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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica & Jocelyn Nelums.
Hi Jessica & Jocelyn, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The Mahogany Kitchen began in 2019, we were inspired by a popular cooking show host who created cowboy boot-shaped cookies on an episode about baking. We loved how she was inspired to create cookies based on her daily life, so we decided to create cookie cutters that were based on our own. Growing up as little African- American girls and sisters, our mom styled our hair in braids, twist, and puffs throughout the ’90s and these memories sparked our imagination and creativity.
Over the years we worked together, on the business side and artistic side brainstorming ideas and possibilities. With determination and patience, we created our first 10 cookie cutters in the shapes of African American children, with cute, unique hairstyles, and in February 2022, we were able to officially launch our online retail store
As a company and sisterhood, we believe “baking together brings families together,” therefore, our mission is to create baking experiences that families will cherish for generations to come.
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I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The beginning of our business was not a “smooth road” and there were a few struggles along the way. Our first obstacle was finding a manufacturer in the United States that provided the type of material (food-safe PLA filament) we wanted to use for our cutters. Unfortunately, once we found a manufacturer, the company went out of business due to the pandemic and we had to find another manufacturer to create our product.
Another hurdle we encountered was determining which designs to keep and which to eliminate. Some designs weren’t able to cut out the shapes we desired, so we had to figure out how to redesign their structure, in order to produce the perfect shape for our customers. It’s so important that our cutters not only creates the shape we need in the dough but are also able to hold the shape after the cookies are baked. Which leads us to another struggle we encountered, finding the right cookie dough to use. Cookie recipes aren’t created equal and we learned this early on in the baking stages. Some recipes were to sticky others to crumbly but once we found the right one, baking was an easy process.
Lastly, we face the challenge of finding our target “purchasing” audience amongst interested viewers. Our goal is to build an online and local presence that is not only interested in our products but also want to make an investment and purchase our products. Local and online visibility is such an important goal for our company so our future plan is to research events, festivals, and activities, locally and nationwide that we can be participants in, to increase our presence in the baking industry.
These experiences have shown us that challenges are the best “teachers” when it comes to starting your own business. They build character, knowledge, and the ability to “think outside the box” and keep striving for your goals. We discovered that challenges are inevitable and will arise, but it’s about how you deal with these challenges that determine your success.
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As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
In The Mahogany Kitchen there are two sides, the business side, and the artistic/creative side and we both share responsibilities in each aspect. Jessica created the idea of making African-American cookie cutters and Jocelyn hand-illustrated the designs for the cutters. Together we both collaborate to make business and marketing decisions. When it comes to creativity, Jessica’s role is decorating the cookies for display and brainstorming ideas to use for advertisements and Jocelyn’s role is staging the displays and taking photographs of cookies/products, as well as handling social media accounts.
We’re most proud of the fact that we created something from the ground up, we did the work, took entrepreneur courses, researched and developed ideas and applied what we learned and observed to create an entity of our own.
We’re both content creators, working together to create this dream, with Jessica’s’ “eye for fashion” and knack for styling clothes, shoes, and accessories and Jocelyn’s passion for painting and love of all things artsy, we both come together to make the perfect team. What sets us apart from others is that we’ve created fun, unique cookie cutters that allow for African American kids to “see themselves” in the baking world. As a sister-led company, not only do we love each other but we love sharing our dream with community!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
People can support us by following our social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook and purchasing cookie cutters from our website www.themahoganykitchen.com
Pricing:
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All cookie cutters – $12.00
Contact Info:
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Website: www.themahoganykitchen.com
