Five Mistakes I Made in 2025
Only five mistakes? More like 800, but let’s pick the worst five and discuss them.
Year two of running a home bakery is where optimism meets spreadsheets. I have actually completed year 15 of this bakery but switched to a home bakery in the spring of 2024. I had 13 LONG years in retail, and I thought I knew it all. As a home bakery, I’ve been through two full summer sessions and one and a half winter sessions at farmer’s markets.
Year one is scrappy and exciting for any business, and this was technically a full switch to something else, so I’m counting it as “new-ish.” There is a reason why the term “serial entrepreneur” exists. Because people like me are obsessed with our ideas and starting new things. We are not the people who love to stay home and hate socializing. We are the people who talk about our 2 year, 5 year, 15 year, and retirement plans (as if we can see the future) to anyone who wants to hear it. It’s exciting, sort of like when you buy a lottery ticket and imagine all the things you’ll do when you win. It’s also similar odds for most people, which is why we all make constant plans. The rush of “new and exciting possibilities” is what we chase.
But year two, yikes. Year two is when you realize enthusiasm does not count as a business plan, and “yes” is not a growth strategy. The best part is that I thought I already knew how to run this business and I could coast. But you can never coast in business.
So, let’s get into it.
1. Too many markets ≠ more money
Turns out showing up exhausted to 4-5 markets a week does not magically multiply sales. Who knew. Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me that it would be difficult at all. I ran a retail operation that was open 5-6 days a week for 13 years, I was used to working that much.
I didn’t account for the lost production during markets. All the markets I attend are at least a half hour away from me. It takes another half an hour to successfully pack my vehicle before I leave. It’s about a one hour set up at the market (tent, tables, merchandise, organizing orders for pick ups), and then the markets are 4-5 hours each. Then another hour to take it down and make it back home. That’s about 8 hours of no baking, no packaging, no frosting anything every time I had a market.
Downtime at a retail kitchen just means you’re still working: dishes, prep, frosting things, folding boxes while you wait for customers - it’s still productive. I was at markets or driving to a market for over 40 hours every week since May. When was I supposed to bake? Oh right, before each market and for HOURS after. Can you imagine sweating it out, near dehydration, in 95-degree weather for six hours and then coming home and baking for another 8? That was my life this year.
I assumed volume would be the key, but there was a hot stretch of summer that was so slow for three months that I almost couldn’t pay my mortgage. Volume and markets didn’t solve the problem, they diluted my energy, my product, and my recovery time. They felt productive but they weren’t financially proportional.
2. Renting the wholesale kitchen too late in the year
Honestly, I didn’t want to do wholesale ever again. It’s boring. You have to have a lot of faith in the clients that they will keep the product fresh based on your instructions. You have to remind them to order if they need stuff (just like direct consumers). You have to babysit the product, the clients, and deal with how your regulars, who buy from you directly, react to other people serving your product to them or undercutting your price.
For example, years ago, I had a partnership with a place that sold the same product in their store that I sold in my bakery. Wholesale customers get a slight discount because they have to add in their retail mark-up to make money off of your product. If they don’t make enough, they drop the product, so it’s a delicate balance of cutting too much or not cutting enough off the price and it working out for everyone. Customers would come in and complain about the price I had in shop because they could get it cheaper at X. I did the math and X was only selling the item for one penny above purchase price, which was insane to me. So I looked like I was price gouging customers despite having a suggested retail price for each item that my wholesale customers weren’t following.
But I needed it back now, boring or not. Good wholesale clients are consistent, which means the money is consistent. But I didn’t start looking for a kitchen until mid-summer and it took until the first of October to get the permits secured…right when all the holiday baking started ramping up. No time to find many new clients. Some previous clients took me back because we had always had great partnerships. Some clients moved to in-house bread production for their GF option (and I’ve heard it’s not delicious). And some eased back in for a bit and then changed their minds about it after a month. That’s just how it goes with wholesale.
Wholesale isn’t “extra income.” It’s a separate business lane that needs its own calendar and I just didn’t have time yet.
3. Only 25 days off. Seven of them after May.
I didn’t “push through.” I quietly erased recovery from the calendar. Seven days off work from May until December 23rd? No wonder I’m exhausted. No wonder my entire body is in pain. And just when I thought everything was going to work out for me with 2 steady days off per week (because two of my markets were done in October), all of my customers came back with a tidal wave of orders that drowned me for the holiday season.
Did I need the money? Absolutely. Summer markets had been brutal and, despite doing 4 a week, I had made almost nothing. So, I needed this, and I sacrificed my much-needed recovery for a few more months.
4. No time for life maintenance (or vegetables)
I also managed to have almost no time to take care of basic needs. My house was built in 1973, and was someone’s rental before I bought it, which means there is always something that needs fixing, but I had no full days off to deal with it (thank goodness for my handy dad). He just walked around the place, made some secret to-do list, and sometimes pops over to do stuff for me.
I didn’t even have consistent time to grocery shop, which led to a lot of “I’ll just eat this broken cookie” meals and not nearly enough real food. I cannot tell you how many of my dinners this year consisted of 2 string cheeses and a bowl of cereal because I could prep and eat it all in 10 minutes. Despite logging 155 fasting days with an average fast of 20 hours, I still gained weight—not because fasting doesn’t work, but because exhaustion, stress, and poor nutrition eventually win. I’m not really a fast-er for the weight loss part anyway, that has always seemed minimal, but my gut loves the rest (it’s almost like food is trying to kill me). However, you can’t out-discipline a year where rest and balance are treated like optional add-ons.
And so I end this year fatter, with no new painted walls in my house (I’ve still got the previous occupants’ LIGHT BLUE paint everywhere), and wondering if I need to buy stock in General Mills in support of my Rice Chex habit.
5. Almost no fun
Everything became logistics and creativity got squeezed out. Even “success” felt flat because there was no room to enjoy it. I thought all of the holiday orders were awesome, but by the time I got to the markets for pick up I just wanted to shove them at customers and leave. I was beyond exhausted by Thanksgiving weekend, and the December orders were due almost immediately. Just nonstop. One customer even said I looked like I haven’t slept in days. Why yes, it has been days actually, thanks for noticing my death look. Fatter and uglier, what a year.
I wasn’t reading, I hated tv, I wasn’t exercising (which I also love), I wasn’t making myself delicious meals, and I wasn’t even looking forward to Christmas, my favorite holiday.
I didn’t hate my business. I just never got to enjoy it.
My takeaway from 2025…
I just cannot keep doing what I’ve been doing, I’m not 25 or even 35 anymore. I’m way too close to 50 to ignore my life, my friends, my family, and my health. And let’s face it, I have a tendency to just want to work nonstop. I have to change things for 2026. Here are some ideas I have to make my life a little better in the upcoming year.
Fewer markets moving forward - just Tues/Sat in summer
More intentional scheduling - workout before anything, add in more steady wholesale, see friends/family on days off instead of at the market or right after a market
Miraculously make money without working as much (still figuring that one out). Maybe the Powerball?
Make sure the blog is my creative outlet, not another obligation
Stop eating so much string cheese but keep the Rice Chex
Year two of the home bakery taught me what doesn’t work. Year three gets to be built with that knowledge instead of wishful thinking.
If nothing else, 2025 taught me that hustle without recovery is still just burnout.
