FAST COMPANY: How do you grow your customer base?
CANDACE NELSON: Sprinkles has always relied on word of mouth to drive our customer base. We're focused on providing a great product at an amazing overall experience that we hope people will run home and tell all their friends and family. We also donate to a large number of charitable events in all of our communities so that people who may not have come into the store before have a chance to taste our product and hopefully come in soon.
How do you grow your customer base?
Candace is the founder of the world's first cupcake bakery, Sprinkles Cupcakes. She opened her first Sprinkles Cupcakes location in Beverly Hills in 2005, and has since grown her business to 10 bakeries nationwide, a traveling Sprinklesmobile, the world's first Cupcake ATM and Sprinkles Ice Cream. Candace is also a judge on Food Network's Cupcake Wars. She is a business expert on the panel for Mission: Small Business, a grant program from Chase and LivingSocial awarding 12 individual grants of $250,000 to help small business grow or expand. As part of her role in Mission: Small Business, Candace, along with other panelists, will select small businesses to receive the grants.