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Melissa Ben-Ishay's "love language" has always been baking. So, when she was fired from her advertising job at age 24, following her passion into business seemed like an ideal opportunity. Her brother Brian Bushell encouraged her to seize it. "We wound up creating an incredible product that makes people happy during good times and bad," Ben-Ishay says.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Baked By Melissa. Co-founder and CEO Melissa Ben-Ishay.
Ben-Ishay launched the bite-sized cupcake brand with co-founders Brian Bushell, Matt Baer, Danny Omari and Ben Zion in 2008.
The company, which just celebrated its "Sweet 16," has grown a lot over the years, becoming a multimillion-dollar business with nationwide shipping and 13 retail locations in the New York City area and Boston.
Baked By Melissa has sold more than 350 million cupcakes, built an online community of 3.8 million followers and expanded into new categories, partnering with major brands such as Oatly and Entenmann's along the way.
Ben-Ishay has also evolved as an entrepreneur and leader in the past decade-plus. She stepped into the CEO role in 2019, just before the pandemic, and rose to viral TikTok fame in 2021 thanks to her Green Goddess Salad recipe. Her cookbook Come Hungry was published earlier this year and became a New York Times bestseller.
The driving force behind her success, according to Ben-Ishay? Her ability to understand what she doesn't know — and to turn to people who do.
"I love to be wrong," Ben-Ishay says. "I don't think I know everything. In fact, the older I get and the more experience I have under my belt, the less I know. And that is something I know with certainty. And I think that is an incredibly important mindset for a leader and an entrepreneur."
Image Credit: Courtesy of Baked By Melissa
Ben-Ishay told Entrepreneur about a few key instances when that mentality served Baked By Melissa well on its road to success.
Relying on human capital in the business's early days
In the beginning, Ben-Ishay batched cupcakes in her New York City apartment kitchen and delivered them by subway, cold-calling catering companies to help spread the word. By the following year, she'd opened Baked By Melissa's first retail location, a small pickup window in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood.
In those early days, all of Baked By Melissa's earnings went straight back into the business. The company didn't take any outside funding and remains privately owned today. Ben-Ishay's co-founders each brought a unique, complementary skill set to the table and provided invaluable human capital, she says.
According to Ben-Ishay, her brother Bushell "is a born entrepreneur" who recognized Baked By Melissa's potential even before she did and served as the company's CEO for eight years.
Baer created and designed all visual aspects of the brand in its early years, and Omari's Cafe Bari housed Baked By Melissa's first commercial kitchen and retail location at the corner of Spring Street and Broadway.
Additionally, Zion "is an incredible networker and was able to get our bite-size treats into every film premiere, night club, red carpet event and celebrity green room you could think of," Ben-Ishay recalls.
Somewhat reluctantly stepping into the CEO role
Ben-Ishay didn't assume the CEO position until December 2019, more than a decade after Baked By Melissa's launch. "I didn't think I wanted to be CEO," she admits. "I didn't plan to become CEO. There were circumstances that led to my board appointing me CEO at a moment's notice."
At first, Ben-Ishay was "terrified" to take the lead, especially as the company headed toward its busy holiday season. However, she also recognized the incredible opportunity. Ben-Ishay rose to the challenge — and it paid off.
"We went on to break our holiday sales records that month," Ben-Ishay recalls. "Two months later, we broke sales records again with our busiest holiday, Valentine's Day. Directly following, I led our team through a global pandemic (while working from home with two young children), and we came out on the other side stronger than ever."
The experience taught Ben-Ishay the importance of advocating for yourself and going after big goals.
"You may think it is only a dream and not possible — but I bet it is possible," Ben-Ishay says. "I learned that we need to do the things that scare us the most. I've always believed in approaching every challenge as an opportunity. The role of CEO felt so far out of my comfort zone, but ultimately, I learned and grew so much."
Image Credit: Courtesy of Baked By Melissa
Going viral on TikTok with the Green Goddess Salad
Just a couple of years after Ben-Ishay became the company's CEO, she took on another influential role: social media content creator. "I love social media," Ben-Ishay says. "I'm very inspired by it, and I understand the tool it could be for a business."
According to Ben-Ishay, Baked By Melissa "missed the boat a little bit" when it came to Instagram. The company launched before the social media platform existed and didn't immediately take advantage of it. "It took a year or so for me to understand the opportunity," Ben-Ishay explains, "and I made a silent promise to myself that the next time a social media channel emerges, I will learn it and use it right away."
In 2020, TikTok gave her a chance to do just that. Although Ben-Ishay recognized the platform's potential, she found it challenging to provide Baked By Melissa's creative team members with actionable feedback on the content they produced. That's when Ben-Ishay began experimenting with TikTok herself — recording herself making desserts or dinner for her family.
"One day on a whim, I posted a salad, and it went viral [with] millions and millions of views," Ben-Ishay says. "And I understood the opportunity for my business immediately, which was to build a community of people that come to us for something. Even if it's not showcasing the product we sell directly, that relationship and connection I could have with so many people is something money can't buy."
Image Credit: Courtesy of Baked By Melissa
As she considers Baked By Melissa's next 16 years and beyond, Ben-Ishay is excited to continue leading the company's growth.
"We have so much opportunity," she says. "We have a product that makes people happy during good times and bad, and we can get it to you perfectly with the highest quality, no matter where you are in the United States of America. I think we have so much opportunity to do that on a larger scale."
This article is part of our ongoing Women Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of running a business as a woman.
