ASLU 118: Creative Canadian Janice Lawandi - From Scientist to Multiple Revenue Stream Baker

Editor’s Note: Some links in this article may be affiliate links. Full disclosure is located at the end of the article.

This episode is brought to you by Fine Lime Illustrations

Janice Lawandi thought a PhD in chemistry had cut out a clear career path for her. But like many grad students, she started baking to relieve her doctoral stress which led to completing a Pâtisserie de Base certificate from Le Cordon Bleu and starting a food blog. Now this doctor of chemistry shows other bakers how understanding the science of baking can unleash their creativity - and has opened up multiple streams of revenue for her baking education business in the process!

Janice is a chemist turned baker from Montreal who writes about baking and the science of baking to better understand why we do what we do when we bake. Her website, The Bake School, is a resource for learning about ingredients and techniques, baking science, and recipes. While her main income stream is the ad revenue from her website, she also works as a freelance recipe developer, a food stylist, and food science consultant. She has recently started creating printable charts to help bakers in the kitchen, selling merch on her website and she is publishing her first ebook this fall (2022).

This Episode Is For…

This is a great episode for creatives who:

  • need to diversify their revenue within their creative business

  • are afraid to embrace their own inner form of geekiness (we all have it!) in their business

  • wonder if niching down deep can work (it can!)

  • are curious about creating digital products for their physical business and physical products for their digital business

  • are wondering how to develop and market more than one revenue stream at a time

  • are trying to figure out how to balance their art and creativity with commercial appeal in order to run a profitable, life supporting business

  • want to forge a deeper connection with their audience or customer and aren’t sure how to do that (ask!)

  • wonder if they need to make a bold move to move forward

If you just want the links to the resources mentioned in this episode, scroll down to the bottom.

Listen To the Episode

Here’s a link to this week’s episode. You can also listen via the player below or on your favourite podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, and more). Just search for And She Looked Up!

embrace your inner geekiness

in this episode we discuss:

  • Jan’s early days as a chemist and medical writer

  • the transition from academia to the real world and how baking became an outlet for her

  • how Jan went from chemist to baker and her experience as a “mature” student at Le Cordon Bleu

  • the fear of making a dramatic career change and starting over in your 30s

  • getting stuck in the research weeds on a new idea or product and never launching anything

  • the journey from hobby blogger, to professional blogger to running a niche teaching and resource platform that transcends blogging

  • her hesitation and fear of incorporating her love of science into the baking world (and the feedback she got that it would never work!)

  • why now, at 40, she’s embracing her inner geek and sharing it with the world in order to help others

  • the importance of being useful, entertaining or educational (or some combination of the three) in your business

  • why it’s so risky to have all your eggs in one revenue basket in your business

  • new revenue streams need time to develop

  • why you need to survey and ask your audience!

  • why you need to pay attention when your audience starts seeking you out to tell you how much they love what you do or how much it helps them, makes them happy, improves their day etc.

  • why sometimes rebranding is the very best thing you can do!

  • the different revenue generating avenues Jan has experimented with and how each of them is performing (digital downloads and printables, ebooks, ad revenue, freelancing, affiliate marketing, print on demand merch - t-shirts, tote bags etc)

  • the difficulty of marketing more than one revenue stream at a time

Mentioned In This Episode:

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Podcast Episode, Inspiring WomenMelissa Hartfielcreative enterpreneurshp, S4, multiple revenue streamsComment