Teen Entrepreneur Puts Popsy Cakes On The Map
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When Jessica Cervantes, the 18-year-old entrepreneur behind Popsy Cakes, needed to make a promotional video, she recruited her 10-year-old cousin Natalie to star in the commercial.
Natalie, after all, was the target market for Jessica’s frosted cupcakes on an edible cookie stick — and she was cute to boot.
Jessica turned the camera on her cousin and told Natalie to take just one bite of a Popsy Cake, then smile and look at the camera. It didn’t work. Natalie wouldn’t stop eating the Popsy Cakes, and it took a baker’s dozen takes to get it shot right.
EATING THE PROFITS
When it was over, Natalie had consumed 10 Popsy Cakes, which sell for $3 each. ‘I told her, `Stop. You’re making me lose profit,’ ” Jessica recalls.
But that was hardly a major setback for the budding Popsy Cake enterprise. In October Jessica won first place at the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in New York City. Now, with $10,000 in prize money to help expand her business, she hopes there is a country with kids who are as hungry for Popsy Cakes as Natalie was.
Jessica invented Popsy Cakes while taking an NFTE class at John A. Ferguson High School, where she is a senior enrolled in the school’s business academy curriculum. In 11th grade, she took ”Introduction to Entrepreneurship,” one of several courses NFTE sponsors in high schools around the country.
When asked to come up with a product as homework, Jessica came up with Popsy Cakes. ”I’ve always liked to do baking, and I’ve always wanted to own my own business,” she says.
After doing some research about kids’ snacks online, she learned that the most common complaints were that they were sticky and messy. That was her inspiration for her cupcakes on a stick.
Over the past year and a half she’s refined the idea. “One of the biggest obstacles I faced was making the product. It sounded easy, but at first the cake tasted horrible. Then the cookie sticks would break.”
Today Jessica makes an assortment of themed Popsy Cakes, including versions for Halloween and birthdays, and sells them for $30 a dozen.
