769 Candace Nelson:

In the idea stage of any great business to be, more likely than not the people around you may think you’ve lost your mind. Because the best businesses are often those that seem counter-intuitive because the founder has seen something others cannot.  Today Candace Nelson shares how she built the very first cupcake phenomenon, Sprinkles, bootstrapping and cash flowing fast, and how she’s doing it all over again with Pizzana, a fast growing chain of Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded Neo-Neapolitan pizzerias

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who dared to put her childhood baking hobby into action by innovating the world’s first cupcake bakery and cupcake ATM – when every single one of her friends told her she was crazy. Candace Nelson ignited a worldwide cupcake phenomenon with Sprinkles, which has sold over 200 million cupcakes with more than 20 stores, 30 Cupcake ATMS and 1000 employees. She sold it to a PE firm in 2012, and now she’s leading the “third wave” of pizzerias in the US with the Michelin Bib gourmand Pizzana, revolutionizing pizza takeout with its heat and slice at home method.

Have you ever been talked out of your dreams? Fallen into the trap of believing the naysayers around you? Or let perfectionism get in the way of taking action towards your dreams?

It can be hard to overcome the imposter syndrome most women entrepreneurs must overcome to take their idea-stage businesses to fast-growing profit and scale.

Candace Nelson has been there and built that not once but twice, and her Wall St Journal bestselling book Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into Profit shares how to overcome your self-doubt, grow your confidence, and dare to ‘build the plane as you fly it’. She says the secret is about aligning any business venture to your true passion.

Like most people, Candace followed the well-trodden path I like to call the “life of should’s” into investment banking. It wasn’t long before she realized crunching numbers wasn’t her true passion. Having grown up baking cookies and cupcakes, she confounded her friends and family by going to baking school, and then launching the world’s first cupcake bakery. Back in 2005, no one – except Candace – saw that custom cupcakes would be the phenomenon it is today, and she built her business step by step from her West Hollywood apartment. It grew fast, and she learned along the way to selling it in 2012. Now she’s hard at work building Pizzana, a fast growing chain of Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded Neo-Neapolitan takeout pizzerias that pioneered a way to heat at home. Pizzana also ships its frozen pizza nationwide, and last year Candace co-created and executive produced Best in Dough, a Hulu show starring Pizzana Executive Chef Daniele Uditi.

Candace is also an angel investor, and through CN2 Ventures, a family office and venture studio, Candace has backed a diverse portfolio of startups in the specialty food, retail, health, wellness, and early childhood spaces with a focus on female and underrepresented founders. Candace is also a beloved global baking personality. On the small screen she starred in (and executive produced) Netflix’s Sugar Rush and Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling cookbook, The Sprinkles Baking Book. She’s also a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, sharing the challenges and opportunities facing small business owners today.

Listen on because Candace has many mic drop tips for female founders in any business and at any stage, so let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Candace Nelsonand be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Candace, welcome to Wings.

Candace Nelson:

Thanks for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, first of all, congratulations on your Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe to Turn Your Passion into Profit. And something you have done with Sprinkles and Pizzana. Tell me what was the entrepreneurial impulse, first of all, that had you move from a corporate finance career into finding your passion and purpose?

Candace Nelson:

Well, it took me by surprise, this entrepreneurial instinct, because I grew up in a family that was very risk averse. My dad was a corporate lawyer and taught us that we needed to get a good education, and get a solid job at a company, and move up the ranks, which was exactly what I was doing. I graduated from college and I went to work at an investment bank, and then went to work at a technology company in the late ’90s. It was that early web boom, and we call it the .com boom. And then the bottom dropped out, the subsequent .com bust, and I was out of a job. And then not long after that, 9/11 happened. And so life had thrown me these curve balls. I had sort of been doing everything “right” and left me without a job, and also left me really seeking some more professional purpose.

I realized that crunching numbers and doing business development as I had been really wasn’t fueling me. And so I decided to take a real left turn and go to pastry school instead of business school. Yeah, it’s not totally as random as it sounds, although it was pretty random and people were scratching their heads. But I had grown up baking quite a bit. As a child, I grew up overseas, and when I was a kid living in Indonesia and I craved the treats that I missed from home, like chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes and brownies, I couldn’t go to the corner store and buy them. So I would spend hours in the kitchen with my mom making those treats from home and really feeling connected to a place that I really missed. So I reconnected with that love for baking and decided to go to pastry school.

Melinda Wittstock:

Isn’t it funny how the clues of what our true passion is resides back in our childhood? If you ask someone what did they love to do as a kid, that’s often really indicative of what our purpose is.

Candace Nelson:

It’s true. It’s true. Yeah. There are lots of clues that are along the way that maybe we don’t pick up on until later when we think back on it.

Melinda Wittstock:

So you went to baking school and then it’s like, “Oh wait, I’m going to start a business.” So what was the driver there? At what point, and what was it like in those early stages of just taking that leap into founding your own company?

Candace Nelson:

Well, it was really scary because I did not have a model, maybe with the exception of Mrs. Fields way back in the day, of anyone really taking baking and making a career out of it in an entrepreneurial way, really sort of doing something that was more than just a mom and pop bakery. And I had this business side of my brain that just wouldn’t quit. So I knew I wanted to put my baking skills into a business of some sort. I just didn’t know what that was yet. So my path took me along the cake decorating route. I started making these special occasion cakes and selling them for special occasions. And what I realized was people don’t buy special occasion cakes in this country that often. And of course that doesn’t make for a great business. Not to mention these cakes were so involved, the personalization and customization, obviously not scalable.

And so I knew I had to pivot on that idea. And I remember walking through a grocery store at one point and noticing all of these cupcakes that were stacked up near the supermarket bakery in these plastic clamshells and thinking, “Oh, they’re this beloved American treat we’re all nostalgic for, they’re delicious. There’s so much to love about a cupcake, but it really is so basic. It looks like a commodity over there. And I really would love to reinvent the cupcake into something more elevated and aspirational.” And so I set about recreating this sort of lowly cupcake, this kid’s treat, and approaching it through the lens of what I was doing with special occasion cakes, using the best ingredients, using an artful design, but also keeping it simple so that I knew it could be something that I could ultimately scale.

And that’s where the idea for Sprinkles started, the world’s first ever cupcake bakery.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I love this idea that it’s a cupcake ATM.

Candace Nelson:

Right? Well, that didn’t come about until much later until 2012. But Sprinkles the first ever cupcakes only bakery started in 2005. And it was innovative because it was the first time that cupcakes had really been thought of as a brand, something that people would gift and feel good about. There was something very elevated and aspirational about it. People would walk into the store and it felt more like a jewelry boutique or an upscale fashion boutique than a bakery. And that was very intentional because I was creating the first branded cupcake essentially, and as a result, charging more for it too. I was charging $3 per cupcake when people were used to spending 75 cents at the grocery store.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so how did this grow and scale? How did you land on the business model for it in terms of how you took that concept from this high-end cupcake that you purposely made scalable, how long did it take you to get the right business model and the right scaling strategy in that context?

Candace Nelson:

Well, I’d always really believed in my idea, although most people around me did not. They thought upscale cupcake was totally unnecessary. It also happened to be the height of the low carb craze when we were opening so that-

Melinda Wittstock:

Everyone was on keto or something.

Candace Nelson:

Yes! Exactly. So all signs pointed to this business wasn’t going to be around very long. But an interesting thing happened because we were sort of flying in the face of what people expected, and because we were doing something really interesting and innovative, people showed up and they loved the product so much that they told their friends. And so from day one, we were met with a lot of demand. In fact, I would say so much demand that we were on our heels drinking from a fire hose. So even though I believed Sprinkles could be in every city across America, it took us a while to get our operations figured out. My husband started the business with me. He and I, neither one of us had worked in a bakery or retail or restaurant before. I had hostessed as a teenager, served some pizzas at a pizza place, but that was the extent of it.

So we were learning on the job. We were also bootstrapping, so it’s not like we had a lot of money to play with. So we really had to make sure our business was cash flowing before we thought about opening that next location. Fortunately for us, it did start cash flowing very soon. And so within the first year, we were already opening our second location in Newport Beach. Our first was Beverly Hills, our second was in Newport Beach. And then continued to scale Sprinkles, I would say as quickly as cash flow allowed, over the next few years. And then we scaled it to 11 locations before we sold a significant stake in it to private equity. And yeah, came out with the cupcake ATM at that same time as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think it’s so interesting what you were saying because I think a lot of the best businesses are zigging where everyone else is zagging. I don’t know how many entrepreneurs who have really succeeded in a big way haven’t been met with exactly the same thing as you, is like, “There’s no way this can work. Nobody needs this,” because it’s the best ideas are kind of counterintuitive because you spot something in the market that other people haven’t spotted.

Candace Nelson:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so it takes courage though to go in the opposite direction from what everyone else is telling you. So how did you just personally overcome that?

Candace Nelson:

Well, it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t overnight for sure. I definitely had a fire in my belly. My unique insight, to your point, was that I did think the world needed upscale cupcakes. I thought that people were not indulging in treats because there wasn’t anything out there that was craveable and splurge worthy enough. So I really focused on creating an exceptional product and spent a couple years on recipe development. I crafted the brand from scratch and made sure every single detail was just right from the product to the experience. And so I believed in my idea and I had a fire in my belly.

But I’ll tell you what, there were so many people telling me it wasn’t going to work. That you do get down from time to time. You do start to wonder, “Am I crazy? Is this just a fool’s errand?” And I remember when we were looking for a location, the same thing happened. Charles and I, we didn’t have any experience in retail and nobody likes to lease to first time business owners. I remember one landlord hanging up on me when he heard my idea.

He was like, “Cupcakes? Okay, next.” And there were moments where I really did doubt whether this would ever work, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, the regret would be much worse than if I did it and failed.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so important for women to hear, because I think sometimes it’s too easy to talk ourselves out of things or to wait to have it perfect before we launch. But the truth is you got to go with your gut and build the plane as you fly it. And it can be very uncomfortable, but really worth it.

Candace Nelson:

Absolutely. And I do think that, yes, we have to build our confidence, particularly as women, we suffer from imposter syndrome more than our male counterparts. And part of that is just continuing to step into growth mode and do things that scare us, but do them anyway, and then acknowledge that you’ve done it and give yourself that pat on the back and build that confidence. But also, I just want to say that I don’t believe entrepreneurship is about throwing all caution to the wind. I do believe that, you should try to test your idea for a little bit of traction before going all in. Now, to your point, we were of course building the plane as we went, but I had built a small but devoted following out of my West Hollywood apartment before I spent the hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate a space, sign a long-term lease, all of these things that are so scary and could have absolutely taken me down financially. I at least had that little bit of proof that I could add to my gut feeling. That made a big difference.

Melinda Wittstock:

Literally getting to, I speak this as a tech entrepreneur, but getting to product-market fit.

Candace Nelson:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right out of the gate that people are willing to pay for what you have. People are bought into the vision, they’re excited about it, they’re telling other people whatever evidence like that you can get on a very small scale without a lot of investment, that’s something to build upon. Because you’ve got to be always testing, co-creating with your customers, all of that. So I’m just picturing you in your West Hollywood, did you say apartment?

Candace Nelson:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you got all these cupcakes you’re making. And how did you develop that early following? What was the way that you, because it was kind of pre-social media, so how did you get the word out and establish that at the very beginning?

Candace Nelson:

Well, very humbling first steps of taking those cupcakes to every party, every concierge, every salon in town, even fire stations, anywhere where they would accept my product and not look at me like I had two heads. Although even then they would. At first, I relied on the kindness of friends who pretty much thought I’d lost it. I’d left this lucrative career to start a cupcake shop, and so, “Let’s be nice to Candace.” So they would place some orders, but then at those parties where they gave out the cupcakes, friends of theirs would taste them and they’d ask for my number and so on and so forth.

So this product-market fit, this organic word of mouth, which of course is the holy grail of marketing because your customers are doing your marketing for you, it’s free. And that’s the original virality. So I think that’s how I knew, “Wow, there’s a need for this.” And before I knew it, I was getting calls from big time producers, big time agents, who had their finger on the pulse of everything happening in Hollywood and they were seeking me out in my West Hollywood apartment, because clearly nothing else was out there like it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And so then you’re getting in front of influencers, all the celebrities, all the parties, all the premieres, all those sorts of things.

Candace Nelson:

Exactly. And the celebrity adulation, so to speak, played a big part in Sprinkles’ early story. We had Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes talking about Sprinkles within our first few months of business, Oprah Winfrey had our cupcakes on her show within eight months. And I just have to mention, I moved down to Los Angeles from San Francisco because from the .com bust, the economy in San Francisco was still really soft. So if I was going to open a new business, I wanted to be in a more vibrant economy, but I didn’t really know very many people in L.A. I certainly didn’t know anyone in the entertainment industry. I didn’t have any insider knowledge of how things went. The gift giving culture, all of this is stuff I learned on the fly. And this is the importance of having a great product that does your marketing for you. I had all the top celebs talking about Sprinkles, but it wasn’t because I knew them or I had agent friends. This truly was my product finding its way.

Melinda Wittstock:

I can’t think of how many people probably talk themselves out of it, like, “Oh, I’ll never be able to meet a celebrity or whatever,” before they even start. And you are, Candace, just the quintessential entrepreneur for just doing what it takes and having that passion that just drove you and no, it sounds like you might have been feeling fearful, but underlying that there was kind of no fear. Did you ever think, “Oh, what’s the worst going to happen? If this doesn’t work, I’ll do something else.”

Candace Nelson:

Oh yes. I had to get comfortable with the worst case scenario. And the worst case scenario was Charles and I had used up our small nest egg and we had to go and get jobs again. That was the worst that could happen. We didn’t have a house, we had one used car, we didn’t have kids yet. So that was something that I could get my head around. It wouldn’t be ideal and it would’ve made me look pretty foolish, too. But I was okay with that because I was so passionate about my idea. And I think even though sometimes doubt will creep in, there’s this enthusiasm that just keeps going.

I loved what I was doing. I believed in it. And that enthusiasm, that passion, just kind of kept me going and also drew people to me, it was contagious. All of a sudden, people who maybe thought it was a terrible idea couldn’t help but order for me because they just loved my passion for it, and all of a sudden they were believers. And in hiring our team, that passion was drawing people in, in finding suppliers and talking to landlords. It just is, you’re sort of this magnetic force that people can’t resist.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, a hundred percent. This is why it’s so important for people to be very aligned, like hyper passionate about what they’re doing. I mean there’s so many different businesses you could create, but it’s hard enough. So you have to be really mission driven, I think, ultimately to succeed and it has to fit you as a person.

Candace Nelson:

So true.

Melinda Wittstock:

So that self-awareness is absolutely vital. And so there was a certain point though, along this trajectory, I remember all of a sudden, I’m trying to remember, I think I was living in Washington DC at the time and there was this thing called Georgetown Cupcake that had lines around there. Suddenly cupcakes were everywhere. So you suddenly, I imagine, had a lot of copycat competition and how did that [inaudible 00:17:55]

Candace Nelson:

So the moment before something’s a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea. So we went from thinking, “Oh my gosh, will anyone even show up on opening day?” To not only being met with so much demand and lines down the block, but then being witness to all of these new cupcake shops that looked a lot like ours popping up across the country. And at first I was really shook by that because I was so in the headspace of, “This is something that I took a big risk on. I spent all of my life savings. I did all the education when people walked in and said, “What’s the deal with cupcakes and why are you charging $3?” I did all the heavy lifting.” And then to see that people were leveraging this idea didn’t feel right to me. Now, I realize how naive I was. I know that when you’re successful, emulation, competition, sometimes imitation is bound to follow and to be ready for that. I’m seeing it a little bit now just with the pizza phenomenon and what we’re doing with Pizzana. But I won’t jump to that just yet.

And I also knew that, unlike technology, there’s not a lot that’s defensible in a bakery. You really can’t patent anything that you’re doing. And most of the things that people were copying are not protectable. There was one thing that we could trademark, which we did. And fortunately we were granted trademark protection, which was the dot, the modern dot on top of our cupcakes. In reinventing the cupcake from a traditional one to this modern luxury treat, I had also reinvented the traditional sprinkle. And it was this fun modern dot decoration that is now synonymous with our cupcakes and we’re able to trademark those. Not that other cupcakes places didn’t try to use that as well, but we were able to protect against that. Whereas many of the other trade dress items we could not.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So you had that differentiation and you protected it. I mean that’s super important, because you could say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but suddenly you’ve got all this competition. And so how did it affect your business? Did it slow your growth in any way, or what were some of the challenges that came with that?

Candace Nelson:

I think it actually quickened our growth because when I had that vision for Sprinkles as a national brand, I thought I had all the time in the world to do it. And then I realized that any market that we were planning to go into, if someone else got there first, we would be at a disadvantage not being that first mover. And it did really bother me when we would move into a market that we’d always planned to go into, but someone had just gotten there ahead of us and people would come in and say, “Oh, you’re just like so-and-so cupcake place down the street.” And of course they were just like us, but consumers, not everybody is going to be as invested in the history of cupcake shops as you are.

So you can’t expect them to know. And we were always very gracious about it. So I would say it actually quickened our growth because we realized that we needed to stake our claim across the country if we wanted to be a national brand sooner than we thought we did.

Melinda Wittstock:

So you’re going along with Sprinkles and it’s growing and you got this new influx of cash into it through private equity. How did Pizzana enter as the next vertical, I guess, if you will?

Candace Nelson:

Well, I am all about taking simple foods that people already love and introducing them in new, surprising, delightful ways, and elevating those foods. So pizza definitely follows, falls right in with that. In terms of my mission, my personal mission in business. And Sprinkles, we scaled it. We sold a majority stake to private equity and my husband and I stepped away operationally, but because I love starting things much more than I like operating them, I had to start something new again. And I ended up meeting our head chef, Daniele Uditi, at a party he was catering. I took one bite of his pizza, and I had to go meet him. And I learned that he was just recently from Naples, Italy, he had come to the United States with $200 in his pocket, and had this American dream of starting his own restaurant. And I couldn’t help myself. I just could see it. I was so taken with his passion, his origin story, and I knew I could build a brand around this and elevate this product and reintroduce it to the market in just the right way. And so Pizzana was born of that.

Melinda Wittstock:

So how many locations does it have now and what’s its business model? Is it really the same as Sprinkles or a little different?

Candace Nelson:

Well, it is the same in the sense that we are owning our channels. We make everything on site and we sell to our customers in the restaurants and through takeout and delivery. And we now are shipping our pizzas frozen on Goldbelly. We are in a period of growth. We are at four locations. We just moved from the southern California market into the Texas market. We plan to triple our number of locations in the next year. So it’s a really exciting time for us. Basically what we are doing is called Neo-Neapolitan pizza. It’s rooted in the artisanship, the craftsmanship, and the technique of traditional Neapolitan pizza, but sort of modernized for American tastes in the sense that it’s a pizza that you can pick up and it holds. Americans like to pick up their pizza and eat it as a slice. And that requires a heartier crust than true traditional Neapolitan pizza.

So the dough that Daniele creates is this slow dough, rises over two days and it gets fired in a really hot oven. Then we’re using San Marzano tomatoes that are crushed with salt from Italy. We fly in our [inaudible 00:24:10] from Italy and it’s just exceptional pizza and it’s easy to love, but it’s also elevated. So you can come and have a great organic glass of wine with your family after a sporting event or girls night on a Friday night.

And then we’ve also been very innovative in terms of our takeout. We worked on our product so much and cared for every last detail that we didn’t feel comfortable just sticking it in a cardboard box and having people go home with it. So we set about thinking of a new solution and came up with our heat and slice system whereby we bake off your pizza at the restaurant and leave the fresh ingredients on the side and we don’t cut it. So then when you get it home, you fire it off in your oven at 500 degrees, then take it out, assemble your fresh ingredients, cut it, and it’s like 99% of the experience you would get in the restaurant.

Melinda Wittstock:

How wonderful. So in the trajectory with Pizzana, do you have clarity in your mind about what’s the time to sell? Having said that you like starting things but not so much operating them. What is that point in your mind where it’s time to let someone else take it to the next level and you go onto your next food group as it were?

Candace Nelson:

Right. Well it’s not now, that’s for sure. Pizzana is on fire. It’s so much fun. Charles and I are loving every day. We just got an in a Michelin Bib Gourmand award for the third time in the year, and we’re having a lot of fun with it. I think also with Sprinkles, there were a couple other personal considerations that in addition to it being scaled beyond what we wanted to be involved with, I’d had young children and it was getting hard to, we are very boots on the ground. So when we open a new location, we go there for a while, we hire and train everyone and make sure that the company culture is intact and everything is running perfectly. That gets harder to do as kids start entering school and having commitments. And so that also was happening at the point where I stepped away from Sprinkles, but for Pizzana, sure, it’s always on the table. Right now, we’re having a blast running it and we’re growing like crazy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Sometimes it can be really hard to know what the exit is for your business and a lot of founders of companies don’t really start necessarily with that in mind, or knowing or having the self-awareness of themselves in terms of how far they want to run it up. In a tech case, it’s when and whom do you sell it to? Or is it going to IPO? Do you want to really run a public company? All these sorts of considerations. And it’s so hard to even be thinking about any of that at the very beginning. Was it ever a conscious principle in your mind of building something that you knew was ultimately sellable? Or was that just something that came along just like, “Oh gosh, okay, let’s start thinking about this now, because I’ve got kids, I can’t, that kind of thing.” Or was it more thoughtful in your mind, especially coming from a corporate finance background?

Candace Nelson:

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was about to say. Both my husband and I came from corporate finance investment banking in Silicon Valley where that is the dream. You found your company, you scale it, and you sell it. And that was always the model that he and I had aspired to. But we also just fell in love with our business. So once we were in it wasn’t a guarantee, but it ended up being the right time and for the right reasons.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Well Candace, congratulations on all your success. If you were to look back on it, is there anything that you would’ve done differently or are there any lessons that were just so out of left field that you didn’t expect you’d be learning?

Candace Nelson:

Yeah, I think I would’ve done a better job of trying to, although it was harder at the time and it’s much easier now and people talk about it so much more, but at the time I thought about entrepreneurship as me taking on the world and less about my network and community of support. And entrepreneurship is, it takes a village. It’s so hard and there’s so many challenges along the way. I was incredibly fortunate to have my husband as my co-founder. We work together beautifully and he’s an incredible emotional support for me. But once I had children, I kind of looked around and I thought, “I have just completely neglected my friendships, my professional network, all of these things that are what you’re working for.” Doesn’t matter how successful you are if you don’t have a beautiful community of people surrounding you to share that with.

So I think now I am a member of a couple different women’s professional networks and am always taking advantage of female founder or just professional women’s networking events. I find them very rewarding. And as an entrepreneur, I think it’s just incredibly helpful to have someone that just gets what you’re going through, because so few people do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. Oh I know it. And what you’re saying is really resonating with me because it’s so easy, to just get so deep into the operations of your business and all the other things like kids and all the things that women, I think we often sacrifice those friendships. This is a real entrepreneurial issue. I know that if I look back on my serial entrepreneur career, it’s the same regret as you. And it’s something that you, I’m finding now I have to just prioritize. I have to put in my calendar, it’s sort of almost my selfcare to nurture friendships and relationships. But it is hard because we were pulled in so many different directions. But yeah.

Candace Nelson:

Agreed.

Melinda Wittstock:

Definitely a priority. The irony, of course, is that women are so good at relationship and yet in the entrepreneurial space you see more men often kind of investing in it with purpose, just even in the corporate world and all sorts of places that kind of networking. Because that’s how business gets done.

Candace Nelson:

And I think men are raised and groomed in this way where speaking about business and money and all of these things, finances, asking each other about what they’re working on, that’s part of what they talk about. That’s their conversation that they’re raised to do, and it’s normal to them. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. And I think women now are only coming to terms with, “It’s important to be talking about money and finances.” And I’m always now asking my friends what they’re working on and with the idea that maybe I can help them or maybe we can work together on something or I think that’s becoming more ingrained in this next generation. But I know that’s something that I’ve had to sort of readjust in terms of my conversations that I’m having.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, a hundred percent. I remember in those, around the time that you were founding Sprinkles, I guess I was on significant business number one and it was very lonely. Just even the school run, all the other moms would look at you like you’re like a two-headed I don’t know, you’re some sort of weird thing.

Candace Nelson:

Right. Because they never saw you at drop-off before. They didn’t see you at the Valentine’s Day party.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. And my baking skills obviously are not as good as yours, so I was always busted in that effort. But yeah, I know it’s interesting because those are the support networks that women need, I mean it’s so important. And also women really assisting each other. I envision, I’d like to see more of women buying each other’s products and services, investing in each other’s companies, really doing more than, “You go girl,” but actively helping. And I think there’s more of a willingness to do that now, but it gets stuck in that kind of time constraint. “I’ve got so much to do, I’m trying to do it all to have it all. I don’t have time,” and that’s just a mindset issue that I think we all have to change.

Candace Nelson:

Absolutely. Yeah, no, I know I’m always looking to support female founders. I mentor, I’m investing in them as an angel investor, that’s a big priority for me. And I definitely surround myself with women who think the same way. So I’m very encouraged by that.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. Well thank you so much Candace, for putting on your wings and flying with us. I want to make sure everyone knows where to find you and where to go get some Pizzana. It sounds really good. [inaudible 00:33:54]

Candace Nelson:

Yes, absolutely. So, I would love if people are interested in learning more about my journey to encourage them to take a look at Sweet Success, which is the new book I just released. And you can find that at any local bookstore, of course. I always love to support those. But also Amazon. And then I’m on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at Candace Nelson. I’m also on LinkedIn. And then Pizzana. You can find Pizzana on Instagram and you can also order via Goldbelly, or if you’re in L.A. Or Dallas, come check out our restaurants.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, well I’m in L.A. So I’m going to come check it out.

Candace Nelson:

Perfect.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well thank you so much again.

And wishing you a wonderful, Happy New Year filled with even more accelerated success, Candace.

Candace Nelson:

Aw, thank you so much. Thank you for the lovely interview.