Listen to Your Customers and Adapt With the Times

Ilene Keivel started her career in the health care industry, working in sports medicine and outpatient physical therapy. But her inner calling was centered around baking and decorating. She decided to leave the physical therapy career, work at a cookie bakery for a short while, and then start her own business.  Hence, Geneva, Illinois-based Sweet Natalie's was born in 2012, naming it after her daughter.

When Keivel had changed her diet to gluten-free, she noticed how hard it was to find items that adhered to her diet and were tasty.  That prompted her to change her bakery's business model and develop gluten-free foods, Paleo, low carb, vegan and so forth.  Plus, the bakery was turned into a co-op in 2014 where she invited other bakers to come in on a rotating schedule to bake in her kitchen, which is open 24 hours a day.

What Keivel earned while growing her business is to go with the times, listen to your customers, and adapt.

Read more here.

Screenshot courtesy of Sweet Natalie's