Gigi Butler, entrepreneur and founder of Gigi’s Cupcakes, admits her story of success is full of sweet irony. Butler opened her first Gigi’s Cupcakes location just off Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008. Gigi’s Cupcakes is now the largest cupcake franchise in the world.
With an entrepreneurial spirit that needed an outlet at the age of 15, Butler opened her first business, Gigi’s Cleaning Company, which she continued to grow once she moved from California to Nashville in 1994. She cleaned houses during the day and sang at downtown Nashville honky-tonks at night. After a decade of pursuing a career as an entertainer, the heartaches of the music industry hit home.
Butler decided to step back and focus on her financial future. While building a sweet empire was never part of her plan, she realized that her culinary and business skills could take her places she never dreamed about. She decided to take a chance on her other passion – baking.
Butler learned her love for baking at an early age as she came from a long line of bakers who taught her unique family recipes. As an adult, Butler felt that baking had become a lost art that needed to be resurrected. Even though people rarely have time to bake from scratch, they still enjoy eating delicious home baked goods, especially ones that reminded them of their childhood.
After being turned down by various banks and down to her last $33, Butler went out on a limb and in 2008 leveraged several personal credit cards to fund the first Gigi’s Cupcakes store. She gambled everything she had to open her first location. Fortunately, her sweet treats quickly became Nashville’s delicacy dessert of choice. Shortly thereafter, Gigi’s Franchising, Inc. was born, and Gigi’s Cupcakes locations began popping up throughout North America.
Among her other duties for Gigi’s Cupcakes, Butler served as Head of Product Development. Through her own creativity coupled with a unique open relationship with and feedback from customers, Butler was responsible for expanding the initial menu offering from 32 to over 278 cupcake recipes.
Over the course of the next decade and as the number of Gigi’s Cupcakes locations grew, Butler became a sought-after public speaker. Her motivational, inspirational and entrepreneurial ‘rags-to-riches’ story has become a centerpiece for corporate events, business and social gatherings as well as on college campuses (especially those with entrepreneurial programs). Always leaving the crowd wanting more, Butler offers the attendees access to her deepest thoughts, fears, successes and failures, with an emphasis on how to fight fear and look at fear as a motivator rather than an obstacle.
As usual, Butler is not ready to slow down and is ready to recreate herself again with her newest venture—opening a new concept called Gigi’s Kitchen. Open now, just south of Nashville, in Brentwood, TN, the pie shop has a warm, French farmhouse atmosphere and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner serving casseroles, pot pies, pasta dishes, take-and-bake options, a coffee and tea bar, pie bars, muffins, scones, mini pies and, of course, full sized pies in many different delicious flavors.
Butler’s autobiography “The Secret Ingredient: Recipes for Success In Business and Life” was released in December 2018. She shares her personal success story, her hard-won business acumen and the life-changing inspiration that she’s gained from a challenging life. Each chapter includes a piece of business advice and a delicious sweet and savory recipe.
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