What's Next

Existing Market

1. I think my next steep should be going into catering and making larger orders, so large orders of cupcakes or cakes for parties such as birthdays and weddings. I think this should be my next step so for any occasion, my customers can enjoy my sweets. I also think this will allow me to broaden my customer intake because now people can order my product for larger venues, this will help ensure customer loyalty.
2. I went back to my pre-existing customers and asked them what they thought should be my company's next move. I also asked them what they thought of my current next step of action and how they would react to such additions.

3. I think the next best step of action would be to actually offer cooking classes. I thought this was a great idea that one of the people I interviewed had and I think it could really broaden my market. This would be a very doable next step of action as it would require very little finance to help start it. This would help broaden my market because now any age would become more interested. A lot of people find cooking classes very fun and a good activity to do. This would make it the perfect addition to draw in more customers as people that like to cook, or have no idea how to cook, all enjoy learning new ways to bake yummy things.

New Market

1. Before I was targeting those with dietary restrictions, or those who had close friends and family that were restricted by what they could eat. I now decided to venture into the market in which people are not at all affected by these restrictions to see what I could do to draw their attention.

2. I think the first and most obvious thing I could do to add value to my business from this market would be to add products that are "normal," or, in other words, aren't different in ways of dietary restrictions. However, because my company's mission is to not just provide a bakery for those with dietary restrictions, but to also ensure that we pay attention and bring value to the quality ingredients we use, these "normal" goods would still be made with only high-quality ingredients. 

3. I interviewed people in the new market that I named in step 1 and asked them what they thought my next step would be. Some gave answers that would expand my current range that had to do with dietary restrictions, others agreed with me and said I should add these "normal" foods to my menu.

4. What surprised me the most by these new market interviews was how many of them actually gave answers that stayed "within the lines" of my current market and business. None of these answers were too out there or too new. I had guessed, as I said above, that at least one person would say to add the "normal" food to the menu, but I didn't think that so many answers would stay on the current line of vegan, gluten-free and sugar-free. I expected to here more answers about adding "normal" food, or maybe drinks (like smoothies) to my menu because I thought they as people not affected by these diets, they would see my bakery as more of a health shop than a place just for people to go and grab a quick sweet. I was surprised that many of these new customers really understood right away though that this wasn't just a health shop because we served vegan food or so on.

I obviously expected to hear a lot about adding the "regular" food to my menu. The only problem with doing so is how to do this in reality. It worries me to add too many diets to my menu because of the behind-the-scenes reality of keeping all of these dishes separate. I already thought I would have a hard time in keeping just the three diets separate in the kitchen, I'm not sure how much more it could handle. We would definitely have to have a very big kitchen in order to do so, or at least, a lot of storage for all the separate dish-ware we'd have to have on hand. 

This new market is not too attractive now interviewing three people. I thought it would be so easy to gain the attention of people without dietary restrictions and that they'd be open to trying new things. However, it doesn't sound like they really would be open to trying these different baked goods. Even those that said I should expand on my current range didn't seem to actually be interested in this food themselves, they seemed to be making this suggestion on the behalf of those with these restrictions.