Our “Your Story” series are posts are written by our clients. In their own words, they talk about their e-commerce experience with BigCommerce. If you’d like to be featured here please send me an email.
Company: The Smart Baker
BigCommerce Store: http://www.thesmartbaker.com/
Launch Date: 2009
Founders: Daniel Rensing and Stephanie Rensing
Vertical: Gifts and Specialty
”The Smart Baker, based in Rockledge FL, is a simple company with a simple mission. We want cooks and bakers to have an easier time in the kitchen. We do this by developing simple, effective and affordable products that solve common problems.”
In Daniel’s own words:
Our first product, the Cheat Sheet Apron, was the product that accidentally started our business. Whether my wife was baking for just us two or baking for our large families, she was constantly 
converting measurements in order to scale her recipes. I decided she needed something so she would have this information at her fingertips. I printed common baking conversions on the bottom of her apron, but in order to make it easy to read, I printed it upside down so she can read it while wearing it.
Soon after, Food Network Magazine featured us in their Christmas issue. We set up a simple website to make it easy for the readers to purchase our apron. Trying to manage these orders seemed impossible. It quickly got to a point where running an e-commerce business was turning into a hassle. Luckily for us, I came across BigCommerce, the perfect solution.
Now I didn’t have to worry about all the issues we were facing. All the features we needed were now handled by BigCommerce’s powerful backend system. After adding our new product lines of Cupcake and Treat Towers, Cake Pop Stands and Pre-Cut Parchment, I was amazed how our average order sales increased. A website that automatically up sells for you is invaluable.
Stephanie and I had the great opportunity to appear on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank. I had a major concern that my only connection to my customers, my website, wouldn’t be able to handle the huge amount of visitors or process the orders quickly. I contacted the awesome support ninja’s to give them a heads up that we would be appearing on the show and I wanted to make sure my site stayed up and running. The support staff at BigCommerce told me not to worry and they would have my site ready to go once we air. And they were right. Our site stayed up, ran smoothly, processed orders flawlessly and allowed me to capitalize on this exposure.
I would like to give a huge Thank You to the BigCommerce founders and the entire BigCommerce staff for providing a great product, great experience and a great way to take our passion and turn it into a successful business.
“…is good, for now. It’s on the couch in my living room, the place where most of my revelations have come from. Laptop on lap, e-cigarette in mouth, son asleep. My review of BigCommerce is not so much a review, as a thanks. BigCommerce has offered me my dreams. If it was expensive, I wouldn’t have gone for it. If it was time consuming, no dice. It was the perfect blend to get me to jump in and take hold of something I had been itching to do for many years.