Three children, a full-time job and being the chief baker at your own cupcake store?
Make no small plans might be the motto of Wendy Medina, the Elgin woman who owns the newly opened Sunshine’s Cupcakery at 1012 S. McLean Blvd.
The shop opened on Super Bowl Sunday and then went right into Valentine’s Day week, a challenge for even the most-seasoned bakers.
“To start your own business, it has to be fun for you. You have to love what you are doing,” Medina said.
Her business sprang from a love of baking, she said, which she found therapeutic after a long day at work. She started by baking cakes, at first for herself and then for her family.
Positive feedback led to taking a cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby, doing a pop-up cupcake business and then catering events through a word-of-mouth home business that kept growind over 10 years.
That led to big orders, Medina said, like one from Jack and Jill of America on Chicago’s South Side, where she used to live, and from Second Baptist Church of Elgin, the town where Medina and her family now live.
By last spring, things were going so well that she convinced her husband, Jorge, that it was time to open a bricks-and-mortar location. Jorge left his job to run the day-to-day operations while Wendy Medina continues to make cupcakes while she keeps her full-time job and cares for the couple’s three children.
“My in-laws have been a great help,” she said.
What solidified the couple’s decision was hearing from customers at farmers markets and Elgin events that they would patronize a business where they could order just one cupcake or a lot of them for events, Medina said.
Through Tony Lucenko at the Elgin Chamber’s Economic Development Group, Medina learned about SCORE Fox Valley, which offers free, confidential mentoring to entrepreneurs. The nonprofit’s advisors James Screeden, Edward Peterlinz and Larry Bussow served as important sounding boards along the way, she said.
That led to the couple securing a loan through the federal Small Business Administration. While locking that down, a process that took from May through September, Medina had her eye on the shop’s location, which is not far from her family’s home and her kids’ school, she said. It’s in a strip mall undergoing major revisions right on Elgin’s border with South Elgin.
Workers from Extreme Remodeling in Elgin took just 90 days to convert what had been a tanning salon into a cupcake bakery, Medina said.
The shop already has big orders from Motorola, which needs 500 cupcakes, and a local doctor’s office, which ordered 17 dozen, she said.
In addition to a variety of cupcakes, Sunshine’s Cupcakery sells smoothies, espresso and four flavors of ice cream.
“We’ve had amazing support and hit the ground running,” Medina said.
If things go as planned, the couple hopes they might be able to expand by offering franchises, she said.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
