Welcome to a brand new week upside-us-all school. This is your host Chris Gillabo. I am so excited to bring you a whole bunch of stories all about

just awesome regular people out there. People who are just like you don't necessarily have the gold from the time they were born to be an entrepreneur. They got regular jobs, they got families, they got responsibilities, whatever it is.

They also believe in looking out for themselves. They also have a desire to build something for themselves to pursue a creative project, to do something that matters to them and ensure a foundation of security and stability.

Even if they always love their job, never want to quit their job. That's what it's all about here on the show. Also a reminder that there are lots of reasons to start a side hustle. Also your reasons can evolve as you go along. In fact, for a lot of people, they almost certainly will evolve.

Especially if you're beginning from necessity, which we'll talk about a bit today. Today's story features a pastry chef who starts by making wedding cakes on the side and grows her hustle into a full-time business selling $100,000 worth of custom cakes each year.

She's also got another cake in the oven planning to open a second bakery. But it all began from this simple reason. Here's what she said.

When I quote, I started working on the side out of necessity. Working a nine to five doesn't always pay the bills and making a few cakes on the side helped me have a little more cushion in my mattress at night.

We have all kinds of people listening to the show. If you're out there starting from necessity from that position of, well, I really need to do something soon.

I totally understand that. I hear you. That's why we're here bringing you these different stories. Hopefully to inspire you and gently nudge you into doing something for yourself.

So if you need some cushion in your mattress, just like today's story did a few years back, well, stay tuned. That story is coming up. Show me the sugar.

Lestone is a pastry chef in Charlotte, North Carolina. In her words, she's in the habit of turning sugar into cash. I like that long ago she started designing and baking cakes with no intentions of turning it into a business.

But after nearly 10 years of side baking and eventually full time baking, she's now operating a commercial bakery. In fact, since this journey began, she's made over 700 wedding cakes was featured in cake master's magazine.

Side note got a subscribe had a game of Thrones cake go viral when it was featured on Buzzfeed and sells nearly $100,000 worth of wedding and custom cakes each year.

But of course, it wasn't always that way. So how did she do it? Let's take the top layer of icing off the cake.

Ella said it happened slowly and began from necessity. She and her family needed extra income and she was good at baking the sled to her starting celestial cakes and catering back in 2010.

It wasn't long until she was putting 40 hours into her full time job as a pastry chef and then another 40 hours at celestial cakes and catering. When her son was born, she had to scale back so she decided to quit her 9-5 and go all in with her hustle, changing the name to celestial cakeery.

Over the years, she's experimented with lots of ways to attract customers. She's paid for Instagram and Facebook ads, influencer ads, magazine ads and even putting out local flyers. You name it, she's probably tried it.

However, what's worked the best for celestial cakeery has been her customer reviews. If you have a local business pay attention, Ella has nearly 105 star reviews on Google, which is by far the highest in her city. Her website is now the top of Google organic search results for wedding cakes in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is precisely the phrase you're going to type in if you're looking for a wedding cake in the area.

Free traffic is better than paid traffic.

Initial startup costs were nearly nothing because she started out of her home. She used her own oven, fridge and handheld mixer, items she already had on hand. As her business grew, she began to invest. She swapped out her home oven for a commercial oven and bought more refrigerators, tables and mixers.

Ella said this slow growth approach helped her avoid going broke since she only bought what she could afford to pay and what she needed at the moment. Great philosophy, love it.

The first three years she worked out of her 75 square foot townhouse kitchen. Later, after going full time with celestial cakeery, she moved into a larger home and worked out of a 225 square foot kitchen. However, it wasn't long until she outgrew that space too. She was storing extra refrigerators and wire shelving full of supplies in her son's bedroom. And it even stopped making dinner at home because there wasn't enough room.

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