Melissa Ben-Ishay’s “love language” has all the time been baking. So when she was laid off from her promoting job at 24, following her passion in business gave the look of the perfect opportunity. Her brother Brian Bushell encouraged her to make use of it. “We ended up creating an amazing product that makes people happy in good times and bad,” Ben-Ishay says.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Baked By Melissa. Co-Founder & CEO Melissa Ben-Ishay.
Ben-Ishay, along with co-founders Brian Bushell, Matt Baer, Danny Omari and Ben Zion, created the mini cupcake brand in 2008.
The company, which recently celebrated its sweet 16, has grown significantly over the years into a multi-million dollar business that delivers nationwide and has 13 retail locations in the New York and Boston areas.
Baked By Melissa has sold greater than 350 million cupcakes, built an online community of three.8 million followers, and expanded into latest categories with leading brands like Oatly and Entenmann’s.
Ben-Ishay has also grown as an entrepreneur and leader over the past decade. In 2019, just before the pandemic, she took over as CEO, and in 2021, she gained viral fame on TikTok with her recipe for Green Goddess Salad. Her cookbook Come hungry was published earlier this 12 months and became New York Times best-seller.
The driving force behind her success, in line with Ben-Ishay? Her ability to grasp what she doesn’t know — and reach out to individuals who do.
“I love being wrong,” Ben-Ishay says. “I don’t think I know everything. In fact, the older I get and the more experience I have, the less I know. And that’s something I know for sure. And I think that’s an incredibly important mindset for a leader and an entrepreneur.”
Photo credit: courtesy of Baked By Melissa
Ben Ishay said Entrepreneur about a few key situations in which this approach helped Baked By Melissa on its path to success.
Relying on human capital in the early days of a company
At first, Ben-Ishay made cupcakes in the kitchen of her New York apartment and delivered them on the subway, calling caterers to assist spread the word. The following 12 months, she opened her first Baked By Melissa retail store, a small pickup window in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.
In those early days, all of Baked By Melissa’s profits went straight back into the business. The company didn’t take on any outside funding and stays privately held to today. Ben-Ishay’s co-founders brought unique, complementary skill sets to the company and provided invaluable human capital, he says.
According to Ben-Ishay, her brother Bushell “is a born entrepreneur” who saw the potential of Baked By Melissa before she did and served as the company’s CEO for eight years.
Baer created and designed all visual elements of the brand in its early days, and Omari’s Cafe Bari was home to the first business kitchen and retail outlet for Baked By Melissa on the corner of Spring Street and Broadway.
Plus, Zion “is an incredible networker and has been able to get our little treats to every movie premiere, every nightclub, every red carpet event, and every celebrity guest room you could imagine,” Ben-Ishay recalls.
I’m a bit reluctant to step into the CEO role
Ben-Ishay didn’t take on the CEO role until December 2019, greater than a decade after launching Baked By Melissa. “I didn’t think I wanted to be CEO,” she admits. “I didn’t plan on being CEO. There were circumstances that led my board to appoint me CEO at the last minute.”
At first, Ben-Ishay was “terrified” to take on the leadership role, especially as the company headed into a busy holiday season. But she also saw an incredible opportunity. Ben-Ishay took the challenge—and it paid off.
“We broke our holiday sales records that month,” Ben-Ishay recalls. “Two months later, we broke records again on our busiest holiday, Valentine’s Day. In the immediate aftermath, I led our team through a global pandemic (while working from home with two small children) and we came out stronger than ever.”
This experience taught Ben-Ishay how essential it is to arise for yourself and pursue ambitious goals.
“You might think it’s just a dream and impossible—but I bet it is possible,” Ben-Ishay says. “I learned that we have to do the things that scare us the most. I’ve always believed in approaching every challenge as an opportunity. The CEO role seemed so far outside my comfort zone, but I ended up learning and growing so much.”
Photo credit: courtesy of Baked By Melissa
She’s Going Viral on TikTok With Her Green Goddess Salad
Just a few years after becoming the company’s CEO, Ben-Ishay took on one other influential role: social media content creator. “I love social media,” Ben-Ishay says. “I’m so inspired by it and I understand what a tool it can be for a company.”
According to Ben-Ishay, Baked By Melissa “kind of missed the opportunity” when it got here to Instagram. The company launched before the social media platform existed and didn’t capitalize on it straight away. “It took me about a year to understand the opportunity,” Ben-Ishay explains, “and I made a silent promise to myself that the next time a social media channel came along, I was going to learn it and jump on it.”
In 2020, TikTok gave her the probability to do just that. While Ben-Ishay saw the platform’s potential, she found it difficult to offer Baked By Melissa’s creative team with actionable feedback on the content they were creating. That’s when Ben-Ishay began experimenting with TikTok herself—by filming herself making desserts or dinner for her family.
“One day, by accident, I posted a photo of a salad and it went viral [with] millions and millions of views,” Ben-Ishay says. “And I immediately saw the opportunity for my business, which was building a community of people who come to us for something. Even if it’s not directly showing the product that we sell, that relationship and connection that I could have with so many people is something that money can’t buy.”
Photo credit: courtesy of Baked By Melissa
As Baked By Melissa looks forward to a different 16 years, Ben-Ishay is excited to proceed leading the company’s growth.
“We have so many opportunities,” he says. “We have a product that makes people happy in good times and bad, and we can deliver it to you in great quality, no matter where you are in the United States of America. I think we have so many opportunities to do that on a larger scale.”
This article is a part of our Women Entrepreneur® series, where we share the stories, challenges, and successes of ladies running businesses.