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I love making whoopee *pies* that is!

I've dreamed of having my own bakery for many years, but with three kids and a husband who travels 80% of the time I never thought it would be possible. When my husband lost his job a couple months ago I started thinking about how I could contribute to my home finances even though I've been a stay at home mother for the last 7 years. It was a no brainer - baking!!

I've spent the last 10 years baking and giving away as much as I could. Cub scouts and girl scouts events, church lunches, random gifts for the neighbors, you name it! Everyone came to know me as the resident baker and everyone always asked when I was going to open my own bakery. I'm proud to say that moment is now!

Please check out my kickstarter campaign and let me know what you think. This is my first time doing anything like this, and I'm definitely a bit nervous!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66 ... -whoopie-0

Any feedback and/or constructive criticism is welcome. Of course, contributions are always welcome too!
Every dollar helps!

Thanks for reading,
Selena

selena23 wrote:I love making whoopee *pies* that is!

I've dreamed of having my own bakery for many years, but with three kids and a husband who travels 80% of the time I never thought it would be possible. When my husband lost his job a couple months ago I started thinking about how I could contribute to my home finances even though I've been a stay at home mother for the last 7 years. It was a no brainer - baking!!

I've spent the last 10 years baking and giving away as much as I could. Cub scouts and girl scouts events, church lunches, random gifts for the neighbors, you name it! Everyone came to know me as the resident baker and everyone always asked when I was going to open my own bakery. I'm proud to say that moment is now!

Please check out my kickstarter campaign and let me know what you think. This is my first time doing anything like this, and I'm definitely a bit nervous!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66 ... -whoopie-0

Any feedback and/or constructive criticism is welcome. Of course, contributions are always welcome too!
Every dollar helps!

Thanks for reading,
Selena

Speaking of baking for years and no-brainers, how is it that you managed to have spent ten years baking and giving away stuff, and there exists such a paucity of pictures of that entire decade?

Let me get this right, Selena - you LOVE to bake, but you STARVE your project page by presenting an unbaked visuals approach. Why??

Photos of food can be tempting. Photographs of people enjoying food can look inviting. So, you went with a plain Jane, barebones approach to visual stimuli of human visitors to your project page. Why??

Dozens of creative flavors, but no visual stimulation.

Your goal is a mere five hundred bucks. Get real!

What about these:



Or what about this:



You may have spent the last ten years baking stuff and giving a lot of food away, but you're exceptionally stingy, when it comes to showcasing your own skill, talent, ability, and accomplishments.

Your project image sucks. It's nothing, visually, next to those little ghosts that you made. They may not be whoopie pies, but they hint at a level of skill and talent that is magnitudes of difference from what that current project image proclaims.

Put your creativity and mastery of baking on full view. You'll get much better results, that way.

Thirteen days left, and you haven't bothered to do any updates, either. How damned sad! You know how to cook. Post your own recipes or tips, if nothing else. Post something, for crying out loud!

Post pictures of you, your creations, and the world that is your baking.

Thank you, I couldn't agree with you more!
I felt very troubled that I didn't have any great pictures to showcase, but my focus the last couple years has been mainly on cupcakes and cookies. I didn't want to open a cupcake business for one reason - they're just too trendy right now. I want to do something that is original, but flexible at the same time.

I do have some great pictures (thanks for digging those up, by the way!) but none of them are relevant to a whoopie pie business. I don't want people asking me why I'm showing them cupcakes while trying to sell them whoopie pies!
I'll see what else I have on hand and try to think of some way to incorporate it, though.
Thanks so much for your feedback!

Is it possible to come up with some pics in mid-campaign to add to the page? Kickstarter Story pages can be edited. I'm slowly adding pics as I get them.

That's a great idea and that's exactly what I'm going to do. I've got some baking ahead of me this weekend!

selena23 wrote:Thank you, I couldn't agree with you more!
I felt very troubled that I didn't have any great pictures to showcase, but my focus the last couple years has been mainly on cupcakes and cookies. I didn't want to open a cupcake business for one reason - they're just too trendy right now. I want to do something that is original, but flexible at the same time.

I do have some great pictures (thanks for digging those up, by the way!) but none of them are relevant to a whoopie pie business. I don't want people asking me why I'm showing them cupcakes while trying to sell them whoopie pies!
I'll see what else I have on hand and try to think of some way to incorporate it, though.
Thanks so much for your feedback!

Can you change your project title,a s part of your ability to edit your project page? I've ran into some projects that have apparently been changed, previously, before. Hence, why I ask.

You're focusing upon Whoopie pies, yet that's only a very narrow range of your actual skill sets. You need to think more in terms of your brand, than in terms of Whoopie pies.

But, if you're obsessed with Whoppie pies, then by all means, make Whoopie pies. Whoopie away.

I'm not sure I feel comfortable changing the project title. I feel like some bakeries can be very generic and unimpressive and I'm trying to make myself stand out a bit.

I did change and add some pictures though. Please check it out if you have a minute!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66 ... -whoopie-0

selena23 wrote:I'm not sure I feel comfortable changing the project title. I feel like some bakeries can be very generic and unimpressive and I'm trying to make myself stand out a bit.

I did change and add some pictures though. Please check it out if you have a minute!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66 ... -whoopie-0

Much better, visually! The project image, in particular, is much more visually interesting, and the tilted angle of the multiple whoopie pies yields a LOT of visual interest. It really grabs my eye, now. Those chocolate chips in the middle pie are especially delightful, in the role of visual eye candy.

The project title is fine, as far as whoopie pies goes. Whoopie has other connotations, so it makes for a nice play on words. That is visual interest, also, albeit of a different nature. It adds humor, through innuendo, while remaining about actual pies, rather than actual whoopie.

The image with the little girl, the pie obscures what should be her smile. Experiment! Take photos of her with her eating the pie, multiple images. My general rule of thumb, when taking photographs, is that you are luck, if you get one actual good photo out of a hundred. You don't have to take that many photos, but that is the rule of thumb that I use for myself.

Visually, the page has more visual interest to it, but it is lacking in social interest - i.e.: namely, having people on it. Your Whoopie Pies make who happy? People, right? But, where are they? Your project page is people-lonely. Show the world some people who loves your whoopie pies, who crave them, who simply must have them.

One thought that just crossed my mind, just now, was a play upon the whole zombie craze. What if you had people posing/acting like zombies, thronging or chasing you or someone (a kid, maybe), in an attempt to eat whoopie pies, instead of flesh or brains. What's that top rated TV show about? Zombies, right?

You can also utilize this Whoopie Pie project to tout and grow your brand, to raise awareness about something even better than mere Whoopie Pies. Namely, you, your business or business to be. Don't waste the opportunity. It's not just a project page about Whoopie Pies. It's YOUR project page. You really should give thought to hawking your Whoopie Pies, indirectly (rather than just directly), by hawking the greater talent that made them possible - specifically, your own.

That way, you can post photos of "other stuff" to drive home the message that you are experienced, and here's the visual evidence to prove it. Plus, Halloween is coming up. Don't waste the timing, by not using that ghost image to you - and your project's - advantage. It might make people curious. They might write to you and ask what your recipe was. That's called engagement. You could even use the ghost image as a stretch goal - you'll release the instructions, if you reach whatever stretch goal. Use the visual and promise of something better, to drive your core funding, until such time that you reach your initial goal.

If you don't use it, then you waste visual temptation. You want people to be tempted to back you. Your project deals with food - but it also deals with more than that, if you let it. The ghosts were cute. You want to play that up. Would Gordon Ramsey not use that image of the ghosts, somehow? Figure out a somehow that YOU are comfortable with. My suggestion is that you shamelessly flaunt your talent. You will do that best by providing visual evidence of it. Ever hear the saying, "A picture says a thousand words?" Listen to me, and listen to the thousand words that those ghosts are trying to say to you.

What they are saying, Selena, is this - Back me!

The image on the right, the small circular image, crop the base image, so that it only shows the faces and heads, and it will have more visual appeal - if that's the image that you want to use there.

Back to that little girl in that one image. If you take new photos, have her do some pictures with her eyes as wide open as she can make them. You want a total WOW factor to send a pure visual message of, Look at how BIG this thing is!"

I also added an image link of your project to the Squatch Kick website.

I went ahead and backed it, also.

I saw your contribution, thank you so much : ) Thank you also for all the great advice you have to give. I feel like there's no way I have time to implement it all before this project time expires (did I mention I have 3 children?!), but I'm going to do what I can. Mostly, I'm just appreciative of how much I've learned from this whole experience. If I ever need to do this again I will be much better prepared!
Thanks for all your great advice : )