• Technology

One of the first things someone told me about Washington D.C. was that if you threw a rock in a bar there, you were more likely to hit a lawyer than a politician in the U.S. capital. Warren Brown was one of those many lawyers in the city of powerful people. Until, one day, he decided to chuck it all for the love of cupcakes. No, I’m not yanking your chain.

Brown took to baking as a sort of after hours’ therapy. Some people shop, some blend, some do yoga; Brown baked. And as he did more of it, he realized he was really good at making cupcakes, cakes and pastries. His first customers, though not paying ones, were his office mates who devoured his cupcakes in Guinness Book-worthy record times. “That was proof enough that I was good and that people would pay for my cupcakes.”

In 2002, Brown left the courtrooms and set up what is now the second-largest independent bakery in the D.C. area. CakeLove has seven retail locations and also takes orders online. In 2009, it was voted the best bakery by the readers of The Washington Post. Brown has written two cookbooks on the back of that success and also been a host on a food network on U.S. television.

Brown attributes a lot of the rapid success that CakeLove has seen in the last decade to his optimal use of technology. “Not many will associate a bakery with technology, and that is understandable,” he says. “We do not, of course, use technology to make our cupcakes and cakes.” But technology has a huge role to play in how a bakery operates, according to Brown. Running a bakery successfully has a lot to do with how the manpower operates, he says, and technology has allowed him to keep a track of man hours, cooking times, delivery times, returns, sales, etc. Unless he is able to monitor and optimize them, a bakery can very soon resemble a field hospital in a battle zone.

Brown adds that technology also helps in what he calls outreach. First, technology enables him to inform customers of the latest offerings at CakeLove and then to sell it to them online. Secondly, and more pivotally, technology lets Brown catalog recipes (complete with pictures) during the various stages of preparation, and then share them with the staff at retail locations he would otherwise have to personally visit and train.

“This may not sound like much in theory, but it is much more complex in real life,” says Brown. “Not everyone is at home with technology, so it is vital that the tech I use is simple to deploy, use and maintain; it should be easy enough for each one of my staff to learn and then even teach further on.”
It is a challenge, Brown says, that not many people in the food services industry realize. But those who do are able to then relieve themselves of the logistical stress of running a restaurant and bakery and spend time where the heart of the operation is—the kitchen.

WARREN BROWN is one of the 10 entrepreneurs that Dell Inc. has defined as its Take Your Own Path Small Business Heroes.

©Entrepreneur April 2011

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bakery, CakeLove, cupcakes, food services, restaurant, Technology, Warren Brown