…DefconYUM!
Hello everybody, today I’m with Nicole. How are you doing?
Good. We are so happy and excited that our Kickstarter project has passed its goal! How are you?
I’m fine, thank you! Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Nicole and I am one of 2 bakers that we currently have on staff. My background is in marine biology, but baking is something that I grew up with and love to do. My fellow baker is Gina. She is an actual pastry chef and loves to experiment with new ideas. Mike is our third team mate and the tech/logistics guy. Anything website or shipping related he is in charge of.
What is DefconYUM!?
DefconYUM! is an online bakery that sells different pastries every day. Currently we are only set up to ship within the continental United States, but hopefully one day we can find shipping charges that will allow us to ship internationally and get the pastries to you while they are still fresh. We take your orders, bake them up just for you and ship them out priority mail! You get your gourment pastries within three days of ordering!
Sounds delicious! When and how did it come up?
Well you already know the team and our backgrounds. Another important thing about us is that none of us like day jobs. One day Nicole said, “I wish I could just bake these cookies every day for my job.” Every day, huh? From there, it was a different cookie every day, and Defcon YUM! was born. The name started as the Daily YUM!, but the double Y might have confused the URL, and Defcon YUM! had so much potential for theme! If everything goes to plan, we’ll be able to continue to grow and expand until Defcon YUM! Is our full time job.
Good luck! It’s a “one a day gourmet internet bakery”. Can you tell us anything about this?
Sure! We liked the idea of doing some sort of online bakery, but figured we would be limited by production capacity. Having to bake to order with a number of items available for sale would have been a crunch. We thought if we could just bake one item a day, that would mean only using ingredients for that item, only mixing one big batch of dough, etc! When we took a look at the daily deal site craze on the internet right now, we decided there was no reason it couldn’t apply to pastries. So every day there is one pastry for sale. Sometimes its brand new, sometimes it an old classic on repeat. That means you get to try new things and experiment all the time, and we love that. If an item is really popular with our fans, that item will be back in the future. If not, it will probably get retired or maybe reworked. Either way, every day you have a fresh new delicious idea to try out!
How would you describe U.S. food “scene”? Do you think your company will be succesfull in a country like yours?
Right now the food scene seems to be all about energy and innovation, and focused a lot on the personal touch. Young hip ideas are taking off and people want to feel like they are working with real people, not some corporate machine. We think that Defcon YUM! has all the character and personality needed to make people feel comfortable, and we plan to bake the most interesting and delicious pastries you’ve ever had. We have no idea what the future holds, but so far the response has been great and we have high hopes!
What advices would you give to who wants to develop a project like yours?
When we were starting Defcon YUM! we got a lot of negative feedback. Many people couldn’t understand why anyone would order cookies on the internet when they could get them at the grocery store or bake their own at home. People didn’t get the one item a day thing and said customers would be frustrated when they couldn’t order what they wanted when they wanted. My advice to anyone wanting to start their own project is to get feedback, but believe in yourself! We had an idea that we all stood behind. We saw through the potential flaws and found the character and uniqueness that we knew would make Defcon YUM! a hit. Now the feedback we are getting is all positive! Stick with it and just do it, no matter what anyone tells you.
What are your plans for “DefconYUM!”?
The Kickstarter will be closing today evening, and then we will be buckling down to fill all the rewards ASAP. After that, we will be ramping up to open the doors for real, either end of September or early October. From there, who knows? We need to chug through and see just how successful we can make an internet pastry shop. We’re hoping to just continue to grow the fan base, figure out all of the hiccups and just keep baking. Our main goal is to keep sending out delicious pastries for as long as there are people to eat them!
Thank you! Would you like to say anything more to our readers?
Thanks everyone for reading, and for all your support! The threat level is set to Defcon YUM!
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