Entrepreneur Friday

Entrepreneur Friday: Butch Bakery

Posted by Jean

WHO: David Arrick

WHAT: Butch Bakery

WHERE: New York, NY

WHEN: 2009

HOW: David Arrick, like many, found himself – and his source of steady employment – a victim of the recession. After he was laid off, Arrick, who worked in commercial real estate, thought he’d hit it big when he landed a job in Dubai. “But then the global economy took a hit,” says Arrick, and as he packed boxes in his New York City apartment, he again found himself unemployed. “I had cashed out my 401(k) and blown through my savings,” says Arrick, “and I thought to myself, ‘how much worse could it get?’” Fortunately for Arrick, he didn’t have to find out. During a walk around his downtown neighborhood, Arrick’s attention was captured by the around-the-block line outside of a “cupcakery” on Bleecker Street.

“Their business was booming – and I wanted to get a piece of it,” says Arrick, “But all of these Manhattan cupcake bakeries reminded me of my grandma’s kitchen. I couldn’t find the ‘boy bakery.’” Suddenly, Arrick saw the gap in the market he knew he could fill. He went to his apartment, and holed up for a weekend to draft his business plan. “I loved to cook and bake,” says Arrick, and having changed careers multiple times in his life – from acting to personal training to real estate – “I thought, fourth time’s a charm!” Using what he had in cash and putting the rest on credit cards, Arrick launched a website, rented a commercial bakery space in Queens, and got started. Developing flavors like the “Driller” (maple cake topped with crumbled bacon and filled with milk-chocolate ganache) and the “Beer Run” (chocolate beer cake with beer-infused buttercream topped with crushed pretzels), Arrick’s unique flavor combinations and frill-free attitude appeals to the manly man that still wants to satisfy his sweet tooth.

“It took a little less than $25,000 to start,” Arrick explains, “but I was able to keep my costs low because I didn’t have to invest so much money in a storefront.” The low overhead was only one of the plusses, Arrick discovered. By starting slow and getting his brand name out first, he was able to (initially) keep the demand at a pace he could manage, and allowed him to see if there was really a market for the product. “My projections at the beginning were conservative, because I didn’t know if it would take off,” says Arrick, “but within a few weeks of opening, I went from selling 100 to 500 cupcakes a week – and the growth just hasn’t stopped.” His biggest struggle? “No one prepares you for the media attention!” explains Arrick. He’s been featured in several national publications, developed a cookbook, and has begun shooting a reality TV show based on the business. Subsequently, demand has increased – but in only nine months of business, Arrick hasn’t developed the infrastructure to keep up with the demand he has now. “I had to find a way to keep the goodwill of my customers when I have to tell them that I can’t bake and ship their order for another week,” says Arrick, “but still keep them as a potential customer in the future.”

So what can we expect from Arrick? First, now that he knows he has a market, he plans to expand this fall by opening a Manhattan storefront. With the storefront will hopefully come more flavors, and a wider product line that includes cakes, now that he’s received inquiries about groom’s cakes for weddings and more. He recently had the opportunity to fill an order for the military, which was shipped to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan – something he says he’ll always remember as a mark of his success. He now has a team of five people working alongside him, which he says has been incredibly rewarding. “It allows me to relax a bit and not worry about managing each aspect of the business myself,” says Arrick. “I don’t have to be or want to be the ‘big cupcake’ all the time.”

HIS ADVICE: “Make sure you know who will catch you if you fall,” says Arrick. “It might be cliché, but it was comforting to be able to remind myself that I had friends and family who wouldn’t let me go hungry or homeless if I were to fail.”