TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR BUSINESS ? My name is Katie and I am the owner of Winston & Walt . My company is a home-based business that offers personal and artistic cakes and cupcakes which I work on in the evenings and on weekends . I have a diploma of interior design , a diploma of building design and work full time as a senior civil engineering AutoCAD draftsman . I have an absolutely beautiful and intelligent 15 year old daughter who is the light of my world , am blessed with a lovely group of friends and in my down time I enjoy going to the gym , technical hand drawings and listening to music .
My business started the same way it does for many- I ’ d received lots of really lovely compliments and feedback on my daughter ’ s birthday cakes and have been told many times over the years that I could sell them . I started Winston & Walt in 2023 not really knowing what direction I wanted my business to head , what I wanted to make or how to even take an order . I just wanted people to start asking me to make cakes for them but had no earthly idea how to make that happen .
Winston & Walt started with an Instagram page that I thought would become nothing more than just an informal “ gallery ”. Each time I took a picture my dachsund Winston would come over to see what was happening and featured quite heavily in my early photos . However I was wrong about instagram being a gallery , because after only a few months I started getting more and more orders through social media , so much so that I decided not to look into websites and such because the rate of orders I receive is perfect for me- it ' s enough to keep brushing up my skills but not so much that I ’ m pulling all nighters and struggling to keep up . More platforms may mean more growth , but I am happy with the rate I ’ m going at and will certainly consider additional avenues in the future when I ’ m ready for that growth . This is a strange thing to say , but it took a bit of time at the beginning to comprehend the thought that this was my business , and I could make and offer whatever I wanted . I started off thinking that if I wanted to be successful I would need to offer cakes , tarts , biscuits , slices , sweets , pavlova , gingerbread houses … everything a local café does and it was all very reactive and I felt overwhelmed very quickly . I initially started with sugar cookies because I was honestly too scared to make anything bigger . I would think to myself “ I just want to make cakes and cupcakes and say no to everything else ” so that ’ s what I decided to do !
My focus for 2025 are to improve my hand made decorations particularly with isomalt , wafer paper flowers and chocolate ; and to pursue avenues such as magazine articles and tutorials , collaborations and brand ambassadorship .