Meet Trailblazer Kelly Lutz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Lutz.

Kelly, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Baking has been something I’ve enjoyed since I was in high school. Cooking never really did it for me, but BAKING. Man. That was my jam.

I refused to make cookies from a pre-made mix because baking from scratch was so much more fun and more delicious. My parents always told me I could sell the cookies I made for my brothers and friends, but I thought they were just being “supportive parents.”

When I moved out to Colorado, I kept baking traditional goods for my grad school classmates and friends and began exploring how to bake non-traditional goods, like vegan and gluten free, as I explored different ways of eating. In 2015, I participated in one of Emily Schromm’s 21-day challenges, which involved cutting out sugar, gluten/grains and dairy for 21 days. I loved the challenge so much that I kept eating mostly paleo from then on and sought out paleo recipes that I could bake for myself.

Fast forward to early 2019, I decided to make a cooking Instagram, @cookingklutz, separate from my personal Instagram specifically for posts about food. I started off my reviewing meal kits like Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, Green Chef and Freshly, but soon shifted to what I was baking.

One day, I posted a photo of some paleo chocolate muffins that I had made, and my friend messaged me saying “how can I buy these from you?” I thought, “Buy them from me? Just ask and I’ll make them for you!” But that sparked an idea in my head. Maybe people WOULD buy baked goods from me if I started to sell them.

So, I did some research on how to sell baked goods and discovered the Cottage Foods Act applies in Colorado and that I could sell baked goods out of my home as long I completed a Food Handling training, got my business and sales tax licenses, and made sure the labels on my products were up to par with the requirements. Thus started my little side business.

I started selling primarily paleo chocolate banana bread, nut butter truffles, “alpine snax” (nut butter bites), and the cookies I’ve been making since high school in April 2019 to my friends at my climbing gym and my coworkers. Since then, I’ve sold my goods at various events, including my first farmers market (shout out to the Highlands Farmers Market!!) and expanded my products to include paleo cookies, date bars, paleo pumpkin bread, chocolate truffles, and variations of the original paleo banana bread.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s never a smooth road! But that’s what makes it fun. Starting off, I had to do a lot of research to make sure that I knew everything I needed to do to comply with the laws, especially since I was going to be selling food. Since this isn’t my primary job, that required a lot of my spare time.

One of the biggest struggles for me at first was figuring out how much I should charge for each product ad keeping track of my expenses before I got a business credit card. I deduced how much to charge by calculating how much it cost me to make each product and factoring in how much profit I wanted to make, which was easy, but the hard part was telling my friends how much I expected from them for each good. I was worried that I would ask for a price that my friends thought was too high, but it was actually the opposite! I got a lot of “that’s all I owe you?” at my first price marks, which made me feel more comfortable to bump up the prices a little.

My biggest struggle overall was preparing for the farmers market. Doing my first farmers market, I didn’t really know how much I should make of each product for the event. The Highlands Farmers Market sees a lot of foot traffic, so I was concerned that I would underestimate how much I needed to make. I decided to narrow my products down to the banana bread (12 loaves), the traditional cookies (2 batches), nut butter truffles (2 batches), and paleo “samoas” (2 batches). I spread out my baking over the week and a half before the market, but fitting it in with my full-time job and lifting/running/climbing was tough. The worst part of the preparation was the packaging! Baking was glorious, packaging was tedious. All in all, it was a lot of effort and stress, but the farmers market went GREAT! I had so much support from friends and received excellent feedback from other people at the market!

My advice to other women starting their journey would be to just go for it. If you’re thinking about doing something but not sure if you should, just do it and go all in. If you want to start your own business on the side, do your research and start! Also, get QuickBooks to keep track of your profits and losses. I started off doing everything in excel spreadsheets because I didn’t want to pay for Quickbooks, but my life is SO MUCH EASIER now. If something costs money but makes your life easier, it’s probably worth spending the money.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Cooking Klutz – what should we know?
My primary job is as an engineer at Comcast. During the summer of 2018, I left my job as a senior benefits analyst at a pension company to attend the data science immersive program at Galvanize for 3 months. It was one of the hardest three months of my life, but it fulfilled me in every way possible. I’ve loved math for as long as I can remember, so finally taking the plunge into a data science program that combines math with programming was the best decision I could have made. I got hired by Comcast after completing the program to help build machine learning models for various products (like DVR, Video on Demand, live TV) to predict when the hardware will break.

My side job is my baking business! I’m most proud that I offer paleo goods (no gluten, no dairy, no refined sugar), and I’ve been told by non-paleo customers that they can’t even tell there isn’t gluten or refined sugar in the goods. I feel like there’s an assumption that anything that is gluten-free won’t be as good as the “real thing,” and I’m happy that my goods are shattering that assumption.

What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?
The most important piece of advice, in my opinion, is to know your worth and don’t underestimate your worth. As women, many times we downplay our intelligence or how much we contribute to our jobs and are afraid to ask for raises, promotions, equal pay, etc. Don’t be afraid! The worst thing that can happen if you ask for more money or a better position is your boss will say no.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cookingklutz.com
• Email: kelly@cookingklutz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookingklutz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookingklutz/

Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Howeird Photography

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