meal, you share a cake, you share, [00:07:00] um, coffee or tea and a cookie. I mean, and you, you catch up and you, you know, put the world to rights and whatever the case may be. And I believe it’s the same power with music.

Susan Kellerman (2): So it wasn’t that much of a leap. In that sense for me, because I do think they’re very much linked. Yes. I, I remember when I, I lived with my sister when I did my graduate degree back in the early two thousands, and we would like, dream, she’s 10 years older than me. One, one of my sisters, she would, we’d like dream about, oh, let’s open A, BnB and dah, dah, dah.

Susan Kellerman (2): And you know the very much what, exactly what you were talking about. Like, that’d be great, you know, and then we’re like, okay, but you don’t get holidays, you know, whatever. And so I will say it’s never, it was never a romanticized ideal because I got it. I knew how much it would effort. It would take time.

Susan Kellerman (2): It would take energy, it would take, but I, I don’t know. I just, I was like, okay, it’s it like, I, I’m ready. I, [00:08:00] I wanna be my own boss. I know I have the skillis to do that. I know that Madrid needs my baked goods. You do still get the um, the smiles. There was one I remember one little boy in particular, he wanted a Spider-Man cake and.

Susan Kellerman (2): It’s not often that the kids come with the parents when they pick them up and anymore. Now I’m not doing most of the deliveries, so I don’t necessarily see them, uh, the kids when I deliver them, if it’s for a kid. And the way that I had to box it, it was just a little bit too tall for the box, so I had to like make extensions and wrap it in plastic, whatever.

Susan Kellerman (2): So it was like this little inch of a whatever where you could peek through and you could see the cake. And he like, he got there, I’m like, Hey, whatever. I can’t remember his name. And I said, would you like to see it? And I bent down and he looks in and he goes. And I’m just like, okay, that’s it. That’s all I need.

Susan Kellerman (2): Like just that face of, which of course if you’re listening, you can’t see, but it was just this face of awe and this big smile. And he was just, he was speechless. He was really speechless. [00:09:00] So that kind of makes up for all the other crap you gotta put up with.

Sara Ferrer: Well talk about the other crap that you gotta like, like, like that’s the thing, like that’s great, we love that, but like.

Sara Ferrer: What did the day in the life of Susan look like? What are the pain points where they’re like, Hey, that’s nice, but to get little timid to smile, I have to wake up at three. I have to find employees, I have to manage social media. I gotta promote myself, I gotta learn the language. Like talk to us about kind of some of the other must like task to dos.

Sara Ferrer: Maybe not so pretty, but essential in the baking world.

Susan Kellerman (2): Managing your time. You gotta figure out a way to do that and I, I always felt like I was a good person with time management and I still feel like I’m. Just I’m ADD ing all over it. Like I just don’t feel like I have myself put together because every time I think, okay, no, I’ve gotta time block this.

Susan Kellerman (2): And actually if I do this every morning, if I do this and then I can get here, da da. It doesn’t work. Like I’m constantly trying to reinvent how I organize myself to make sure I don’t miss anything, to make sure I’m, you know, every morning I’m looking at the important [00:10:00] emails, looking at the bottom line, whatever I need to do, and it’s just, hopefully it’ll get there at some point, or maybe it never will, but at least I’m trying.

Susan Kellerman (2): I think that’s the most important thing. Systems, I think just knowing what systems are important to have in place. Actually really thinking through, and I think this is where being a teacher is helpful because as a teacher, I, I automatically had to scaffold and I had to sequence things that my, my students understood it.

Susan Kellerman (2): And it’s essentially the same thing for me. Like I need to understand, okay, what process absolutely cannot go wrong and how am I gonna organize that to keep any potential problems I don’t foresee happening from happening. Because inevitably they will happen. Yeah. The social media is constant. I’m not somebody who naturally is just like selfie with my baked good, or Here’s what we’re doing because I too much shit.

Susan Kellerman (2): Like, I’m sorry. No. What’s more important is me to actually bake the cake the way it’s supposed to be baked, decorate the way the client wants it and get it out on time. Like that is the most important to, I don’t have time to pick up my phone [00:11:00] and take pictures, so it’s balancing that. Client requests are always fun.

Susan Kellerman (2): Balance and to manage interpersonal skillis in that sense are really important because to me, I forget that not everybody gets what it takes to bake a cake from the absolute start when somebody says, Hey, I need a cake on this day, to when they receive it and they eat it. They don’t understand the time it takes and all the steps that we need to take to make sure that happens.

Susan Kellerman (2): We have other orders we’re doing at the same time. It’s not just, I’m only focusing on your cake right now, and then tomorrow I can focus on this cake. You know, it’s sometimes seven, eight at a time, and the bulk of what I do is custom work. So that just takes kind of an extra little whatever. Like this morning I had to get five cake layers and some mini cupcakes out so [00:12:00] that they’re ready to go as soon as we’re done so I can frost ’em.

Susan Kellerman (2): I was thinking in my head, oh right, we’ve gotten more chocolate cake to bake. If I don’t get as many, many cupcakes out, it’s fine. Whatever. Yeah. We don’t have more chocolate cake to bake, so I’m too many cupcakes down and I have to like make enough better for too many cupcakes, which are like tiny little, it’s mathematic, it’s mathematical.

Sara Ferrer: It sounds like, I mean, it’s very, very, very structured. It’s very, I mean, this is more than just, you know, do you want pink frosting or do you want blue frosting? This is very like, if you don’t have the numbers right, you’re screwed.

Susan Kellerman (2): Well, you’re not screwed, but you’re taking more time, which you don’t necessarily have to take because, and let’s, we all know time is money, right?

Susan Kellerman (2): If you’re not that calculated about it, then you’re wasting ingredients, which is one of the things I don’t, I try and reduce waste as absolute much as possible. ’cause I see how much we waste in this world, especially in the us. You know, just so many things. So many things. If you’re not calculated, thank gosh.

Susan Kellerman (2): That my dad was a math teacher, and we have that in our family. [00:13:00] Got that kind of analytical brain.

Sara Ferrer: Can I ask just a a, a kind of a, a, a sub question to that question. So we’re talking a lot about, you know, kind of behind the scenes, but I think the elephant in the room is like American goods in Madrid too, right?

Sara Ferrer: Like you’re not just selling. Your typical Spanish good that the average Joe on a, so can you kind of walk us through the challenges too, of like American style cupcakes, American style cookies? How do you get word of mouth out there? ’cause like you said, you’re not there in the kitchen worried more about the social media posts, but the marketing’s essential.

Sara Ferrer: How do people find you? How does it A, how people find you, but B, you’re an American living in Madrid. Um, how do you balance what you do for work, which is very much an American style, baked good with also being immersed into a, a culture into a society that doesn’t necessarily have that as a tradition or foundation.

Sara Ferrer: [00:14:00] So how do you also maintain I’m American, but I’m also leaning into the Spanish way, but I also need to survive. Uh, through this American, you know, through the American company, the American, uh, based goods. So just kind of walk us through that, that kind of juxtaposition of, uh, a sweet in, in, in Madrid that traditionally is not, is not really popular.

Serena Reynolds (2): And just to add to that, you mentioned very early on about the ingredients difference.

Susan Kellerman (2): Yeah, yeah. I did. I make what I make, I don’t. Make excuses for it. I don’t change it really because I believe in what I make and I believe that there’s a person or people for that, first of all. So I will never change my product if the business doesn’t succeed long term.

Susan Kellerman (2): It doesn’t succeed long term, but I will not change my product. I believe in the product that I make and the quality of the product I make because, like you said, Serena, [00:15:00] of the quality of the ingredients that I can get here, I don’t. Cut corners on crap ingredients. ’cause you can tell a difference between good chocolate and bad chocolate.

Susan Kellerman (2): You can tell a difference. I think that esto butter here, for those of you that are in Madrid, is a decent butter. Like that’s what I started baking outta my home, and that’s what I would make be, or that’s what I would use because that’s all I had access to. But holy cow, let me tell you the difference.

Susan Kellerman (2): When I step up to French butter, oh my gosh, like mass, I, I can’t even tell you the difference. So I will never, ever. Not get good quality ingredients. And I’ve had several clients tell me that they can tell that it’s made with quality ingredients. Okay. Those are the people that I’m shooting for, and I know that’s not everybody, and that’s okay.

Susan Kellerman (2): So I think directly to answer your question, Sara, number one, being okay with people saying no and going and saying, not for me, great. Not for me. I, I have no problem with that. It’s also, I feel about educating Spaniards that not every American dessert has to be ridiculously stupidly sweet, which is.

Susan Kellerman (2): Again, [00:16:00] that’s not what I do. So maybe it’s not authentic American because it’s not ridiculously sweet, but the flavors out underneath the sweetness. The flavors are. The textures are the base, recipe is, and I just, maybe there’s just a little bit elevated, and maybe you could call it that because of what I, I have access to here and the food laws, the regulations that we have in the EU versus what they have in the states.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I, and I, I do wanna point out that I feel like I’m not quite at the successful. I, I what, how do you define a successful business? I don’t know. Like, I don’t feel like I’m there yet. I, I am not turning a profit all the time. You know, I’m still, there’s still things to do, however, more people are finding out about me.

Susan Kellerman (2): You know, I’ve got growth nearly every month, nearly every year. I mean, this might be the first month. I don’t have significant growth over this month. Last year it’s very month to month thing given birthdays, right? Birthdays, holidays. It’s a very kind of a monthly thing that what I’m dealing with.

Serena Reynolds (2): September the 11th is the birthday day, [00:17:00] believe it or not. September the 11th is, well, let me tell you about September birthday date ever. Yes.

Susan Kellerman (2): Well, it’s funny you should say that because it was September of 2024. Sorry, 2023. My first September in this kitchen, the space that I’m in, and I just got bombarded and I was not expecting that.

Susan Kellerman (2): ’cause September in the past had not been like that for me. And one of the women at the supply store where I get my boxes and bases and all that good stuff from, she said, oh yeah, September’s the one month with the most number of birthdays. I’m like, is everybody making babies in January? So I can attest to September being a massive birthday month.

Susan Kellerman (2): So in any case. As long as for me, as long as there’s growth, that’s a good sign. How are people finding out about me? It’s honestly, at this point, is mostly word of mouth more than anything else. Google has been my friend. I can’t tell you what we did because it was not on purpose, but when I redid the website in 2023, [00:18:00] when I moved into this space and I added the online store, we kind of thought about SEO.

Susan Kellerman (2): Only in English, not in Spanish at all. And I did, I had already had a Google business profile, but I started leaning into that more because I was like a bonafide in a commercial space. Like there’s no real risk according to the, you know, whatever. And I started getting more views up there. I think just kind of at all the stars aligned.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I just have people finding me on Google Maps. That means more reviews. That means, you know, the algorithms. Whatever, doing its thing. So, and I still have people just finding me, just, and when I look at my, um, oh data, it’s another thing I like, take data all the time. I’m like a data whore, listen, there’s power in numbers and I can see that the, what, 80% of all of my orders on a monthly basis are still brand new clients.

Susan Kellerman (2): So people are finding me and I feel like I’m not really doing a whole lot. In fact, I talked with my accountant ’cause [00:19:00] I am looking for a locale, sorry, a shop like at the street level at this point. Just so I get foot traffic and a lot more visibility. And when I gave him the numbers that I had at the time, ’cause this is back in September, he owes Susan, like 90% of businesses fail by the time they get to the point that you’re at.

Susan Kellerman (2): Like, okay. Like I, I don’t know. I’m not a business person. I’m a music teacher Turned Baker, you know, trying to. Start a business and just make a living. That’s all I really wanna do is make a living.

Serena Reynolds (2): So who are, who are your core audience? Who are these people that are ordering from you?

Susan Kellerman (2): Still the bulk of which there’s some, they have some connection to US, England, like kind of the Anglo American style of baked goods.

Susan Kellerman (2): For whatever reason,

Serena Reynolds (2): We still don’t associate with being European, with, with,

Susan Kellerman (2): I mean, and yeah, and in many ways you’re not like, so, you know, I feel like the US and England have, we have some kind of cultural things and then England and [00:20:00] Europe has some cultural things that are in common. And then there’s some, obviously very much differences between all three, um, locations.

Susan Kellerman (2): So it’s the bulk are, you know, nons, Spaniards, however it could be like. A mom who’s married to a Spaniard. It could be a couple that are Spanish perhaps, but lived in the US for a while and they’re back. You know, something along those lines. There’s some type of connection and they. Want what I make. And so they find me either via other clients or via Google Maps or they pass by me in the market that I’m in, whatever the case may be.

Serena Reynolds (2): What’s your competition like in Madrid, in Spain? What’s, I mean, you are you, you have a do location, obviously this, this is a tangible good that has an expiry date, so you have a geolocation. So is there not a lot of competition around you? Have you, have you checked it out? Who are these people? To be honest, [00:21:00] just take ’em out.

Susan Kellerman (2): Yeah, I, I know, right? I mean, I have no problem getting up at 2:00 AM if it’s something for that. I’m not gonna bake at 2:00 AM but I’ll take people out. Um, just kidding. I’m kidding. I’m not ven, but

Sara Ferrer: the dark, the dark side of Susan Kellerman is really coming out. No, my wooden

Sara Ferrer: spoon. With your wooden spoon.

Sara Ferrer: Yes.

Sara Ferrer: Friendliest, friendliest, assassin. She’s like, Hey, you. And then she just lobbed up, lobbed frosting at you.

Susan Kellerman (2): Stop right there.

Susan Kellerman (2): Whatcha doing? I just wanna smack upside the head. Um, no. I don’t believe in taking people out. I don’t think that’s good karma at birth either. I just wanna put their out there. To be honest with you, I don’t think there’s many people that do exactly what I do.

Susan Kellerman (2): First of all, they do similar things, right? They, I mean, there are several pastry shops that do make. Custom cakes, but a lot of them use mostly fondant and they, or they [00:22:00] use, like the frosting that’s typically used here is like whipped cream, fake stuff, chemicals, things. I don’t do that. Spain, really? Yeah. I, I’m inside of like a traditional European market, so there’s like fruit stalls, vegetables, lots of things.

Susan Kellerman (2): Right. Restaurant stalls. And I purchased things from some, some of them, and they shop owners have purchased from me and one in particular. She got something for her nephew at Christmas time and super simple cake bestseller, chocolate cake, vanilla frost. Vanilla buttercream after the fact. She’s like, I loved it.

Susan Kellerman (2): I thought it was great. But her family didn’t like the buttercream because they were used to this other I. Heavy cream based stuff that is used, which I just don’t like. So I think people, I mean, kind of how people find me, I think they come to me maybe because of what I do and the fact that I don’t use fondant.

Susan Kellerman (2): I try and do everything as clean and as natural as possible, as minimally refined as possible. I [00:23:00] have to use refined sugar. There’s no getting outta that. We’re not gonna get into the food chemistry of it all. There’s other people that make cookies. They’re not great.

Sara Ferrer: The cookies in Madrid. Even when people try, like the Spanish cookie does not taste like a, it tastes sweet, a little sweet, but there’s no personality, there’s no pizazz.

Sara Ferrer: Like there’s no chocolate chip in the chocolate chip cookie. Susan, explain to me,

Susan Kellerman (2): let’s get real here. Okay, let, I need some Bailey’s for my coffee. Let’s have this conversation because I’m sorry. There’s so ma and I was just looking at it this morning. Shops that say Authentic American cookies. And I’m like, how is it authentic?

Susan Kellerman (2): Number one, are you American? Do you know what makes a chocolate chip cookie? A chocolate chip cookie or an oatmeal cookie? And I mean, can you tell me that? Right? I know, I know. ’cause I’m an American and I’ve tasted it. However, and I think I told you ladies this before, we were having our little pre-chat. I just was in [00:24:00] the us I bought baked goods or I bought cookies in particular from four bakeries.

Susan Kellerman (2): Two of which were very well known nationally known. And they were crap too. I’m sorry. They were crap. It was just sweet. Like what you said, Sara. There is no, and and I, and it wasn’t just me, it was my assistant as well who is Spanish. She’s a young Spanish person but has a fondness for American pastry. So she’s like the perfect kitchen assistant.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I, a lot of times I try and withhold. My super judgy judgy comment that comes out in 10 seconds to see what she thinks first. So I don’t wanna bias her opinion, but we both agreed it was literally sweet, no identifiable flavor. The chocolate cookie did not taste like chocolate even though it was dark brown.

Serena Reynolds (2): To be fair. The Americans, your, you, your, your lovely homeland have dreadful chocolate, right?

Susan Kellerman (2): So this is exactly what we started talking about. Okay. Why is [00:25:00] it chocolate? But we can’t taste chocolate. Why is it that what we make is right? So I do think a lot of it is the ingredients I. I do think a lot of it this, you know, these were coming from places that have multiple locations, so their business model is very different than mine.

Susan Kellerman (2): My accountant, when he was talking about, you know, Susan, blah, blah, blah, what happens when you get successful when you open yourself up to the market? He said, you need to be prepared for what happens if you’re more successful than you expect to be. And I’ve always said, I do not. Want to become a chain because then you lose control over the quality of the product and, and it goes down.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I refuse to let the quality of the product suffer.

Serena Reynolds (2): The American goods that we have here, like you’re saying, the cookies and things like that, they’re all pretty nasty, if I’m honest with you. It doesn’t have a good reputation here.

Susan Kellerman (2): No, and I’ll tell you that any of the other, like bakeries, when I say bakery like bread, yeast, [00:26:00] bakery.

Susan Kellerman (2): Any that I prefer are not changed. They’re one-off or small group.

Sara Ferrer: Well, you know what? You know what ends up happening? I mean. But this is, I think a lot of people don’t realize this, that the minute you have two more than three locations, central kitchen is what happens. And Susan, I’m sure you’re aware of Serena as well, but like for our listeners, that you know, made on premise, right?

Sara Ferrer: Made in house makes sense. When you have one location, the minute you get to three locations, you have a central kitchen that’s baking, maybe it’s semi baked, and then you’re finishing off somewhere. And to Susan’s point, now it becomes, you know, all about. Cost cutting still. Right? Because now you have to make sure that, you know, your bottom line is making sense.

Sara Ferrer: More money, more problems, more expenses, but the quality goes down. And so that’s something very interesting, Susan, that you mentioned that the dream for a lot of business owners is to scale, oh, one location, two locations, three locations, but in food that equates to no longer made in house. [00:27:00] Now there’s a central kitchen doing the majority of the baking.

Sara Ferrer: There’s couriers that are bringing the goods to the locations, lack of quality. So just talk a little bit about, that’s not the dream then to have three, four tasty cakes. What’s the dream?

Susan Kellerman (2): Uh, to make a living, be able to put away money for retirement so that I can retire to reasonable age and live. I just, I never, I don’t dream to be a millionaire.

Susan Kellerman (2): In fact, I don’t wanna be a millionaire because I don’t, I, I think that money brings other problems and you lose a sense of who you are and why we’re in this world. Like I don’t ever wanna forget that I’m a human and I’m affecting other people. You know, I always, I went into teaching because I wanted to help.

Susan Kellerman (2): Students learn things in ways and be better humans. That that, that I felt like I lacked when I was younger. And it’s the same thing. Like I just ultimately wanna leave the world a better place. I don’t need, I don’t have kids, I’m never gonna have kids. I don’t need to leave money for people. You know, like my family’s like, [00:28:00] we’re, we’re all successful people, we’re fine.

Susan Kellerman (2): You know, like, I, I just wanna make people happy with bathed goods and make a living like, okay, maybe it’s gonna get to the point where. We’ve got profit coming in. There’s other things I can do. Let’s look, the only other thing that I’ve thought of is expanding perhaps to another city where there’s another core group of American expats or British expats, or people who understand and appreciate the style of baked food that I have, like Malaga.

Susan Kellerman (2): ’cause I know there’s a lot of people moving down south. And let’s face it, selfishly, I wouldn’t mind having a place here, a place in Malaga. I wanna go to the beach. Like I’ll go to the beach in the winter. I’ll be back up here, you know, whatever. So. That’s really only ever wanna see. The only other thing that I could imagine, which was actually my very first idea.

Susan Kellerman (2): Was like a, a performing and creative arts center, like a community center, kind of getting back to the community thing and combining [00:29:00] my passion for integrated arts, dance, music, visual arts, kind of connected and learning together with food and like the creative food arts. That would be the only other thing that I could see without expanding to another city, and in fact, I might, that might be a first.

Susan Kellerman (2): I might wanna prefer to do that before the other, just because that would take what I always thought I was going to be doing for the rest of my life, which is being a music teacher with what I’m currently doing and be a pretty kind of fun, happy marriage and something that you don’t have here and I think is, would be quite unique in Madrid.

Susan Kellerman (2): I don’t know. Who knows? But again, I’ve, I do know that. What I, what I see myself doing and what you dream, it doesn’t necessarily always happen and in most cases it doesn’t happen that way. I never thought a year ago, actually, I remember giving a talk to a group of students from DePaul University in Chicago that came here, their master’s in business something or other, I don’t know.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I got connected with our professor and so [00:30:00] they just picked my brain for like an hour and a half, and I remember at that point. Saying, oh, sometime I’d like an employee, da da da da. And I literally have had an like, I mean, she’s part-time, but I now have an employee. I never, ever would’ve thought that in a year I would’ve had one, and that I’m actually actively looking for another location.

Susan Kellerman (2): So who knows what the dream will be. A dog. I’d like to have a dog at some point. Not in the bacon or in the bakery. In the bakery.

Sara Ferrer: Susan, you, I wanna just be on like we need in like six months, one year, two years, three years to like update like where, because there’s so much possibility with where this could be like, which is actually exciting.

Sara Ferrer: I think the idea that. First of all, I think the idea that the goal for you, like you said, is to make a living, is to enjoy what you do. But there’s, there’s, that is success too. You know, it’s not just like, Hey, I wanna max out and I wanna take it to the limit. Because then we all know, and we talk a lot about this on the podcast.

Sara Ferrer: There’s balance to life, right? The more you want something more, you have to [00:31:00] sacrifice something. What I’m hearing is like, I wanna make people happy, make an honest living, have a paycheck, um, love the people I’m around, but not necessarily sacrifice my time anymore to make more money, to be more miserable around the people that I love.

Serena Reynolds (2): Well, who, who said success had to be a number? No one said that.

Susan Kellerman (2): It’s interesting you say that, Serena, because one of, I, I, I did a lot of reflecting before I left teaching because that was a big leap. I never, ever saw myself doing anything other than teaching. My dad was a teacher, my mom was a teacher, and it just was my life.

Susan Kellerman (2): And one of the books that I read, dark Horse by Todd Rose, talks about people who have, have become successful through a, um, unconventional channel, not. To undergrad, going to master’s degree, getting a job, making money, whatever, whatever, some other way. And this is exactly what he talks about. He’s like, Tahi talks about success not necessarily being money.

Susan Kellerman (2): It’s being fulfilling you as a person. [00:32:00] Right. And I now know what I need. To feel fulfilled. You know, I need, I need to make people happy. I need to help others. I need to work with my hands. You know, I need to have some type of control. I’m learning how to give up control and I’m learning how to give up, how to give up my perfectionism qualities.

Susan Kellerman (2): And it’s, it’s that, that’s kind of what it is. And let’s face it, I pushed myself to limit when I was a teacher. Like that was for the first half of my career. I don’t need to do, I don’t have the energy to do that anymore. Like I just. Uh, I, I know I need to push and I know it’s gonna be a push, it’s gonna continue to be a push, especially let’s say when, not if, when I find this other, this my new space.

Susan Kellerman (2): I mean, it’s gonna be a good year or two of, of sacrifice and time, but I know that I can do it and I’m okay with that because I know that there’s, it will back down at some point. It’ll still be full on. ’cause you’re gonna be a business owner. Right. I get that and I’m okay with that. But you know, kind of the.

Susan Kellerman (2): The push period there, [00:33:00] there’s a limit to it, typically. Typically. So.

Sara Ferrer: You mentioned having control, right? You mentioned like being in control, which, which makes sense. You’re, you’re a business owner, but I wanna, I wanna throw a little curve ball at you. I want to ask you a question from our last, one of our last guests.

Sara Ferrer: So you are not in control right now. You have no idea what we’re gonna ask, but this is from our, um, our last guest, Brianna, who is a travel, um, advisor, and she plans vacations and, and she has all these wonderful things. But I wanna ask you her question. Her question is, what’s a vacation memory that still makes you smile or sticks with you today?

Susan Kellerman (2): There’s honestly, there’s so many, um, summiting Mount Kilimanjaro. I mean, that will never get old. Those memories will never get old. I will never do it again. And it wasn’t your typical vacation, obviously. It was. Six and a half days of [00:34:00] climbing up and one and a half days of going down and my body was wrecked.

Susan Kellerman (2): But it was pretty, it was pretty cool.

Sara Ferrer: What inspired you to do that? Um, you really wanna know? Yes, because that, I mean, you say it’s your, it’s a great memory. Your body was wrecked. I mean, there’s a little bit of like,

Susan Kellerman (2): listen how cray cray I am. I did my first overland trip to Africa in, uh, it was spring break of 2013, March of 2013.

Susan Kellerman (2): And it was an overland trip from Nairobi. We went through like, kind of like went over the RIF Valley in south into like into Tanzania Lake Victoria, up through the Serengeti, and we got to a point where we had to drop some people off in ausa, Tanzania ’cause they were gonna go hike, killi. And then we went back up to Nairobi and like it, and I’m like, oh, huh.

Susan Kellerman (2): I like hiking. Oh, wait, I still have time on my visa. I can come back again. Maybe I’ll just hike killi [00:35:00] didn’t come back on that visa, but I did end up training and I just, I made it a goal. I’m like, I’m gonna hike killi.

Serena Reynolds (2): Is it not just fas I always find it fascinating that it’s always the challenges that you overcome that become your best memories.

Serena Reynolds (2): It’s not the, uh, you started off nice, it was really nice all the way through, and it ended up really nice. It was, it’s always like, you know, I trained hard. I did this. It was something super exciting. It was really tough. It wrecked me. And that was, that’s, that’s the memory you brought to us. I

Susan Kellerman (2): think that’s important for all of us to remember is that.

Susan Kellerman (2): The best things in life are earned. I mean, I think back to my master’s degree. I mean, I’m, I’m proud of my undergrad degree and I love that time, but my master’s degree was mine. I completely paid for it myself. It was all my doing. I never thought I’d go back for a master’s degree and it was hard work. I.

Susan Kellerman (2): There was probably, probably blood, sweat and tears for that degree, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made and I’m super proud of it. Just like [00:36:00] killi, right? It was like this pie in the sky, no pun intended challenge that I never thought I would set myself and I did. And I kind of feel like the business is that right now.

Susan Kellerman (2): Like, and I’m determined like, and in fact this morning I was in one of like those down. I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s never gonna happen. But I have to, I just, I’ve learned the power of trust and faith and. Things that you don’t even know are out there. I just have to believe that I know that I believe in my product.

Susan Kellerman (2): I know everybody who tastes nearly, everybody who tastes my product believes in it. So I just have to go with that and stick with it and like, you know, head down blinders on, you know. As my track coach would say, you know, what’s coming down the pike? Like, just head down the pike. I

Sara Ferrer: love that. I love that.

Sara Ferrer: So, so let me ask you now, let me put you in the hot seat. What would you ask? You have no idea who the next guest is gonna be. It can be, I don’t know, a, a, a, um, a life coach. It can be the owner of, of a retail store. It could be an engineer. [00:37:00] Who knows? What do you wanna ask them from Susan Kellerman? What’s your question?

Susan Kellerman (2): What makes a good dessert? A good dessert? Or what like, or like what makes a memorable dessert? A memorable dessert? I wanna know, because ultimately that’s what I wanna do, right? That’s, I just wanna make desserts memorable because then people will want to continue buying them.

Sara Ferrer: Love that. Love that. Love that.

Sara Ferrer: Love that. We’ve got that written down. I think that’s a. That’s a nice universal question too, you know? ’cause it’s like, at the end of the day it’s, it seems like it might be like easy, kinda like chocolate or vanilla type of question, but it’s not, you really gotta think about what, what feelings are behind it.

Sara Ferrer: It’s more than taste. Is it the aesthetics? Is it the taste? Is it the, the feeling? Is it the memory associated? What makes a dessert memorable? I’m a big believer it’s who you’re eating it with. Like I, I am a huge believer in life, whether it’s dessert or, you know, I’d rather be, uh, uh, in a mediocre [00:38:00] place with great people eating mediocre food than to be in a fabulous place with fabulous food, with shit people.

Serena Reynolds (2): I’m focusing on the food itself. And, and mine is, is, is sweet with fruit.

Sara Ferrer: But you know, Susan, to answer your, I I think that’s true. A little bit more of a. I, um, to piggyback on that, Serena, I think to your point, what I think when someone for me, which plays into what you do, Susan, this has not said just to humor you, but, um, when someone makes something for you, you know, when someone says, Hey, I thought of you.

Sara Ferrer: That powerful sentence I thought of, I was thinking of you. And then whether it’s just a text message, oh, I was just thinking about you when I saw this. Or, it’s a baked good. Hey, you know, I saw you and I need you. Didn’t you say you love that pumpkin moose or whatever? That warm fuzzy you thought of me.

Susan Kellerman (2): Yeah, it is. Because I do believe in that energy that that energy translates into the dessert, whatever. Even if [00:39:00] you don’t make it. Yeah. It’s there.

Sara Ferrer: Where do, where does, okay, someone’s listening. They’re in Madrid, or they know someone who is studying in Madrid. Living in Madrid. People go, okay, Susan gets it.

Sara Ferrer: High quality ingredients. She has an opinion, which is great because you want your baker to know what tastes good and what doesn’t. There’s no in between. This is what I do. I do it great. If you love it, good. If not, no shade. Where do people find you? Where do people find you? Where do they order their goodies?

Susan Kellerman (2): Uh, online. I have an online store, tasty cakes, madrid.com plus website and all the about me and all that stuff. If. You wanna come and swing by and look in my little fish bowl of a kitchen. I’m in the Mercado Barcelo, which is the little community, uh, market in the tribunal, Alonso Martinez area, Calle Barcelo 6. I’m on the second floor, one of the little takeaway kitchens.

Susan Kellerman (2): You can email me, you can call, you can WhatsApp. If we’re here and we’re busy, we’ll try and make time to see you. If we’re not busy, of course we’ll [00:40:00] step out and, and see you today, in fact, and some days we’ve got little. Nibbles to try outside. I actually have to like pay people to, I don’t pay people to take them, but I have to tell them, take the freebies.

Susan Kellerman (2): Like people don’t wanna take the freebies like it. And there’s a sign. There’s literally a sign. And I kid you not in both languages. Is it both languages? It says puebame, try me. And then underneath gratiz free. And people knock on the window, look at me and say, can I, I’m. No, you can’t. Like I would’ve say no.

Susan Kellerman (2): If you can’t read the sign, you don’t get my baked goods. Sorry. Just come by. Try the baked goods. I think, ’cause I was talking to another friend of mine who’s British, she’s like, oh, I think it’s really cheeky. I’m like, how is it cheeky? If I’m literally telling you it’s free

Serena Reynolds: there. There is, it’s this, there is an awkwardness to it.

Susan Kellerman (2): I think

Susan Kellerman (2): it’s the American, I mean, Sara, do you think it’s cheeky?

Sara Ferrer: No, I think the sign says free grab it. I like, I,

Serena Reynolds (2): I see people [00:41:00] in Costco, right? You’ve got these stand, they’re, they’re, you know, these people are paid to give you stuff for free and people look up and go, Hmm, not sure I like that or not. Hmm.

Serena Reynolds (2): And they, they give you a, a full breakdown of the experience just to kind of validate them, taking it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Ferrer: I do agree with Serena that like, I would take it, but then I’d be like, okay, if I take this. If I take this, I’ve got no, I’ve gotta, like, really, I’m not gonna take it and go, if I take it, I gotta give this owner the benefit of seeing me eat it.

Sara Ferrer: And then if, if I have feedback like, Hey, knock, knock, super moist, great job.

Susan Kellerman (2): No, listen, I know it’s moist. I just baked it. Take it and run and listen. I’m behind a glass, uh, a plastic glass wall. You can’t talk to me. I’m like busy making unicorn cakes, you know?

Sara Ferrer: Actually, that’s the best. You know what, Susan, you’ve cracked the code of giving out free samples.

Sara Ferrer: I can take it. There’s a sign I, I’m not looking at you while I do it. So whether I love it or hate it, I can enjoy it in peace. Susan, you have figured out how to [00:42:00] sample in the best way possible. Go sample Susan’s baked goods and stop asking her. Yes,

Susan Kellerman (2): just take it and run and then snap the QR code and then you can place your order.

Sara Ferrer: Love that. Love that and we’ll have it for you in like two, three days. We’re good to go. You are such a ball of energy. You are. So like, remember in the beginning of the podcast we talked about in my, in my experience, kind of idealizing, romanticizing the baker, the coffee shop owner you have, you’ve checked off every box for me where I’m like, she’s funny.

Sara Ferrer: She’s with it, she’s direct, she knows what she wants and she looks adorable with her little bow head like you are crushing it. Listen, I did do my hair nicer for today. I have to say that Full disclosure. You, but, but you look great. I think that you, I think what’s refreshing is that like I. You can enjoy the quality of baked goods.

Sara Ferrer: You can enjoy high quality ingredients. And I think it’s really nice when we, when we have, uh, guests on that, there is [00:43:00] that, that warm fuzzy feeling that you can embrace. But to your point, there can also be like you have an accountant. Know your books. Where are you going month over month? You’re increasing, what months are your best year?

Sara Ferrer: What is it? A cyclical business. I think that that’s very empowering, that, you know, the warm fuzzy feelings are good, but like to make a business. Run. You’ve gotta know fundamentally how to run a business and then go from there. So it’s been a really, a great conversation of both worlds coming together.

Susan Kellerman (2): And I’m still learning. I mean, I don’t, of course, I don’t believe I really know how to run a business. I have people around me to help me and whatever, but I, I, there’s some innate in there, I think. And so I’m just kind of running with that and what I, and trust my instincts, what I think I need to do. I, I get confirmation from somebody who knows a little bit more about business and then I go with it, you know, so it just comes back to trusting and, and you know, being aware and, yeah.

Serena Reynolds (2): 20 years of running my own business, I still dunno what I’m doing. I. See,

Susan Kellerman (2): good still learning, die, [00:44:00] not

Susan Kellerman (2): knowing what I’m doing.

Sara Ferrer: The most success, the most successful people, and I’ve, we’ve figured this out straight in our experience together. And personally, most successful people, once they hit that new milestone, okay, you made it to a hundred thousand.

Sara Ferrer: Okay, now you made it to 300. They go, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And they don’t say it, you know, as a way to be like, oh, poor me. But it’s, it’s the challenge and the learning of the next step versus Oh, I know. Exactly. I always say don’t trust someone in, in life who says that they have it all together all the time.

Sara Ferrer: They’re usually falling apart much quicker and much more violently than the person who goes, I, I, I kind of know what I’m doing, but I’m, I’m a, I’m a student and I’m learning, but I’ll figure it out. Trust that person

Serena Reynolds (2): the, the most businesses. Stagnate when they think they’ve hit what they call the top. And that’s never as far as they could go.

Serena Reynolds (2): Or even as we discussed earlier, what their perception of success actually looks like. [00:45:00]

Susan Kellerman (2): You know, and it’s, that’s something I always come back to too, because I see these other, not bakeries, not exactly like what I do, but you know, similar sector. And I’m like, listen, they’ve made it. At least it looks like they’ve made it.

Susan Kellerman (2): There’s gotta be a way, number one, that I can make it. And number two, they may be floundering and I might not know it. You know, they may be putting up the good front and I might actually, even though I feel like I’m floundering sometimes. I mean, this is the thing. So I just, I. I try and not, you know, we talk about competition.

Susan Kellerman (2): I try and not worry about that. I just focus on me. Focus. I know what I know I can do. The people who come to me and why they come to me and, and, and that what I, I just, yeah, stay, stay true to that and then just trust that it’s all gonna work out the way it’s gonna work out. So.

Serena Reynolds (2): Well, it’s been a great conversation.

Serena Reynolds (2): We’ve really enjoyed ourselves today. Thank you so much.

Susan Kellerman: Thanks, you guys have a great [00:46:00] day.