The founder of a $500 million baked-goods empire says the 2 qualities that made her successful were the hardest to learn
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Janette Pellegrini/Getty Images Kathleen King, founder of Tate's Bake Shop.
Kathleen King knows a thing or two about building a successful business.
She's the founder of Tate's Bake Shop, the baked-goods empire that sold for $500 million to Mondolēz International, maker of Oreo and Chips Ahoy, 18 years after King rebuilt the remains of her first baked-goods company, which nearly failed after a business partnership went awry.But in 1999, she fell into a bad business deal when she brought on two partners to help expand her business, she said. After producing baked goods at a lower quality and refusing to pay some of the bills, the partners ultimately fired King and locked her out of the very bakeshop she founded.
King took them to court, and the partners walked away with the rights to use the name Kathleen's Bake Shop and she walked away with the rights to her property, as well as a third of the debt the partners had accumulated - roughly $200,000.In 2000, King took what was left of her business and turned it into Tate's Bake Shop. Within three years, she had paid off the debt and brought Tate's back to its $3 million annual revenue mark, she said.
"Count on it being four times harder than you dreamed," she said of being an entrepreneur. "Get up and move forward, and don't stay attached to mistakes and failures."
She also stressed the importance of learning to keep your emotions in check. She says you can care and have passion, but being too emotional will crush you.
"I put everything I had into Kathleen's Bake Shop and lost it," King said. "When I started Tate's, I said I'm not giving blood again, I'm not being emotional - I didn't have time or money. I had to be a business manager. I wasn't ruthless, I was fair and passionate, but when you get dragged down as low as I did, you become somewhat fearless."King continued: "If I didn't have my epic failure I wouldn't have had my epic success; they go hand in hand."
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