Kathleen King sprang up from humble roots – she was raised by average farmers in Southampton, NY. Though King began selling cookies for 15 cents a bag at her family’s farm stand, she would turn her passion for baking into a $100 million enterprise.
King credits her upbringing, which valued “standing on your own feet”, with her success. Her cookies, pies, and other pastries were beloved by both locals and day trippers to the Hamptons. As her business grew, King’s parents pushed her to buy her own ingredients and rent her own kitchen. King only operated during the summer months so she could focus on her education, but by the time she began college and planning her future, her cookies’ success pointed towards a life-long career as a baker.
Kathleen’s Bake Shop
King was met with a choice, to explore the world and see what opportunities were open to her, or commit to her talent. So, King would not find herself traveling as a chef on a cruise ship as she once envisioned in college, but driving into New York City to give local shops samples of her cookies.
At just 23 years old, King went full-time with “Kathleen’s Cookies”, renting a bakery and operating all year around. To cover the mortgage on the bakery, King had to double profits, even in the off-season. By working 16-hour days, and hiring other staff and delivery drivers, King was able to slowly step back from Kathleen’s Cookies over the course of the next 20 years while the business flourished.
As King wanted to further exit from Kathleen’s, she sold two-thirds of her company to two businessmen. Those two men started a Kathleen’s Bake Shop factory to develop a retail product, but the pastries were far inferior to the original bake shop’s. King recalls that, while sampling the retail pastries, a pie from the Kathleen’s factory still had a whole apple in it.
Grossly dissatisfied with the factory’s product, but without a majority stake in the company that bore her own name, King was fired from Kathleen’s Bake Shop and left with $200,000 in debt.
Tate’s Bake Shop
Having hit rock bottom, but not defeated, King saw only one way out of the hole she was stuck in: baking. With Kathleen’s still on the market, King opened Tate’s Bake Shop. Some of King’s previous vendors welcomed Tate’s with open arms, others treated her like a newcomer. In spite of this, Tate’s Bake Shop would quickly grow to 40 employees.
This time, King built her business with a firm exit strategy. She hired consultants and would eventually sell Tate’s Bake Shop for $100 million. Now, Tate’s is a household name, having widely proliferated throughout the country following its purchase by Mondelez International Inc, the makers of Oreos and Ritz, for $500 million.
Today, Kathleen King is enjoying her free time by biking and hiking. However, she is not retired. King still invests in other small businesses that share the same call from Destiny that she once had. Furthermore, organizations hire Kathleen King to deliver keynote speeches on business ownership and proper work-life balance.
