Ardra Tippett has been baking since high school. Her culinary skills played a significant role in her first relationship as a teen. Her boyfriend fell in love with her great cooking and her classmates would beg her to bring freshly baked cookies to school. Tippett continued to bake to relieve stress during college and while working at Bell South. After several years of working in corporate America, she decided to become an entrepreneur and eventually opened Cake Cafe.–amir shaw
Why did you decide to open Cake Cafe?
I have been in sales and marketing my entire life. I worked for Bell South for a long time. I was transformed when I worked for the Yellow Pages. I saw how small businesses can be effective in Atlanta and how successful they were. I realized that sales and marketing was the key. I knew that as long as I lived in Atlanta, I would never go broke. If you market properly, have a good product and good customer service, you will never go broke. I then read Think and Grow Rich. I read it several times and I focused on the section that encourages you to make your job out of something that you would do for free. I have been baking since high school and it was something I would have always done for free. So opening a bakery was natural.
What motivates you to be successful?
I’m motivated by the reaction of people when they get the product. When Common saw the cake we made for him, it was exciting to see his reaction. We made a cake with his new album cover on it. The cake really touched him. We are always at special occasions so we are a part of many memories. I get the opportunity to meet a lot of people and we bring happiness to them. That’s something that always motivates me.
How do you maintain a high level of success in business?
By doing the small things. We have so many positive reviews from Yelp and Google that Google sent someone out to film our shop. So when you look us up on Google, you can see a 360 degree view of the inside of our shop. Baking comes from the heart. I never forget to thank my team for serving the customers with a smile. It’s important that we never get bigger than the people we serve.
