Matt Rosen lives in Eden Prairie, MN and sells gourmet shortbread cookies with his cottage food business, Sergeant Shortbread.

Matt has a fascinating story that started completely randomly while he was on vacation. It inspired him to start making shortbread cookies, despite having zero prior baking experience.

Before long, he started receiving requests for his cookies from friends and coworkers, and his business was born.

Over the past 6+ years, his business has taken a number of turns, including finding commercial kitchens to take on larger events and wholesale orders, doing a full rebrand and business name change midway through, and finding a focus in business-to-business orders.

• How a random vacation inspired Matt to start his shortbread cookie business  
• The benefits of joining your local Chamber of Commerce
• Why you should consider rebranding to focus on your USP (unique selling proposition) 
• The mindset you need to have to be successful in business
• The downsides to focusing on wholesale
• Why you should leverage your personal story and background
• How to boost B2B sales by white labeling your products
• How Matt found a kitchen that allows him to make 500 cookies at once
• The importance of connecting with other cottage food entrepreneurs and advocating for cottage food laws
• Why Matt started a directory for cottage food businesses

Sergeant Shortbread website (Facebook | Instagram)

The Cottage Foodie website (Facebook | Instagram)

Minnesota Cottage Food Producer’s Association

Episode 45 with Shelley Erickson

Minnesota Cottage Food Law

Are you building an email list for your business yet? If not, you really should be collecting customers’ email addresses and emailing them on a regular basis. Even these days, email continues to be better than social media for generating consistent sales, and the best part is that you own it. Once you build an email list, nobody can take it away from you.

I created this free tutorial that will walk you through the essentials of using Kit to build an email list and get more followers!

Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/133