SMALL BITES N°5 Purpose

February News, Updates, And Insights On Building LEXINGTON BAKES

Author

Lex Evan®
February 07, 2024

Fudge yeah! LEXINGTON BAKES turned TWO! 🥳

I've built enough startups to know when and where I'm wasting my efforts, and in hindsight, crafting a brand purpose too early is a huge waste of time.

My advice to any aspiring founder? Stop dreaming. Build the damn thing. Invest in purpose after you've sold $200,000 worth of product. 💪

Well… I'VE SOLD OVER $200K OF LUXURY $10 COOKIES & BROWNIES! 🤯

I spent December analyzing exactly what and how I've been building for the last two years. And I can tell you that what LEXINGTON BAKES is today is not exactly what I thought it would be when I hesitantly started this wild ride two years ago.

It took drive, vision, and determination to get here, and it also took tossing out the map and figuring out my own path because what I'm building is…

LIKE NO OTHER DESSERT IN THE WORLD™

Sorry to disrupt your New Year's diet, but I have a FEAST of updates to share.

Right after I pitched LXB at NOSH Live in December, I got to work fleshing out and formalizing our brand strategy—things that have been in my head since I began but needed critical thinking and copywriting to craft into a story.

This ladders up to a major goal on earned media for this year. I also designed and built our newsroom that houses all the above work in a thorough company about section. I wrote 20 backdated press releases/announcements documenting the biggest milestones from the last two years to show press we are growing consistently and worthy of coverage. Oh and it’s working!

All of this work created a need to expand and further develop the brand design for LXB. And I have to say, I am finally proud of the design of my brand—both as a founder and as a designer.

As I mentioned, knowing where to invest your time and effort early on is KEY. And design is not high on the list at the beginning for a bootstrapped startup, even when the founder is a designer.

I'm so excited to start rolling out the rest of this work this year; here's a look at our logo evolution for now. It feels like we've found our confidence.

I designed and soft-launched Salt & Main 🍽️, the media arm of LXB. It goes live at 1,000 subscribers and will feature Conversations with Food People. You can read more about what to expect in my first Letter from the Editor.

I reformulated our most popular flavor, Raspberry Velvet Brownie, to 100% organic and 41% fair trade ingredients and eliminated over a dozen sub-ingredients from last year's formula. It sold out in one day this year, and due to an overwhelming amount of texts from people who missed out, I planned a second run, which shipped out yesterday. Only two boxes remain until 2025!

Okay, this intro is getting long. Here’s your February 2024 menu.

Bon Appétit!

🔥 Spicy Appetizers 🔥

January Tasting 👨🏻‍🍳

🍫 Top Priorities

  • Manufacturing trials are planned for this month. Fingers crossed!

  • R&D on our Vegan Black Forrest Cookie and Brownie.

  • Let’s get LXB into Mother’s, Bristol, Gelson’s, & Alfred – can you help?

  • Partnering with milk brands on some TikTok content.

🍪 In the Oven

  • Walnut Chip N°7 Cookie organic relaunch pushed out to Spring.

  • I’m developing vegan, refined sugar free, naturally colored sprinkles.

🍭 Sprinkles (dropping soon)

  • Packaging design updates rolling out in Q2.

  • Brand Gear coming in hot for Expo 🔥

🧊 On Ice

  • B’Day Confetti Blondie reform is on hold.

À La Carte 🛒

🍿 Savory Insights, Research & Reports

🍭 Sweet Content Shares

😋 Tasty New Treats Worth Trying

Simmering Thoughts ☕️

  • An influencer with a huge following just launched a bakery brand and stole my entire brand strategy and story. Why would you want to start a brand by stealing like that? Seems like a waste of time tbh.

  • I feel like THIS is the year I finally launch a pumpkin something for Fall.

  • People really hate white chocolate, why hasn’t it been made it better?

Thanks for reading! I'm happy to have you along my journey to build LEXINGTON BAKES into the next great American bakery brand. 🍪

Feel free to strike a chat about anything you've read here — that's kind of the point. 💛

Until next time,

Lex