What if your job was making people happy at the most special moments of their life? Can someone make a career change at 30, follow their passion to build a very successful business with dozens of employees, and win major accolades as a business leader —all without a business degree?

Dana Pollack, CEO and Founder of Dana’s Bakery (which revolutionizes the traditional French macaron with an authentic American twist), joins Socialfly founders Stephanie Cartin and Courtney Spritzer in the MouthMedia Network studios for a conversation about her journey to success, a surprise, and a brainstorm.

In this episode:

Dana’s former career at Muscle and Fitness magazine

Her light bulb moment – when she asked for a raise and was declined

Faced with screen of oily men working out—asking will she really do this the rest of my life

Photo industry in transition, switching digital wanted to do something different after 10 years=–what would she want to do

Realizing she loved baking and entertaining

Dana realized she should get formal training, and within a week enrolled in culinary education and quit job, and broke up with boyfriend

Everyone except for her mom thought she was crazy to do this at 30 years old

Never anticipating what it the bakery became

How she knew could always pick up work in editorial world, but never had to

Found a job as pastry cook while going to school to get experience as fast as possible

Never went to business school, learned largely online basics of starting a business

How her mom helped her, no investors or partners, bootstrapping

When she photographed macaroons like sexy perfume, people were drawn to them

Using American flavors instead of traditional macaroon flavors

Social media as marketing helped people find out about them all over the country, then Dana hand-delivered and was not making a lot of money because the cost of delivering

Collaboration with Drake for Valentines Day

Favorite flavor is the “Mallomac” – a Mallomar bar without gluten

Biggest mistake made in packaging — $60k of unusable branded inventory

Making a formal business plan vs. getting things done

A surprise for Dana and idea for a new flavor!

The challenge of hiring the best talent

Why she has no partner to date

Why it is best to hire people who are better than you are at skills

Being at 35 employees

Typing and email answering assignments with new employees

Expanding the operating and offerings

Why showing up is such a major thing

Marketing strategy

Partnership with Dylan’s Candy Bar

The Mookie – a macaroon inside a cookie

How an Instagram contest created a new product

The rainbow black and white cookie

Looking at ROI of every dollar spent

Organic social media posts have always worked, preferring marketing dollars for ad words and FB ads

Sharing her entire days on Instagram

Planning days, every day is different, the importance of the calendar in phone

How Dana doesn’t have a set schedule every day

Running personal and business Instagram accounts, and how running a business account like a personal account speaks to the brand

Dana’s most used apps

How helpful people are, and why being willing to ask for help is huge

Being able to recover by recognizing when something goes wrong in the business

A brainstorm for a new flavor idea for the holidays

And, a big accolade as a business leader without a business degree is a credit to her team