"A Labor of Love" Kat Helms of Pretty Good Cookies Shares Her Cookie Love with the Rochester Community
Collider is passionate about sharing the stories of Rochester entrepreneurs and small business owners. We had the recent pleasure of meeting with Kat Helms, a recent addition to the Rochester community, who works at Mayo Clinic as an Occupational Therapist and founded Pretty Good Cookies as a small side business and passion project upon moving to Rochester!
Contributed photo by Kat Helms
Kat attributes her childhood love of baking with her sisters to her current cookie passion. Throughout childhood, high school, and college Kat has fond memories of baking with family and friends. While in grad school, off for a month over the holidays, she found herself bored and looking for something to fill her time. She turned to her trusty hobby, this time paying special attention to decorating the cookies she had made. The results were much better than anything she had done before.
In February of 2020, Kat moved to Rochester to start her position as an Occupational Therapist at Mayo Clinic. She immediately found herself thrown into a whole new pandemic world in a whole new city.
“I didn’t have a couch, a TV, not even a kitchen table. I had nothing to do, with the pandemic there just wasn’t anything going on. To fill my time I started learning more about the cookie decorating process.The baking part is very methodical and calming, I don’t have to think about it much. With decorating I get into my own flow and it’s very fun and therapeutic for me.”
Photo by Corrie Strommen
“I would bring the cookies I made into work, which was really fun at the time. Morale was low at the hospital and it was such an anxious, uncertain time. My coworkers loved them. They would tell me ‘ You should sell these!’ ‘These cookies are too pretty to eat!’, and eat them and tell me how good they were.”
While considering starting a cookie business out of her home, Kat’s biggest concern was safety.
“I was asking myself if this idea was safe and smart. We were dealing with a respiratory virus that we just didn’t know a lot about at the time, and working in the hospital I was around it all the time. So I definitely had concerns about being an unintentional carrier and spreading it to customers. There was also the added issue with supply chains. Initially I was getting everything online. There were times that orders were taking weeks to arrive with time sensitive supplies, or while I was trying to fill an order. Recently a lot of items have been on backorder or not available which can be really stressful. I’ve had to get creative with the supplies that I’m using.”
On the flip side, Kat explained, “For the most part, I think starting a cookie business during the pandemic had a silver lining. Having all of that extra time during the pandemic really allowed me to practice so many techniques and really understand the medium of cookie decor.”
Kat also found that with more people spending time at home and not out and about that they were much more likely to spend money on a cookie decorating kit, spending family time together, and doing something creative and special.
Contributed photo by Kat Helms
Still very new to Rochester while starting Pretty Good Cookies, Kat, who was inspired by her coworkers to start her business, also found them to be integral in spreading the word about her cookies.
“I think the only reason I have the customer base I have now is because of my coworkers. They became my immediate community. They really jump-started my customer base and made it possible to get this project off the ground.”
They’ve gone so far as to say that Kat should make her cookies a full time job, but she has her reservations.
“To be frank, I don’t know if I would ever consider opening a brick and mortar here. Based on what I’ve seen of other bakeries and restaurants and the amount of turnover just over the couple of years that I’ve been here, it seems like a difficult scene to be successful in. I would also have to make so many cookies to compete with my day job salary. The cookie decorating process is truly a labor of love. Just to make a living wage I would have to charge around two hundred dollars a dozen, which just isn’t reasonable.”
She continued, “That said, I could see myself doing it half of the time. I really love what I do as an Occupational Therapist, and I think I’m really good at it. It’s a perfect profession for the medical side of my brain. But my creative side also wants to do more with cookies. So I think an equal blend of the two would be ideal in the future. I feel really lucky that I’ve found two things that I not only really enjoy doing, but am also really good at. Both were a learning process, but also in a way fell into my lap. I feel very fortunate that I have this problem of being pulled between two things that I love.”
Outside of working a full time job and running Pretty Good Cookies, Kat pursues all kinds of art projects.
“I’m a crafty, crafty gal.” Kat said. “I’ve done anything from making jewelry, quilting and glassblowing to painting, drawing and photography. Almost any artsy project I try I’m good at and really enjoy.”
She continued, “I also really love being outdoors. I love hiking; I love camping. I just like getting lost in nature and exploring new things.”
She also loves spending time with friends and trying out restaurants around town. Some of her favorite spots include Forager, Bitter and Pour, and Thai Pop.
“I love doing, learning, and exploring. I feel like I never left that childhood stage. I feel like a sponge; I just want to do it all!”
Photo by Corrie Strommen
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Kat’s story! If you find value in this content, please consider donating to help Collider continue amplifying the voices of Rochester entrepreneurs. You can also learn more about Pretty Good Cookies by clicking the link below!
Article by Corrie Strommen, Director of Community at Collider.
