Wondering if she could make a go of it, Jennifer McDermott started making beautiful cookies in her own kitchen. Formerly working for an art dealer in New York, kids and the suburbs gave her a change of direction. She was looking for fulfillment and offered her cookies to other nursery school moms. Her marketing consisted of enclosing a cookie and a flyer in a cellophane bag and dropping it off in the mail boxes of other moms from her son’s nursery school. She also donated her elegant cookies to a local charity where each attendee got a flyer and one of her beautiful creations. A bonus for her is that her kids can help her with her baking and marketing efforts. Her son assisted in cookie deliveries while still in his car seat. Now, her small cookie business is a full-fledged bakery; Summer Kitchen Bake House.
Another love, riding horses, lead Jennifer McDermott to an unusual business. While exercising her horse at a local barn, she was asked if she would exercise another horse that needed rehab after an injury. The owner was traveling and couldn’t get to the barn. She began with that horse and expanded to other horses and other barns and began to charge for her time. She was doing something she loved, saw a need that she could fulfill, and found a way to get paid for it.