top of page
Search

Microbakery Mindset: Five Shifts That Grow Your Business | Episode 77

  • Apr 17, 2025
  • 7 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


You can have a clean bake schedule, a pricing spreadsheet that actually works, and a market table that looks like something out of a magazine, and still feel stuck. I see it constantly in this space. The strategy is sitting right there on the counter and something inside you is holding the brake pedal down.


Most of the time that something is a belief you have not looked at in a while. What you charge, how often you show up, whether you reach out to the baker across town, whether you call yourself a business owner out loud in front of people. All of that comes out of what you believe about your work.


So I want to walk through five shifts that change how you run a microbakery. These came up over and over when I gathered a couple thousand microbakery owners together for a two day virtual summit, in the expert sessions, in the Q&As, and in the conversations happening in the community all weekend. This is not the fluffy kind of mindset talk. These are the steady, daily beliefs that end up showing in your numbers.


1. Feeling like an imposter is evidence that you are growing

My business coach told me that if you feel like an imposter, it is a really good sign, because it means you are doing something new. You do not feel like an imposter repeating something you have already mastered. That reframe changed things for me.


I am not the most qualified person in the world to host a podcast about business. There are people with more years and more credentials. What I have is that I am the one who is positioned to do it, and nobody brings my exact perspective to it. The same is true for you in your town.


So the next time the thought creeps in that someone else could do this better, try trading it for this one: I am a beginner at a new level, and that is exactly what growth feels like.


Then act like the owner you already are. No matter the size of your bakery, this is your trade and your profession. Ten loaves a week or a hundred loaves a week, you are a professional, and you get to own that in the way you talk about your business:

  • Say "my bakery" instead of "the bread thing I do."

  • Send the wholesale email to the coffee shop you have been circling for months.

  • Apply to the market you assume you are too small for.

  • Put your prices on your site in plain numbers with no apology attached.


2. You cannot outwork poor pricing

Megan Morales said something on the show that I think about all the time. If your customers are telling you your prices are too low, they probably are. When someone says "I did not expect it to be that cheap," what they are telling you is that they are already paying more somewhere else and they would happily pay it to you.


Underpricing turns your bakery into a sprint you cannot sustain. You can love the work and still end up exhausted, broke, resentful, and done. That is the fastest road to burnout I know, and it is paved with sold out bake days.


A business that lasts is priced for reality: your ingredients, your packaging, your time, and the value of what you hand over. If you are hustling constantly and still not making ends meet, please stop trying to bake your way out of it and go rework your numbers instead.


Here is the work: calculate the cost of your ingredients and packaging per item, add an honest hourly rate for your own labor, and see what is actually left. Your business is allowed to pay you. It has to pay you if you want it to still be here in three years.


3. Connection beats competition

One of my favorite moments from the summit came from Tara Welch. She started a group chat with five local bakers, the people she could have treated as her competition, and it has grown into a community of more than sixty bakers in Arizona.


That is what happens when you stop guarding your corner. You do not need a huge following to grow a microbakery. You need a handful of real relationships with people who understand why you start your day at three in the morning.


You also do not need to over-explain or defend your spot in the market. You may bake the same style of loaf as someone twenty minutes away and still be offering a completely different experience, because the story and the person behind the counter are different. Stay true to who you are and tell that story, and you will be the one with staying power in your area.


4. Consistency will beat perfection every single time

If you have ever scrapped an idea because it was not polished enough, put your hand up. Mine is up too. Perfectionism is sneaky. It tells you that waiting until everything is finished is the responsible choice, when it is usually fear wearing a productivity costume.


James made this point at the summit in a way that stuck with me. He does not think we should be chasing the perfect loaf. He thinks we should be chasing a consistent one, because a customer who knows exactly what to expect will come back, and you can improve in small increments over time. A consistent loaf beats a loaf that is over proofed one week and under proofed the next.


In practice, consistency looks ordinary:

  • Posting once a week even when the lighting in your kitchen is bad.

  • Showing up at the same market with a homemade sign so people learn where to find you.

  • Launching the new menu before the graphics are flawless.

  • Opening pre-orders on the same day every week so your customers build a habit around you.

Kayla Hembry could have waited until every system was perfect before she started teaching classes. She started anyway, and two years later she has taught more than 2,300 students and built a whole new revenue stream out of it. Small brave first step, then consistent next steps.


I will say the same thing about this show. Seventy-seven episodes in, publishing twice a week since July, and it grew into a summit with a couple thousand bakers from around the world. None of the early episodes were perfect. They were just consistent.


5. Your bakery is about more than bread

This one showed up in every single session of the summit, whether anyone named it or not. From Sarah's keynote, to Wendy House talking about her honor system stand, to Maria Ardell on messaging, the theme was the same. We are not only selling loaves here.


You are advocating for real food in your neighborhood. You are building rhythms that support your own home while you feed other people's. Small does not mean insignificant. Small means personal, and personal is exactly what this movement needs.


You do not need to be an influencer with a big following to matter. Owning your small radius and being the village baker for the people right around you is how the tide turns.


If you are one to three years in

The shifts above are not one-time decisions. They drift while you are busy filling orders, and you usually do not notice until a season has gone by. I am a big believer in taking a step back every quarter to check in with your values and the mission of your business and make sure you are still lined up with them.


Put ninety minutes on the calendar this quarter and run through four questions:

  1. Have my ingredient and packaging costs changed since I last set my prices?

  2. What am I putting off right now because it is not perfect yet?

  3. Which local baker could I reach out to this month, and what would I offer them?

  4. What am I doing out of habit that no longer fits the business I am building?

Write down one change per question and do those four things before the next quarter starts. That is how mindset stops being a feeling and turns into a decision you can see in your books.


Final thoughts

Mindset work is not loud, and it will never look as productive as another bake day. It is the thing that makes every strategy you have already learned actually stick. None of these five shifts are about becoming a different person. They are about running the business you already have with more confidence and less apology.


You are not behind and you are not too small. You are building something that matters, and I am so glad you are here doing it!


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If this one landed, these three go deeper on the same ideas.


Links to things you might like!


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page