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Michelle and Joan are doers. They don't just have ideas, they go after them - sometimes too hard and for too long. Sometimes to great success and following. This first episode of Proofing Stage lays the groundwork for why, after a professional lifetime of going after things, creating and improving, it's time to take a look back and figure out where to go from here. And, why doing it with others is the only way to do it.

As the episode title suggests, we answer the question: "Why are we doin' the podcast?"

Together with our host, Amanda, the answer includes:

• Capturing years of entrepreneurship
• Shining a light on the challenging experiences we face as minority business owners
• Describing what Michelle and Joan did before the bagel biz
• Explaining how businesses reflect their founders
• Demonstrating what goes into a minimally viable product
• Fostering community
• Talking about how others perceive your dreams
• To open up our networks
• Highlighting mistakes for others to learn from
• Because the hustle and grind wants to keep us from communing
• Along the way, you learn more about Joan, Michelle and Amanda.
• And, yes, Michelle explains the significance of this pod's name.

CW: Seasoned with explicit language

Links:

Fugue the App

"Descent into Sadness" (Fugue app commercial)

"Through the Ages" (Fugue app commercial)

Karmic Messenger

Bottoms Up Bagels

Theme music by Thorn Haze
Artwork by Lisa Orye

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Joan shares why the Proofing Stage pod is important to her, and to us.

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You're getting to know our founders a little more everyday. The context provider. The cut-to-the-chase-er. The outside observer. While the businesses we've begun are in different industries, the hustle is similar - living the literal dream while trying to make ends meet, and having the right tools for the job.

Were we getting ready for a dog show? Nope. A theater performance? Nope. A farmers market? YES! This week, you'll learn about Bottoms Up Bagels' (BUB's) first sales day - which was not unlike the build up and culmination of a Christopher Guest movie. Whether you are an over-complicator, over-achiever or just thrive on the "figuring it out" of entrepreneurship, this episode is for you.

But first, here are the other tasty, crispy bits on the edge of this podcast lasagne:

• There is a big difference between your friends liking your food and strangers liking what you make. Related, cooking for 4 people is different from prepping a variety of foods for 100.
• How Bottoms Up Bagels (BUB) got its name. Spoiler alert: We're not florid alcoholics.
• When it's time for a career change
• Hear Michelle read to lo-fi beats. So soothing!
• What's your MVP (Minimally Viable Product?)
• Introduction to Joan's Foreshadowing Moment segments
• Prepping for your first sales opportunity
• What's a Black Russian bagel and can you still call it that?
• Defining "traction"
• Microdosing hospitality life (in the arsenic sense)
• Food business start-up Growing Pains - minus Bible Man
• We unpack what Joan means by "The Drug."
• Motivation to pick up the pace can come from anywhere

And does polyamory apply to prep kitchen usage? I mean...

CW: Adult language and themes; pro-caper sentiment

Links:

Maryland Cottage Food Business Resources

ServSafe®

Small Business Saturday

Theme music by Thorn Haze
Additional music by Pumpupthemind (via Pixabay)
Artwork by Lisa Orye

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Gather around for story-time... this mini-sode about the power of gifting yourself permission is more evergreen than seasonal.

#impostersyndrome #loxtoreflecton #criticalcontrolpoint

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Ah, Anthony Bourdain, you are still deeply missed. What happens when the utopia of accessing commercial equipment, making your product with a bit more ease, and being around theoretically like-minds begins to fade?

Here, the everyday challenges of scaling a food business butt up against culture clashes and finding your voice. What's in any of our control? And what should you look for when relying on other, more powerful, entities to help you build your dream?

This double-wide episode gets down and dirty in the (shared) back of the house, while dishing out helpful hints for finding the right space to grow your business.

Today, we're serving up...

• Different flavors of commercial kitchen spaces
• How shared kitchens are a microcosm of larger systems
• All-you-can-eat unsolicited advice
• Food business permit/license sherpas, and how you don't need them
• A light sprinkle of "fakers" vs "makers"
• When fines aren't [fine]
• A very special "Listener Take Note" moment
• Taking price incentives to an extreme: always read the bill
• The Pros, Cons, Bros and "C'mons" of sharing a kitchen #ultimateroommatescenario
• Someone taking "broom-swept" to a whole 'nother level.
• THE question: Did Bottoms Up Bagels (BUB) over-proof at the shared kitchen?
• And, the main course... Michelle brings down the house with a #standandeliver moment about a #kingmaker

- Heads up! This is required reading/listening for any female business owner

CW: Adult language and themes

Glossary

Roadshow

Tilt skillets

Link
Shared Kitchen Confidential
- Joan's Oct. 2019 Ignite presentation (6 mins., 23 sec.)
- I mean, how many one-liners are in this?!!!

Theme music by Thorn Haze

Additional music by ToniSound (via Pixabay), OctoSound (via Pixabay), Grand_Project (via Pixabay)

Artwork by Lisa Orye

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We're winding down our year and having some fun within the entrepreneurial landscape. What can prompt one human being to get up and go, can generate a Camden Yards-style wave of eyerolls from another.

In this clip, not quite mini-sode, Joan runs down a few of 2023's standout CTAs for budding business owners.

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In the spirit of the new year, we're sharing our aspirations. What are yours?

In a recent production meeting, Michelle, Amanda and Joan asked: "What's your hope for this podcast?" This BTS bonus episode begins to answer that question...

Some highlights below:

Joan:
"It had to have catharsis, but also have catharsis with meaning [outside of us]. I feel like just a bitch session for us would not be meaningful to listeners and also readers...So it's important to like to meaningfully share something, to establish who we - all the three of us - are, actually, to see if people want to continue on this journey with us and to bring people along as we go. But people are now listening to the foundational episodes and I think that's important to establish character and experience and see if anything resonates with people."

Amanda:
"I've been thinking about the catharsis that comes from creation a lot within the past, actually the past 24 hours, 48 hours. I was speaking with a friend of mine who's an author and we had brunch and it was really nice and we were talking about how well. I'm writing memoir right now and how there was one piece in particular that I had been carrying around for a really, really long time about a situation when I was very young and I wrote it and a very strange thing happened to me at least that you know, I think people talk about but they don't talk about as openly as they should is - that when you put it down on paper, you put it down and you're able to carry on."

Michelle: "But you know that's a process, for lots of things is to just... put it down and then see what pieces of it you wanna pick up to go on your next journey, and that's for me it's very much that process. And then the bonus of seeing where it can go and what it brings out in people and if there's a community that we can help foster or connect to other communities talking about similar things, that's really exciting and it's been exciting to not be afraid to put our whole selves out there."

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