From an early age, Zac’s Candy Shop founder Zac Coughlin had a passion for art, food and business. “I always say that I went to the mall not for toys or clothes, but straight to the food court, where I studied the food industry,” he says. “I went to places like Dairy Queen and Mrs. Fields and not only ate the food, but also observed how they promoted, branded and upsold products.”
Coughlin couldn’t help but notice that many of the items sold in specialty candy stores weren’t inexpensive: $5 for a single chocolate strawberry? So he asked his mom if he could make his own, confident that he could cook up delicious treats to have fun and potentially sell them for a lower rate. She agreed, and at the age of just 13, Coughlin began his own company.
It began with a 12-ounce chocolate melting pot, he recalls; he dipped strawberries and cookies for his friends and his dad helped him with the deliveries. In seventh grade, during his first 12 months at a recent school, Coughlin’s peers learned about his talents as a confectioner and desired to try his products themselves. “People have been writing to me to pre-order [the treats]and I would bring these boxes of sweets into the corridors,” he says. “I started with four or five orders, then it was 20, then 40.”
“Being adopted really gave me an unwavering need for self-sufficiency to truly prove my worth.”
Currently, Zac’s Sweet Shop offers its “fun, approachable and delicious” treats nationwide and is on goal to realize seven-figure revenue in the next 12 months (400% growth); also boasts enterprise clients similar to Google, Disney, Meta, Hulu, American Express, Lionsgate, Netflix and more. According to Coughlin, the sweets are “a twist on the nostalgic classics we grew up with” and include hits like mini pretzels covered in caramel, milk chocolate and flaked salt, and s’mores bark with cinnamon graham crackers, vanilla marshmallows and dark chocolate icing.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Zac’s Sweet Shop
But all of Zac’s sweet success began with an early interest in entrepreneurship, and Coughlin says adoption energized him. “Adoption gave me an unwavering need for self-sufficiency, to prove my worth not only to those around me, my family, friends and colleagues, but also to myself,” she explains. “It was something that was innate in me since I was very, very young, but I didn’t really realize it until much later in life.”
Although Coughlin’s junior highschool eventually stopped him from selling candy to other students, Coughlin continued to grow his business among family and friends, hosting catering events similar to birthdays, communions and graduations. But when he left his hometown of Pittsburgh and headed to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California, business took a backseat — because he didn’t really know anyone in his recent city, he now not had a customer base.
But when some of his classmates learned about his sweet story and desired to learn more, talking about the business helped Coughlin realize how much he missed it. It’s time to rethink his lifelong dream of “building the next iconic American chocolate shop” – to develop into the role model he all the time desired to see. “Growing up, I never really saw anyone on TV who looked like me,” Coughlin says. “I grew up watching shows like Cupcake wars AND Pastry Chef, and I never really saw myself. So naturally I just wanted to become that person.
“I had to learn a lot about scaling production from a few dozen candies to hundreds and thousands at a time.”
Coughlin “went to the drawing board” and researched what it might take to open a chocolate shop in Los Angeles. However, he realized that the huge costs could be prohibitive and as a substitute opted for a direct sales (DTC) model, recognizing that some of his favorite bakeries, similar to Milk Bar and Baked By Melissa, successfully shipped products nationwide. Moreover, moving to DTC would allow his friends and family in Pittsburgh to begin ordering from him again.
After a 12 months and a half of research and preparation (“I spent every day outside of class learning every aspect [of the business]”), Coughlin raised about $27,000 in a small Kickstarter campaign in February 2019. All he needed to do was set up a commercial kitchen and obtain pre-licensing and necessary packaging.
“AND [was] I also learned how to scale the product,” Coughlin recalls, “which, honestly, I didn’t learn until two weeks before launch [are] so many things that are so complicated with chocolate, with tempering, humidity, and then shipping and perishability. So I had to learn a lot about scaling production from a few dozen candies to hundreds and thousands at a time.”
Zaca’s Sweet Shop opened in October this 12 months. From then through March, the company achieved monthly sales of about $1,000, with an increase during the holiday season. That modified in June 2020, when the store received a shout-out from Beyoncé: Coughlin made $20,000 in just two weeks and then Really We have to determine the way to scale, he says. Fortunately, Coughlin’s community rallied around him; friends helped in the kitchen until 3 a.m. to satisfy all the orders.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Zac’s Sweet Shop
“It took a long time for this business to really start making money, but I always stayed true to who I was and who I wanted to be.”
While it was a very exciting time for Coughlin and his company, it was also “a really hard time,” he says, explaining that “it was one of the first moments when I realized who I was and what opportunities I had and the impact that I can make an impact.” After Beyoncé’s moment at Zac’s Sweet Shop, there was a “domino effect,” attracting corporate clients and catering movie premieres. In March 2022, Coughlin moved into his side hustle full-time.
Up until that point, Coughlin had put his communications major and the music industry to work on a daily basis: he was the manager of a girl band. And as it turns out, there is some connection between this job and running Zac’s Sweet’s. “I all the time say I promote my products like I’m promoting a pop music campaign,” Coughlin explains. “Loud, colorful, fun, engaging and intense on social media.”
Now Coughlin is preparing for an exciting brand relaunch that can include expanding the team (currently it’s just Coughlin, one other person and freelancers) and investing extra money in branded packaging – something the 100% bootstrap company didn’t have the capital to do. in the past, despite Coughlin’s artistic leanings and creative drive. “An early mentor told me to always focus on what you need for the business, not what you want,” he says.
And for any young entrepreneurs seeking to follow in his footsteps and achieve their very own sweet success, Coughlin has some hard-earned words of wisdom: “It’s a bit of a cliché, but do what you’re passionate about and the money will always come,” he says. “It took a long time for this business to really start making money, but I always stayed true to who I was, who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go. It took some time, but I definitely feel like I’ve gotten there and I’m still working on it.”
This article is a part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being… young business owner.