Connect
To Top

Meet Wakako Takagi of Baum-kuchen in Glassell Park

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Wakako Takagi.

Wakako, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Baum-kuchen started its journey in 2010 a week before my oldest daughter was born. For the first few years, it was an online store operated in our garage as a way for me to nurture a meaningful career while dedicating my heart to grow as a mother. Today, both our BK studio and the family has grown, and Frido, my husband and partner-in-crime, and I are thrilled to be leading a design studio, shop (online and brick & mortar) and lifestyle that is true to Baum-kuchen.

The approach to the Baum-kuchen lifestyle comes from our unique background of German Bauhaus and Japanese Wabi-Sabi marrying together harmoniously in Los Angeles. We enjoy exploring the idea of what it means to live a life that is immersed in an analogue experience, as well as everyday adventure. We enjoy searching for inspiration from Japan (where I grew up), Germany (where Frido is from) and everywhere in between (especially in Los Angeles where our home and studio is).

We opened our brick and mortar studio/shop in 2013 in the heart of Glassell Park (just north of Los Angeles Downtown) where we showcase some of our products & services and share our stories. We love staying in touch with our community via BK’s monthly love letter, Instagram, and our YouTube channel and we hope to continuously bring creativity, imagination, and inspiration to our world.

P.S. “Baum-kuchen” is a name of a delicious German cake which has become quite popular in Japan. It looks like a tree stump, and it represents layers of happiness built over time.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My goal and aspiration for the last 8.5 years of being a part of Baum-kuchen have been to keep my head straight no matter what the external world throws at us and how little time I seem to have in every day. I knew from day one that if our family is not healthy and happy from inside and out, our business will not be able to contribute to our community in the most authentic way. I have never wanted to give into the notion that the most essential part of our lives, the family, has to sacrifice to be successful in what we do.

Just like any other working mother might, I occasionally feel overwhelmed with the feeling of never having enough time. When that happens, I remind myself that what we do and who we are today is enough. My Baum-kuchen decisions sometimes seem to bring surprises to the rest of the world. But I am okay with being different and “not fitting in” because I always know exactly where my decision comes from. I encountered one of the biggest personal milestone growth when I opened my heart to the idea of having a team around Baum-kuchen.

Until then, I was doing everything from creating a website, shipping orders, communicating with our customers, writing blog posts, to bookkeeping. 100% of Baum-kuchen was me. But slowly I realized I was not going to be able to hold everything up by myself and the transition of letting the infant business grow into a toddler phase had to happen even though it was hard to let go. To be honest, It took me a little while to grow into a new role at Baum-kuchen.

Today, I believe my most important personal mission at Baum-kuchen is to serve the team I am so lucky to work with – to create a place where our team can feel encouraged to be creative and to connect with our community. I truly believe our BK community can feel the love and care in what we do when our team feels grounded and nurtured.

Baum-kuchen – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We have laser-focused criteria to only curate artifacts we can stand behind. It’s important for us to get to know the companies and artisans behind the artifacts because these items embody the creators’ souls and I believe our customers can feel the energy that radiates when they hold the items in their hands. A lot of our customers stumble upon Baum-kuchen when they are looking to reinvent their analogue systems.

We curate journals and planners such as Traveler’s Notebook, Hobonichi, Roterfaden, and Jibun Techo with a hope that these analogue tools will contribute to the inner peace and soul search of the owners. We also share our passion for travel through lifestyle artifacts we carry because travel-ing has been such an important inspiration for our design and life.

We aspire the Baum-kuchen experience to be a humble oasis in this chaotic and busy world. Putting much love and care to every BK element from our email exchange with our customers, in-store atmosphere, to the way we wrap our online orders is a big part of what we do every day at Baum-kuchen.

We are so blessed to be surrounded by our BK community who showers us with love, encouragement, and honest feedback. I know, together, we can do great things in the world.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
A few years after I started Baum-kuchen, my father, who was also a business owner, told me that my Baum-kuchen endeavor was merely a hobby if it only satisfied my personal need. He said to me that in order to surpass the boundary of a hobby, it needed to contribute to society in tangible ways by supporting families of employees, paying tax, etc. It was a tough advise to chew on at the time because I had nothing to prove myself yet, let alone employees.

However, I have continued to come back to his words especially the idea of “contributing to the society,” spiced up with my personal belief to choose a “people over profit” mentality, and reflected on it as my guideline. I look forward to continuing to challenge the status quo of how business should sustain and thrive. When it all unfolds, I know my job is well done if I can brighten up even one person’s life with what we do.

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in