Econlady posted:Julia M. Usher posted:That being said, I found the production (repetition) aspect of baking for customers pretty boring. Even though I had a custom shop, people often gravitated toward designs I had done in the past. I also found it hard to train people to the level needed for highly skilled decorating, so I got burned out doing most of the finish work myself. Those are the primary reasons I closed my shop - not out of lack of love for the art or financial reasons, but because of the tedium of day-in-and-day-out routine baking.
I have been a fan of you and your work since the first CookieCon. You have said clearly stated many of the pitfalls of cookie decorating. thank you for all you do!
There are many upsides too, so I don't want to sound too negative. I hope I haven't. The above is just my personal experience; people need to find the right balance that works for themselves. Some people might find predictable, repetitive work very soothing, for instance. Or hate teaching, and only ever want to be immersed in the baking of the cookies and not the decorating of them. There are many ways to shape, staff, and balance a bakery business and make it work for you, the owner. But I do believe it's critical to understand your cost structure in any scenario. 