How Jana Douglass Baked Up a Sweet Small Business at Home
To see more from Jana and her treats, follow @janaleesbakeshop on Instagram.
When Jana Douglass (@janaleesbakeshop) graduated from college almost two years ago, she had no idea what she wanted to do — but Jana always loved cooking and baking. “I found a whole community of cookie decorators,” she says. “I always thought, ‘Hey, I could do that as a creative outlet.’ So I did. And they looked awful, but I had so much fun I kept doing it.” The Columbus, Ohio, native began posting photos of her cookie baking experiments in December 2014. Eventually, her decorating skills improved. “Orders started slowly coming in from friends and family and then very sweet clients. By the next September, I had enough clients to jump in with two feet.” Her top piece of advice for fellow small businesses on Instagram? “Be yourself. Post what’s true to your business and you.”
[ID: a stimbaord containing eight gifs and one still image in the center. the center image is a picture of koharu rikka from synthesizer v on top of the demigirl pride flag.
the top left gif is someone with short black and gray ombre dyed hair braiding a section of it down the center of their head from behind. the top middle gif is of someone writing the word, “demi-girl” over a colored drawing of the demigirl pride flag. the top right gif is a mircrophone being picked up from a pile of wires.
the left middle gif is of two pink bows still on their packaging being turned in someone’s hands. the right middle gif is of a pink, gold, and white glittery shaped resin piece being turned in someone’s hands.
the bottom left gif is a gray fountain lit so when the water falls, it looks like music notes. the middle bottom gif is of someone piping white and pink icing using a decorating needle on a cookie meant to look like the demigirl flag. the bottom right gif is of someone dotting the “i” and writing an exclamation point next to the words, “ooh, shiny!” in silver ink.
There is a dni banner at the bottom with a pink background with a blue star overlay. There are images of Zombie Misa from Chulip shaking her head from side to side on each end. The text on the banner reads: DNI if terf, truscum/transmed, lgbt-phobic, racist, antisemitic, map/nomap, proshipper, ddlg/kink, or discourse blog, thank you!!“ end ID]
