 Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. It's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by Magento. Hey, welcome back to theCUBE, our live coverage of Magento Imagine 2018. This is an awesome event, 3,000 attendees. I'm Lisa Martin with John Furrier. We're going to be here all day. Really stoked to have our next guest, Melissa Ben-A'Shy, who is a chief product officer and president of Baked by Melissa Cupcakes. I love him, Melissa. Your drive and your passion during your keynote was electric. Welcome to theCUBE. Thank you, thank you so much for having me. So you have this awesome story that I think is going to inspire many, many, many more people than it probably already has. You were fired from a job about 10 years ago and it was the best thing ever because it led to the genesis of not only Baked by Melissa but you following your passion and living your dreams. Tell us a little bit about that and how you've turned this idea into a business and are using technology to reach hundreds of thousands, not millions of people. So I mean, nobody wants to be fired and it definitely sucked when it happened but I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing and that's ultimately why I was fired. I was not good at the job and if I wasn't then I would have never had the opportunity to start a company like Baked by Melissa and be so passionate about what I do every day. So I took that crappy day, I went home, I baked four batches of cupcake, sent them in to work with my best friend's little sister, an owner of a PR firm, loved them, put me in touch with her caterer who brought me in for a tasting and I started doing events as Melissa, of Baked by Melissa, with this high-end caterer in Manhattan less than a week after I was fired from my job and what I've learned is that it's a certain attitude and mindset, it's not rocket science. If you see every challenge as an opportunity and you surround yourself with people who have skills that you don't, you work your butt off then you can truly do anything and the Baked by Melissa story is just a perfect example of that. Talk about the founder story, you really had to hustle, you talked about your keynote, being a founder myself, I know there's a roller coaster of emotions but you got to really kind of get the nose to the grindstone, hit the pavement, talk about the key moments in the founding because you really had to hustle it. I think that's really the key. Sure it is and I knew that I had the opportunity to do what I love every day. So I was obsessed with cupcakes while I was working and advertising. I would eat like two giant cupcakes a day because they were my favorite food and I baked cupcakes, I baked my tie-dye cupcakes for everyone and anyone. If it was your birthday and I loved you, I baked you tie-dye cupcakes, it was a hobby. So when I met this caterer for a tasting I saw it as a great opportunity, one that would allow me to potentially do what I love every single day and I knew in my head, like I remember like talking to myself, Melissa, you have the chance to do what you love every day. You need to do everything you possibly can to achieve this goal because you cannot live a life of Kura Wurashira and that's me today. Melissa, what was the moment where you said, damn, I could do this, this is a business? Was it, what was that moment? Talk about that moment. So we founded the company about 10 years ago. I'm just starting to feel like damn, I could do this. We are in such a good place right now. We have such an unbelievable team of like-minded, hard-working, passionate people who get stuff done and we can do anything. And we've built this team and this foundation and just wait to see what's next. We're great. I love it. But it took a long time to really get that confidence and by surrounding myself with people who love me and support me, they gave me confidence I needed when I didn't have it myself. So 10 years later, nearly, you have 14 stores. You are available on your website, on Amazon. You're enabling people all over, at least the country for sure, to buy these cupcakes. I'm going to place an order later today because I'm already, I love cupcakes too, thank you. So tell us about, from a commerce standpoint, we're at Magento Imagine 2018. You guys have been using Magento for a few years now. How is this enabling you to reach, we'll say allow you to kind of connect your retail shops in the New York area with the greater country, those of us who know on the West Coast that can now buy your products? We really focus on our multi-channel distribution and I think it's a great opportunity to touch multiple people at different points. Our goal is to keep the messaging very consistent whether you walk into one of our retail locations and make a purchase over the counter or go to bakedbymalissa.com and order it for shipping or even just interact with our social media pages. The consistency in messaging and brands is our top most priority and then we have, we do, we have an unbelievable product. We have this great brand that I happen to be the face of and I love to represent. So we have this like winning kind of equation for a platform like Magento and just all the opportunity we have today technologically to reach more people and that's what's so exciting as I'm walking around this area and seeing all of these new technologies and solutions and ways to get our messaging to more people it's just so exciting and my wheels are spinning. It's like, okay, so now how can I use this, this new ability to do this to achieve our goal of selling 100 million cupcakes in 2020? I mean the big question always is like the tech used to be really complicated. Now it's got to be easier. You don't want to spend your time thinking about what tech you've got to buy. Really, I mean. Sure. You get successful by just killing it on the product side. Totally and thank God I have an unbelievable team of people and like my tech team or the people who oversee the person who oversees our website is absolutely amazing. She is the definition of get shit done and always learning and I've learned through her at this conference. So, you know, putting people in the positions who are the best people for those roles so they can focus on their strengths and then I can in turn focus on my strengths and you know, being somewhere like here allows me to think big picture about our technologies and Magento and what we can do more. Well, take a minute to talk about how many stores you have, where the locations are, the website, how people get in touch with you, locations. You say you ship around the country. Just give a quick plug on what's going on with the site, locations. Sure, we have 14 retail locations. We offer free pickup and delivery in Manhattan at our store locations. We ship our product nationwide. A big chunk of our business is Ecom and we're focusing on growing that business because it is a great opportunity to reach people where we don't have brick and mortar and we're going to continue to expand our retail footprint in the next year and a half. So, we're, it's very exciting. How do you ship cupcakes? As I always, I just drive back from the store and my kids complain, yeah, you shouldn't put them in the back seat. They, you know, they tilt it or, I mean, is there a packaging thing? Yeah, of course. We're very solution oriented and innovative at Bake by Melissa. We actually started shipping our product in April of 2010. So, at the time, we only had two retail locations and we were shipping our product nationwide. What we did was we designed like a package that keeps the product perfectly fresh and perfectly safe in transit and it allows us to get the same quality of product if not even better to people all across the country. So, talk just about social media. I was telling you over the weekend I, when I found out I was going to talk to someone who makes cupcakes, they love cupcakes so much. I was so excited, tweeted you and then on Instagram probably half an hour later saw some information from you guys. Talk to us about not only how you're using social media to reach so many more people, but also this side with love project and how that is taking store in social media. So, side with love is a very, very special opportunity for us where we were touched by something our president said that wasn't positive and it did not represent who we are as a company and we, you know, kind of saw it as, you know, we needed to do something about it, I guess is the best way to say it. We weren't okay with what was happening and we decided that we wanted to do something to inspire people to do random acts of kindness for people so we said, you know, we're going to give away 150,000 cupcakes. We're going to side with love and we're going to inspire people to send 25 cupcakes for free anywhere in the country to anyone they want completely on us. So we did that, we partnered with something digital who's amazing and they were geniuses and said you should probably put a cue on your website so it doesn't crash, we did that. We had 60,000 people in line to purchase these cupcakes and it's who we are, right? We saw something happening in the world and we responded and we made life sweeter for a lot of people and that's what we do in everything. We saw a challenge and we made it an opportunity to just show people who we are and show them that no matter what's happening in the White House or in the world, you are you and you are responsible for who you are and you can do whatever you want. What's the one thing or two things that you can talk about in an entrepreneur journey that surprised you that you're like, wow, that really happened, we overcame it? Because there's always those moments where you have to break through glass or really fight hard or overcome adversity. Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that the biggest thing I've learned is emotional control and how important it is not to communicate when you're feeling emotional and when you have a crappy day, it's not the end of the world. You're going to wake up the following day and the sun will shine like God willing so far so good. So I had a lot of moments where I felt like the world was going to end and I was so upset. I was in business with my family, like it wasn't easy, but I woke up the next day and I always had these conversations with my dad where he kind of enforced how important, like pressure makes a diamond a diamond, right? So having a lot of those experiences definitely gave me the strength I have today to know that it's never the end of the world and it's those challenging situations that make you who you are, they make you stronger. And I also learned that it's not rocket science, it's a basic attitude towards life that helps you succeed in anything you do, whether it's business or raising a family or whatever your goals are, be positive. See every challenge as an opportunity. Surround yourself with people who support you, quality, not quantity. The world is your oyster and you could do anything if you're willing to work at it. I hear a book deal coming, so inspiring. So you mentioned a really big lofty goal. Can you repeat that again with the number? Our goal is to sell 100 million cupcakes in 2020. So here we are 2018 in April. You're 14 stores, people can buy it through your website, through Amazon, you're engaging through social media. You have this huge goal that is around the corner. What are you going to be doing the rest of the year and this year to be setting the business up to achieve that? Well, everything that we do, we go back to, is that in line with selling 100 million cupcakes in 2020? And that's kind of how we choose because focus is essential. As you grow a company, there are so many opportunities. How do you decide what to focus on? Is that going to help us get to 100 million cupcakes? We're focusing on growing our e-commerce business and it's growing and it's very exciting. We're focusing on our multi-channel distribution and making sure the brand is consistent and we're opening additional retail locations that does affect our e-com. We're going to open in new markets and we're going to reach new people who have never heard of us before and we're going to get there. Listen, I'm so impressed with you. Thanks for coming on. But I want to ask you the brand question because you're the chief product officer. You've got to come up with the new ideas and you've got to stay fresh at the brand. You've got great loyalty. As you look out as the trends go by, never fight fashion, right? You've got to be a great mission-based company, great values. As you look at the next trends, what's going on in the cupcake world? I mean, what do you look for? I mean, you must worry about, okay, you don't want to be outdated, you don't want to be yesterday's old, long in the tooth as they say, but you want to be fresh. You've got the fresh cupcakes. What's the trend in the cupcake world? What are you seeing? I don't know. How's that for you? I really don't like to focus on trends. We're not a trend. And I think we didn't get to where we are by trying to compare ourselves to others. That's who I am, right? And I am Melissa. So I know that it's my job to bring you the most delicious product. We have a variety of flavors that are always changing. Everything is handmade by people who love the product as much as I do, who I train. So you're making the trends. Yeah. And you know what? You got to come up with the new ideas. You got to... Oh, and I always am. That's what I love to do. That's what got us here in the first place. All right, craziest cupcake you made. So we're kosher certified and I did make a bacon cupcake and it wasn't good and it didn't have bacon in it, but whatever. I guess that was the craziest one. Awesome. Well, trend setter, definitely. You're very inspiring. I want to thank you so much for taking time to stop by and share with us what you're doing and how you're leveraging e-commerce technology to do it, but also this passion and setting trends. Melissa Benesai, we want to thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. And for John Furrier, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live at Magento Imagine 2018. We're in Vegas, stick around. John and I will be right back with our next guest after a short break.