Maxwell weber

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Freestyle Academy for giving me the knowledge and ability to make this book. And special thanks to Susan and Sam Klepper as well as Laurie Hartford for allowing me to listen to their stories.

Table of Contents Preface ---------------------------------------------------------------

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Introduction --------------------------------------------------------

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Chapter 1: The Brand -------------------------------------------

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Chapter 2: The Business ---------------------------------------

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Chapter 3: The Heart -------------------------------------------

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Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------

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Works Cited --------------------------------------------------------

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Preface

Throughout the entire process of this project, I encountered many more challenges than I would have expected. The stories from the seniors were nothing but true and the documentary is in fact the hardest project I have endured in all my years as a student.

The initial stages of the project seemed nonthreatening until time became an issue. My first topic choice created scheduling difficulties which rendered all of my prep work useless, and I then had to start again from scratch, putting me at a great disadvantage. Luckily I stumbled across Susan Klepper’s facebook page allowing me to discover her bakery, Sweet Sue’s Treats. The sensation of relief was overwhelming and the feeling got even better when I realized that her bakery was a two minute walk from my house. After looking more into her bakery, I knew this was what I wanted to do my project on. I saw a nice, sweet bakery that I wanted others to know about.

Small businesses may be very common but the effort and passion put into their work sometimes goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Through this project, I just wanted to tell the story of a woman who started a business in her own home to pursue her passion of baking.

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“It’s just at the tip of the iceberg right now. I’m just gonna keep going and keep driving on this... It’s kind of a new beginning and it’s really fun.”

- Susan Klepper

Introduction

Imagine coming home after a long, hard day and you finally pull out a chair in your kitchen. As you sit down, you fidget around until you fall into a more relaxing position. As your stomach grumbles, you’re reminded of the one thing you’ve been craving all day. You can almost smell the amazing aroma as if it were freshly baked in the oven. All day you’ve been dreaming about the ultimate comfort food: cookies. You get up and slide over to the cupboard with excitement.

You peer into the cupboard and a smile of satisfaction stretches across your face. Focus on the cookies you see in front of you and think about every detail about it that makes it so perfect.

Now think, how did you get this perfect snack?

The world is ripe with opportunity. New businesses are springing up all around us, many of them are specifically designed around the idea of catering to the needs of the community. One class of small business that most of us are quite fond of is bakeries. Bakeries, no matter how insignificant we may treat them, are an important part of our communities. Many, if not all of us, have experienced a craving for food at least once if our lives. Food is a major part of our lives, it’s a necessity, and throughout history, mankind has worked relentlessly to make the experience of eat-

ing incredible. Bakeries are institutions that offer this stunning experience of great food by using knowledge passed down for hundreds of years to make treats for the community. We value these treats because of the satisfaction we get from consuming these refined meals which are designed to taste like the best things you have ever eaten.

We rely on bakeries as a service to the community. To a degree, they are suppliers of our satisfaction. The fact is simple; eating makes us happy.

Sweet Sue’s Treats, a small home bakery located in the Los Altos area, aims to meet the standard as a supplier of happiness with the motto “happiness delivered.” Susan Klepper moved to the Bay Area 23 years ago to start her cookie business with her husband. She has always had a passion for baking and it was her dream to start and follow through on this project. Her business is all home-based and this creates a very appealing and friendly atmosphere. Her goal, above all, was to have fun baking and to make people happy. In my opinion, in order to maintain a successful bakery, one must create an appealing atmosphere, advertise using the community itself, and care about the nutritional value of the products.

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Chapter 1: The Brand O

ne major importance in starting a business is creating an atmosphere that customers feel welcome in. Along with the happy colors and balloons all around the front of her house, Mrs. Klepper’s cart is a thing of beauty. Each treat is delicately wrapped and presented well. The whole environment is pleasing. Susan Klepper prides herself in making a “grandma’s kitchen feeling.” She

realized from the start that having something presentable and desirable is a necessity to attract consistent customers. “Kind of a comforting brand...

Everything’s pure, 100%... You take a bite and it kind of brings you to a period in your life where you’re like, ‘This tastes good. This resonates with me and I feel good when I eat this’” (Klepper, Susan). And her customers have shown to love

her treats. Some of her adoring customers are a part of the bakery in a way. Her good friend and assistant in business, Lauria Hartford is a huge fan of Susan’s bakery. “‘You should try these cookies.

They’re amazing, and they’re so good.’ I like to tell people that in our house now, those cookies, they’re not even called chocolate chip cookies, they’re called Susan Kleppers.

So now, I’ll say, “Hey, 11

what do you want for snack,” and he’ll say, ‘Do we have any ‘Kleppers?’” (Hartford).

Laurie shared that her son is one of the many in the world who can be picky at times with what they eat. Once she introduced him to Sweet Sue’s Treats, a wave a relief washed over her because she found something both her and her son greatly enjoy. As a nutritionist who has assisted Mrs. Klepper with her reci-

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pes and ingredients, Laurie can take comfort in the fact that the treats her son enjoys so much and often eats before school in the morning are perfectly safe and healthy. The Hartfords are regular fans and are always interested in more product. They will stop by each Friday, without fail, for her stand, along with many others. The treats that Susan makes so amazingly have become a

large part of their lives.

That is the important part of what Mrs. Klepper is doing with her bakery. Not only is she selling treats, but she is providing happiness to her customers.

The best way to get to somebody’s heart is through their stomach.

“‘Oh my god,’ I had to text her right away. I said, ‘Do it, do it, do the bars, do the bites, they are so good, they’re different.’”

- Laurie Hartford

Chapter 2: The Business S

am Klepper, Susan’s husband, handles the marketing side of their business. “So step one was the pricing. Step two, I would say, was then putting together her website.”

(Klepper, Sam) Mr. Klepper took very precise measurements in finding the exact costs for production. While Susan was baking inside their kitchen, Sam would stand outside and check the measurements on the smart

meter to see how much electricity they were even using during the process as well as the pricing for ingredients and packaging materials. After all the data was allocated, they found what they decided to be the fairest prices for the products.

Then came the largely important step of creating a website. In this modern age, a website, a facebook page, or even a twitter may seem like necessities

to spread the word and keep your customers updated. The usefulness of the internet has increased the bakery’s advertising potential.

But spreading the word shouldn’t only be done over social media and emails. Along with social media, advertising should also be done using connection within the community itself. Mr. Klepper and Mrs. Hartford both helped in achieving many of her customers 17

including local offices in the Bay Area such as Apple, Yahoo, Harmonic and SAAP. “I’ve also kind of helped her with, I guess, I mean not formally, but just I do know a lot of people in the area- realtors in particular. So I was talking her up and I referred a few of my realtor friends to her that then have signed her up to come to their open houses and come to their offices…”

(Hartford). Other than

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large companies and regular customers, Sweet Sue’s Treats is in touch with many realtors who would use her excellent treats at open houses to attract and maintain potential buyers of their own.

“...I love her cookies, everybody does.”

- Laurie Hartford

Chapter 3: The Heart T

he Klepper’s came to the Bay Area twenty-three years ago to pursue her passion of baking. After settling into the area, Susan took up a cookie business. “And that particular business was set up with small startups in Silicon Valley.

And I did focus groups, and I did conferences.

And it was very small, but for about a year and a half to two years, that’s what I did” (Klepper, Susan).

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The business was put on hold when her children came. And after all those years, Susan starts up Sweet Sue’s Treats. After meeting Laurie Hartford at a mutual dog park, the two of them grew closer and Laurie eventually found out about her bakery. Mrs. Klepper would occasionally bring treats to the dog park to share. As a nutritionist, Laurie would be able to help manage the health of

the treats Susan would provide. Good nutrition is vital for a thriving bakery. Unlike hundreds of years in the past, people care about nutritional values in the meals they will potentially eat or feed to their children.

After working with Susan’s recipes and offering healthier alternatives to some ingredients, Laurie is happy to have her son snack on a muffin or cookie from Susan’s cart.

They often buy a large supply from Susan and Mrs. Hartford’s son will occasionally take a couple muffins out of the door on his way to school and his mother is fine with that.

Health matters and more bakeries should care as much as Sweet Sue’s Treats cares.

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Conclusion

When an artist creates his masterpiece, he does not do it with a lack of emotion, or lack of care. The same applies for any creation whether it be a book or a bakery. If you want to make something others will enjoy, you have to appreciate it yourself first. You have to care about the time and work your put into the project to end up with something you are proud of. You have to care about the emotional and physical value of your creation. Susan Klepper cares about Sweet Sue’s Treats. Baking has been her passion for many years of her life and she made something important out of her skill with the time and effort she put into refining it.

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Bibliography Works Cited Amos, Wally, and Eden Murray. The Cookie Never Crumbles. New York: St. Martin’s, 2001.

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Bradley, Kate. “The Importance of Baking Skills.”Everydaylife.globalpost.com. Web. Celmer, Lynn. “Rising to the top.” Private Label Buyer Mar. 2011: 26+. Student Resources in

Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Frost, Shelly. “What Goes Into Starting Up a Small Bakery?” Smallbusiness.chron.com. Web. Gopnik, Adam. “Bakeoff.” The New Yorker 3 Nov. 2014: 42. Student Resources in Context. Web.

16 Apr. 2015.

Hartford, Laurie. Personal Interview. 29 March 2015 “How to Start a Home-Based Bakery Business.” California Bookwatch Apr. 2011. Student

Resources in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Idov, Michael. “Start Your Own...” Nymag.com. Web. Johnson, James C. “Starting a bakery.” Black Enterprise June 2006: 66. Student Resources in

Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Klepper, Sam. Personal Interview. 24 March 2015 Klepper, Susan. Personal Interview. 24 March 2015 McIndoo, Heidi. “Best in bagels: size does matter.” Environmental Nutrition Apr. 2012: 5.

Student Resources in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

McQuarrie, Jack. “How to Start a Home Bakery of Your Own.” Motherearthnews.com. 1 Jan.

1976. Web. Paul, Stevenrio. “Importance of Bakery Products in Our Daily Life.” Sooperarticles.com. 6 July

2012. Web. Williams, Stephen. “Baking for Profit: Starting a Small Bakery. (Reviews).” African Business

Jan. 2002: 50. Student Resources in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

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About the Author: Max Weber is a junior attending Los Altos High School and Freestyle Academy in Northern California. His creative interests include graphic design, drawing, and photography.

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