March 6, 2017

Meet Shantal Der Boghosian of Shakar Bakery in Van Nuys

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shantal Der Boghosian.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I never expected to run a successful cake business. My background has always been heavily based in science. My bachelor degree is in chemistry and my master’s degree is in engineering. Both degrees have come in handy with the cake business since baking is all chemistry and the cake structures are all engineering!

My mom always baked and decorated our birthday cakes, so I grew up with homemade designs. They weren’t extravagant, but they were always well thought out and full of imagination. When my sister turned 30, she wasn’t too happy with entering the new decade so I decided to bake her a Wall-E cake to bring humor into the situation. I remember purchasing a Wall-E cake pan and using colored whipped cream to fill in his details. In that moment, I looked at the cake (which in hindsight wasn’t anything amazing) and thought to myself “there is hidden talent here I need to explore.” My color matching skills were impressive and he looked like Wall-E! It was the first time I had ever made a cake with a specific design. During this time I was pursuing my master’s degree in engineering so I didn’t think much of the cake and moved on with my life. Fast forward to June, I graduated from UCLA in 2009 during the peak of our economic woes. I found myself unemployed and unable to find a job thanks to hiring freezes. During this time I occupied myself by making more cakes for friend’s birthdays. The more cakes I made the more I felt there was something deep inside of me I didn’t know existed. After the 100th engineering job rejection letter I said “Screw it” and officially registered Shakar Bakery with the city. If I couldn’t find a job, I’d create one for myself! I started taking orders from friends, charging so cheaply that I was losing money with every order but I needed the experience and practice. I created a 5 year plan, and I stuck to it religiously. I eventually started working as an engineer in 2010 but continued making cakes on the side. I started a blog and wrote about my trials and tribulations, slowly growing an audience throughout the years. I started networking on social media and sharing my work daily. As time went on, I realized I wanted to try the business full time and in 2013 I quit engineering to run Shakar Bakery full time. I had one major goal: to compete on Food Network. From 2011-2015 I applied to every cake competition show. I kept getting closer and closer to being a finalist until my work was finally impressive enough for tv and I got cast to compete on Cake Wars, Season 2 in 2015. Not only did I compete, I managed to win! It was an incredible accomplishment and I had tears of joy and shock streaking down my face when they announced me as the winner. By this point in my cake career I was a Food Network winner, my work was published in many blogs, I won “Best of Weddings 2016” on The Knot (a highly reputable magazine/blog for the wedding industry) and I had a great client base! I had made cakes for David Tutera and for Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen. My little bakery was SOMEONE is the vast ocean of Los Angeles. At this point I started getting the itch to return to engineering since I no longer felt the need of doing the cake business full time since I met my goals. But before I returned to engineering, Food Network called to ask me to return to compete in Season 4 of Cake Wars. They said everyone loved my personality and my work and they wanted us back. Even though I didn’t win the second time around, it was an amazing feeling to be asked to return and to have the entire studio greet us warmly! I have a great relationship with the Food Network. They have hired me for private jobs many times and I appreciate and love them as a customer and as my producers!

Now I work full time as an environmental engineer, using my entrepreneur skills, and continue Shakar Bakery part time.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It was definitely a challenge to make it to where I am today.

The most obvious obstacle is money. It takes 5 years to make a business profitable. The first year is the most expensive since I had to sell my products at a cheap price in order to gain experience with orders. As my comfort level increased with my work, so did the pricing of my cakes. I started at $3/serving and now I’m at $7/serving base price. I kept re-investing the small earnings back into my business and I took calculated risks. I always lived within my business means and didn’t jump the gun with any decision. It was difficult to live this way but eventually I was able to profit to be able to live more comfortably and splurge in social outings.

The second challenge is stress. When you’re running your own business your mind is working 24/7. Even if you aren’t actively thinking you constantly have the business running in the back of your mind. How can you make more money? Should you have charged more? How can I diversify income? The questions go on and on and on. I’ve had sleepless nights because anxiety would grip my heart the quarters I wouldn’t make much profit. The slow seasons of cake making were brutal. There were times where I’d go 3 months without making a single dollar and my life depended on my savings account. It’s inevitable to have stress when you’re a business owner.

It took 2-3 years to get my friends and family to take me seriously and support my decision to run a cake business. Many of my friends would hire my local “competitors” to do their event cakes because they didn’t trust my business, and although it’s understandable it still created conflicting emotions for me. I had to put those emotions aside and focus on my goals in order to succeed. It takes a lot of sacrifice to make a business succeed. You essentially become anti-social since all of your time is devoted into pushing your business forward. The first 5 years are crucial and one can’t lose focus. A lot of anxiety-riddled, sleepless nights got me to where I am today. It’s a journey that changes you from a type B personality to a type A!

Another challenge is to set yourself apart from competition. Los Angeles is riddled with cake artists, and AMAZING ones at that. I’m a small fish in this vast sea. But my cakes are made with mainly organic ingredients and I create my own style of cakes. I slowly started growing my own customer base and eventually my work started to get picked up on social media by blogs, which is how you most likely found me! My 5 star rating on Yelp has helped tremendously!

There is nothing smooth about running your own business, especially if it’s in the food industry. Social media is a blessing and also a curse. A lot of jealousy among industry friends and the pettiness can be draining if you allow yourself to be dragged into it, which thankfully I’ve always been smart enough to steer away from it. However, the competition among cake artists is insane. I’ve had other home businesses undercut my prices just to get customers to hire them instead of me. I can’t blame the customer but it has always frustrated me that cake artists cheapen our art by selling it at such a low price. If I’m able to sell at $7/serving, why sell yours for half of that???

A smaller challenge has been time management. The cake business has an opposite schedule than the rest of the world. My busiest days were Thursday- Saturday and Sundays/Mondays were my Saturday/Sunday. It was really difficult to maintain a social life when you were exhausted/busy while everyone else was letting go of their work week. I also used to easily cram 20 hours of work in one day. It’s a really taxing schedule since food has a short shelf life and you have to work quickly.

Honestly, the list of challenges and struggles is pretty long! But those struggles really shape you into a better person. You learn to value money and time on a whole different level.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Shakar Bakery specializes in designer cakes. They are very custom and unique for every customer. I’m known for my “simple” designs, my Daft Punk animatronic cake and my super, adorable children’s cakes! I am also known for being a Cake Wars winner. My honesty and transparency sets me apart from competitors. If you read my Yelp reviews you see that my customers are always saying the same things about me. I am upfront about pricing and design and am not shy to steer clients away from designs that I know will be disastrous. I also bake using mainly organic ingredients. I buy my eggs directly from a farmer (they’re the best eggs you’ll ever eat!), I use butter made from grass-fed cows and I spend top dollar on the chocolate I use in my baking. I’m a self-taught baker so I have to depend on high quality ingredients in order to make my cakes taste great.

I am most proud of my Daft Punk animatronic cake. You can view it here on YouTube:

It was the first time I built a structure cake. It was my 3rd year in business and I had zero concept on how to build a structure or to sculpt humans. I decided to go big or go home and designed a 5ftx5ft cake! My electrical engineer friend helped me make the cake move. I designed the structure, gave him the specs and he designed the LEDs and motion. The helmets are made out of rice krispies. I built the entire set- the DJ table, the bodies, the helmets etc. The LED lights actually spell out my name and my friend’s name. I love sneaking in personal details into my cakes. I also made a time machine cake that sparks and the clock on the cake points to my birthday.

Ok, I’m also SUPER proud for winning cake wars. It was my dream to compete on Food Network and I WON!!!!!! I was able to design a cake that wouldn’t fail me, even though I was a little ballsy with the design. I supported really heavy cakes on top of 3 palm trees. The cake should have fallen, but luckily I was smart with my engineering. For anyone interested in watching my episode it was the Archie Comics episode that I won, and I lost the Transformers episode.

My favorite cakes to make are the nerdy ones, like Star Wars, and children’s cakes. I love how my imagination can run free with children’s cakes and they are the best customers to have- there’s nothing I enjoy more than watching their little faces light up with joy!

I have been running Shakar Bakery by myself, with the occasional help of my mom, Elizabeth. In 2015 she helped me almost full time and she competed with me on Cake Wars both times. It’s funny that people think we are a much larger bakery because of my social media presence! People enjoy the mother/daughter combo and I think that has helped establish a good following for my business. I have the most loyal customers and I love them to pieces!

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was a total tomboy. I didn’t have a female friend until the 4th grade when teachers forced me to hang out with girls! With the boys I’d always be playing competitive sports and that competitive spirit has stayed with me. I was also always a nerd. As a kid I would read a book a week and would use my allowance money to buy more books. At recess in elementary if I wasn’t playing basketball with the boys, I was in the library reading books. In kindergarten I wanted to be a pediatrician, in elementary school I wanted to be a veterinarian, in high school I wanted to study Chinese medicine until finally in college I decided to study Chemistry. I was always interested in science, but my hobbies were all art related. I have always loved playing the piano and forced my parents to take me too lessons when I was 5. I loved writing poems and stories. I loved to sculpt with ceramics as well. I guess you can say I always balanced my brain and kept both sides equally occupied.

Personality wise I used to be a very shy child. Thankfully life kept putting me in awkward situations that forced me to work past my shyness and become the outspoken, blunt and sociable self that I am today. I am an extroverted introvert- I love people but I need a break from time to time.

My biggest passion in life has always been travel. At age 18 I worked as a passenger service representative for American Airlines. My goal was to make it past the 6 month probation period so that I could fly freely and cheaply all over the world. I had a 5 year travel plan and was going to put college second and travel first. I had the perfect plan, but unfortunately this was during 2001 and I was part of the 9/11 layoffs. Travel was now second to college, but that didn’t stop me. I’ve been to so many countries and there’s still so much to see! I’ve hiked to Machu Picchu, spent a month in Costa Rica, had fresh mochi in the streets of Japan and hiked the glaciers in Patagonia. My passport is my most precious object, especially the one that is fully stamped on every page!

Growing up in Los Angeles, music has also been a big part of my life and I have been an avid concert goer. It’s difficult to say which list is more impressive: my travel list or my concert list?

I have always been an entrepreneur. In college I had a difficult time finding a job that would work well with my grueling chemistry schedule. Frustrated, I decided to start my own massage business. People had always told me I give the best massages so I went to massage school in the evenings, got certified, registered my business and grew an awesome client base! I eventually had to close up shop because I injured my wrists, but the business was really successful and I made awesome money.

Now that my cake business is established, I really enjoy teaching. I have a YouTube channel full of tutorials to help regular people become pros. I give a lot of business advice and I sell business templates on my website www.shakarbakery.com I have been invited to teach at highly recognized cake shows and it’s been amazing! I love to teach!

Pricing:

Cakes start at $7/serving
Cupcakes start at $4/serving
I host cupcake parties for children! Pricing varies per package so if interested people can contact me
Wedding cakes have a $1000 minimum

Pricing:

Cakes start at $7/serving
Cupcakes start at $4/serving
I host cupcake parties for children! Pricing varies per package so if interested people can contact me
Wedding cakes have a $1000 minimum

Contact Info: