FRISCO, Texas — Sandy Duncan is an avid WFAA viewer. Sandy met Daybreak Anchor Kara Sewell at one of Kara's #UpWithHer Meetups in May 2021. The event offered free headshots to viewers. Sandy stood out because she was the only attendee wearing a chef’s hat!
"Having people taste my cakes and things like that and people always loved them but then those are people that I know. I’m wondering, people who don’t know me, who don’t know my products will they like them? And it turned out that they loved them," says Sandy Duncan.
Sandy Duncan bakes pound cake every day.
"If I ever miss a day, they’re like where are you? Where are you?! We need pound cake," says Duncan.
Sandy is building a baking business, but she's been sifting and mixing nearly all her life.
Her mom is a retired chef, but she didn't expect to follow in her footsteps.
"It’s something I kind of wanted to do at but then in 2017 my father unexpectedly passed away and so, my mom was kind of left. She’s retired, she’s disabled, and I knew that she would need some additional income just to help supplement hers so, I thought, now is the time. I’ve really got to go with pound cake now," says Duncan.
Unlike the expression, turning a hobby into a business, is not a piece of cake.
"Whenever you’re preparing food, cooking food, and serving it to the public you want to make sure that you understand food safety, that you know how to handle it properly because you don’t want to make anybody sick," says Duncan.
She pursued a food safety certification and got real about what she didn't know, taking classes in business mathematics, and marketing.
"I knew that one piece that I did not have because my background is in HR is marketing. I’m Gen X and social media is not something I’m strong with, I just got my IG this past December," says Duncan.
You can search Duncan by typing, 'Pound Cake Experts', it's a name that's evolved just like her.
"I started out as ‘pound cakery’. I thought about, ‘nothing but pound cakes’ did that for a little bit. Something came to me, ‘pound cake experts’ because I’ve got 50 flavors of amazing, gourmet pound cakes. I’ve got everything from banana pudding to lemon joy to triple chocolate, peanut butter chocolate," says Duncan.
Sandy's plethora of pound cakes means it's about time to scale up her business. Her at-home oven can barely keep up with her industrial-sized demand.
"I would really love to have someone partner with me like investors," says Duncan.
Then she says, she can bake more and make more satisfied customers.
"Your dream is your dream, don’t let anybody take it from you. It gets hard, it gets trying, it gets tough. You cry sometimes, sometimes you laugh and sometimes you go to the bank and sometimes you’re not, but you’ve got to keep at it," says Duncan.