Cakes Then Vs Cakes Now

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product then you’ve launched too late” Reid Hoffman

“My cakes had to be like that before they could be like this” Me

Sometimes I cringe when I see photos of my cakes from when I was first starting out but more so it brings me joy and satisfaction as it’s a beautiful reminder of how far they/I’ve come.

It’s kinda like looking back at old photos and cringing at our clothes; or how we had our hair; or our eyebrows! (I’m sorry but who the eff signed off on the thin eyebrow trend?! Never come back please.) But who we were back then was the best version of our self and we were totally cool for the times (maybe?).

Our style and self is always evolving so we naturally come up with new ideas and improve on old ones.

I think so many people are afraid to start that something they’ve been dreaming about because they want to skip all the messiness and start in the middle - or even at the top! But it doesn’t work like that. No one is born an adult; we all start as babies and have to grow, and evolve, and learn. The same goes for our products and businesses.

I feel like by now I’ve developed my own style of cake decorating that is completely unique to me. We all start out being inspired by others (and will ALWAYS be inspired by others) taking bits and pieces from their styles and adding them to our own until it becomes a new and unique style. There’s a HUGE difference between being inspired and copying. Straight-up copying is not cool, and who would want to do that anyway when it’s not sustainable and we’re here to be original. Confidence is a huge player in all of this too, and that builds once you start doing the things. Once you gain confidence you realise that the very reason you are inspired by and look up to certain people is because parts of them are actually parts of you.

It’s kinda like musicians playing cover songs as opposed to writing their own music, but that’s exactly what they do when they’re starting out: they play music of other musicians who inspire them until they create their own style of music. I love analogies, so there.

You just have to start. Start where you are with what you have (physically and mentally). It’s the starting that leads to the learning and it’s the learning that leads to growing and it’s the growing that leads to mastery; along with copious amounts of practice, AND there’s always room or improvement, AND nothing is ever perfect. I’m pretty sure in five years time I’ll look back at my cakes, and this blog post, and laugh.

Just, start.