How Pies and Tacos Became a Full-Time Food Blogger by Leaning into a Niche

At what point along the way did you say, hey, you know what? Like, I want to start something, and the thing I'm going to start is publishing content online, specifically recipes. And was it. Was any of that tied back to like, hey, I want to. I want to make the food that I. That I miss and publish that, or is it just like, hey, I just want to publish recipes online and we'll figure out a niche that makes sense to focus on.

Right. So I grew up in a bakery. Like I said, my. My grandma lives on the street that my mom lives, and my grandma had a bakery there for 50 years. So I grew up in a bakery. I always loved baking, always loved being in the kitchen, like playing cooking show, cooking TV shows with my mom while she was like, cooking dinner. I was like pretending I was, you know, being the host of the show. So I always liked that, that scene. And when I was here in America, you know, by myself in New York, I didn't have family, didn't have a lot of friends, didn't. Didn't know a lot of people. And I would just, on my days off from work, I would just cook my husband, like all this, five course meals, very elaborate meals, because I had all this time.

Yeah.

So I would just be doing that and I'd be writing my own recipes down. And I loved changing recipes, making up my own stuff, and I would just spend my time doing that because I had like a lot of depression at the time, you know, from being far from my family. Yeah. So that was like my therapy, you know, just being in the kitchen and cooking and baking, mainly baking is what I love to do the most. And I would just write those recipes down. And I had like seven binders of recipes that I had, you know, handwritten and made my own recipes after like a couple, couple of years. And I started like taking pictures of them, just like snapshots with my phone.

Yeah.

And I started posting on Instagram.

Sure.

And that's how I started connecting with people that were, you know, like me that like to cook, like to bake at home. Because I didn't really have that type of connection in, in person with people from my circle, you know.

Yeah.

Because I was very obsessed with doing it. I still am. And people online are the same way. People on Instagram, from the food community, you know, everybod, it's an amazing community. The bloggers and just the people that post their foods to the, you know, the macaron community mainly, that's what I'm really into now. So I started Making those connections with people posting on Instagram. And I wanted to share the recipes, and people would be like, do you have a recipe for this? And I'm like, okay, I gotta post a recipe. And I was on. I was on a food photography Facebook group, and I saw that Cammie from Everything Conference, Everything Food Conference, she had posted something that they had a blog, no Diets Allowed, and they were looking for people to write recipes for their blog. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this would be perfect. Like, I really want to do this. So I got the gig to write recipes for no Diets Allowed. And for a few months, I did that, and I was writing recipes for the blog. I kind of learned a little bit of SEO at the time, learn, you know, how to do WordPress, because we had to post the recipes. I was trying to improve my photography because that's a part that I lacked, like, a lot at the time. I went on my pictures to reflect, you know, what the food was actually like to me. And so I was trying to improve all those things. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to do my own blog where I can just do my own thing and just post whatever I want, whenever I want, and just write about whatever it is that I want. All my. My personal recipes. And then just a few months later, after I got into.

When was this? What year was it this was.

So I started my Instagram in, like, May 2017.

Sure.

And then I think in August, I got into no Diets Allowed the blog and that for.

For context, Cammie, who had a conference called Everything Food, also had a blog. And so I see the connection there where you connected with her and started to produce content for that site. One of the things that I feel like is just as a real quick aside, important to point out is. And I had this mindset early on as well, which is, hey, if you can learn the thing you want to do and get paid for it, what a wonderful thing to do. And I think sometimes we think about learning for free, which sometimes we need to do. Like, you do photography and you do writing, and you're doing it for yourself and you're learning as you go. But you can also figure out ways to say, like, hey, I want to become better at writing and to look. To actively look for a job where you can get paid to do that and get better along the way. I was at a nonprofit, and they had a job where somebody could. They needed somebody to help with the website, like, very similar, like, to work within WordPress. And to do some like, the light design work. I was like, great. I love the idea of learning this stuff. And also got paid to do it as a non profit, so it wasn't like I was making, you know, a ton of money, but I was getting compensated and also learning the thing I wanted to learn. So for you, that was 2017, you started your Instagram. It sounded like shortly after that, started to do some of the freelance work, get paid for it, also learn along the way. And then you're like, hey, I should also do this for myself. Or maybe I have a little bit more freedom around like focusing on something that I want to focus on. In what year was that that you started to do that?

That was October of 2017. It was right after. Yeah. So I started my own blog on October 16th of 2017. I started pies and Tacos at the, at the time, you know, I wanted to post about all kinds of foods. I love making tacos and even savory food.

Yeah. So the idea of being pies, sweet all the way to tacos, savory, kind of like everything in between.

Exactly. That's what, you know, that was my mindset at the time. I'm like, you know, I love pies and I love tacos and yeah, that was going to be the blog. And then, you know, started shifting along the way to more baking and, you know, later on more cupcakes and macarons and stuff like that. But yeah, that's how it started.

Cool, that's great. I'd be curious in your business journey as you started to get into this, as you started to think about, here's how I can not only do this thing I love. Right. And that being a powerful thing, but also potentially getting better at it and developing it into a business. What did that journey look like and where along the way did you say, I think it makes sense to focus a little bit more on something specific versus kind of a broader take.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I feel like it was kind of happened naturally. I wasn't intentional about the, about niching down to macarons and cupcakes and sweets. It was kind of like happened. I felt like I was better at those things than at the. And I had more, more pleasure out of making macarons and photographing them than I had out of, you know, making tacos and making like a savory dish, for example.

So.

So I just, I really followed what made me feel better. So those things made me feel better. I enjoyed doing that the most. And since I was doing you know, that mainly to do what I wanted and to, you know, follow my heart. I figured I'll just really do that. I'll just really follow my heart and do what I love. And that's, you know, just kind of like following what made me the happiest.

Yeah. There probably also, I would imagine, was some type of positive correlation for your followers. Followers as well. Like, example. I'm trying to think of an extreme example, but, like, if I really loved, like. Like making edible snow sculptures. Right. So, like, in terms of other people who are looking to do that, probably not many. Maybe I could. Like, it can make it quirky and, like, you can build a following around it. But it seems like, unless I'm off on this, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. Like, the sweet spot is the thing you're passionate about, that you feel a really strong pull towards, that you like doing that feels like a good fit, and that there's somebody else on the other side who is interested in, like, receiving that, interacting with it, at least in our world and at least in regards to business. Right. You can do. Do whatever makes you happy and whatever you love doing. If it's something where you're like, and I want to create a business for it, there has to be somebody on the other side who's willing to, like, give it their attention or to purchase it if it's a product you're building. So did you find that to be true, or did you say, hey, you know what? I know I want to do this, and I really hope there's somebody out there who is interested in kind of consuming this content that I'm creating.

Yeah, no, definitely. It was kind of like, it was. It happened simultaneously. Like, people. There wasn't a lot of macaron content at the time when I started, you know, a lot of, like, thorough explanations. I couldn't find the explanations that I needed to understand how to do it right. And I feel like I just had to explain better. So that was part of it, too. And a lot of people felt the same way that I got messages on my inbox. I still do, like, every single day, questions about Macrons. And, you know, that started building my. My Macron community. And I'm like, okay, so I gotta post about this. And people. A lot of people are asking about this kind of stuff. So I gotta post about this or I gotta, you know, research about this. Because a lot of that stuff I didn't know. I learned from the problems that people were. Were coming to me with the problems because yeah, Like, I never faced this type of problem, but if five people came to that, to me with that problem, I'm like, okay, let's look into it. So I would research and I would find other bakers and Facebook groups that were going through the problem, and I would help all these people and try to answer all the questions and try to help everybody troubleshoot their problems. And I learned a lot doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Along the way. What's interesting about that, it feels like it parallels what Food Blogger Pro was for us, where on Pinch of Yum, there's a food bog. Right. But we started to produce, like, business or blogging type content because we had a lot of people asking questions around that. Eventually we spun it off. It became its own thing. But it seems like you were doing a similar thing where you're like, wait a minute, I see this pattern of questions. People coming to me with this specific question, often about this specific thing, and realizing, like, oh, there's something here. Like, we talk about this with the different products. We have, like, clarity, where, hey, if people have requests, feature requests, or if they have, you know, questions about how to use it, that's a really good thing because it shows that they're interested in it. So was it hard for you to say, you know what, I'm going to let go of this idea of kind of sweet to savory and everything in between and really focus in on this one thing? Or did that just happen naturally?

Very naturally. It happened very naturally. And you know, even. Even now, sometimes people go like, where are the tacos? And I'm like, yeah, right, there's no tacos.

Yeah, tacos. No more. But what's interesting is not only did you produce content around that, but you also started to introduce kind of some business elements around it. You have. Would you consider it a school or like a class or a course? I'd be interested to hear you talk about kind of the evolution of your business. And is it right that your husband's also now starting to help out with what you're doing? So, like, what. What was. What were the different steps along the way from, hey, this is a hobby and it's a. It's a really good thing for me to do from a health perspective, mental health perspective. It's something I enjoy to. Wait a minute, there's some traction here to, hey, actually this is a business and it's able to support me as a career. What did that evolution look like and what were the different steps along the way?

Yeah, so. So I started the Blog. And of course I wasn't making money for like a year. I didn't make any, basically any money on the blog. I had just like a few sponsorships here and there and they weren't like anything great. And I was still working as a waitress and, and then I got a zoic on my blog and that's how I started making a little bit of money. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is kind of nice, you know, to make a little bit of money doing this. And I wasn't expecting that it would be like really anything too big. And I started reading people on, you know, the food blogger Facebook groups, talking about making six figure incomes and even reading the reports from a pinch of Yum that you guys used to post. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this can be really something. And I started to really, you know, laser focusing on it, on the idea of actually growing the blog. And that's where, you know, SEO and all that stuff came in. Trying to combine all of that with what I feel like people are requesting of me, you know, through their questions and DMS and comments on social media and stuff like that. And then a year and a half after I started the blog, that's when I quit my job because I was making the same amount of money from the blog that I was making on my part time job.

So that's a great, it's a great checkpoint to say like, okay, like these are comparable. Which one? I'm guessing the question is like, which one has more potential upside? And it's like, hey, instead of spending time in this other job which is paying me the same amount and not like building a snowball, it probably makes more sense to double my time available to work on my blog. Is that kind of how you thought about it or were there other elements that you thought about at that point that where you're like, hey, I'm making as much from this as my full time job.

Yeah, absolutely. I was, I can't do this anymore. I just didn't want to be there. I just, in my job, I was oasis. I thought about being, you know, doing stuff for the blog the whole time it was getting on my way, you know, that I wanted to do. So I was like, I gave myself a date and I was like, I'm going to quit by Easter of 2019. And I was able to do it, you know, a few months before that. I gave myself that date. I was like, I'm going to work, you know, as hard as I can. And I'M going to try to pull this off. And I did it.

Yeah, that's awesome. What were the things that were most helpful to get you to that point? Would you be able to say, like, hey, really focusing on a niche SEO ads, Like, what were the things that you'd. If you were to go back start at zero, you'd say, like, I need to prioritize these things.

Yeah, that's when I got on mediavine. So, you know, for, for you to get on mediavine, you have to have a certain number of sessions. I don't remember what it was at the time. I think they changed it, but I think used to be 25,000 page views per month. So I was like, I gotta focus on my page views. So I gotta try to bring traffic to my blog, you know, through Pinterest and through SEO and trying to make my, my posts, you know, optimized for SEO and through Facebook. So I started investing very heavily on Pinterest at the time. Tailwind was awesome. So I was, you know, spending a lot of time doing that and just, you know, putting as many posts as I could, putting them out there and trying to get people to come to my blog. And that's what I was focusing on, my traffic.

That's great. Were there things at that time was the focus really, hey, I'm going to increase traffic. And because I'm with an ad network, mediavine, in your case, that I know that, hey, traffic correlates to increase in revenue. Is that kind of the mindset for where you were at?

Yeah, yeah. And not only just traffic, you need to be able to keep people in your page so, you know, to offer them useful information. So I was trying to really focus on those elements.

Yep. What were the things that were most helpful with increasing your traffic?

I feel like it was, I feel like it was Pinterest and SEO. Really?

Sure. Yeah.

So just.

Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. Have you seen, we've seen this with Pinterest drop in Pinterest traffic. And is there anything that, that you're doing to try and like regain that if you have seen it? I know for us, I don't know the exact numbers and even in the conversations I've had with like Kate, all from simple pin media, it seems like things are kind of changing with Pinterest and it's just becoming increasingly difficult get that traffic. Have you found that to be the case at all?

Yeah, definitely. I still have Pinterest as my second source of traffic, second best source of traffic. So I still have, you know, pretty good Pinterest traffic. I have somebody managing my Pinterest for me, so I don't really touch Pinterest. I do look at, you know, I oftentimes I go there and I take a look and I, and she sends me my, my stats every month. I did have a drop, a significantly significant drop. But I think we're still making work, still working for me. So.

Yeah, yeah, it's always hard to know with anything social media related because when it's great, it's great, right? So there was a time where Facebook was like that and if you had a huge Facebook following on a page, you could post an article and, you know, thousands of people would click on it. You could immediately get a bunch of traffic and then literally it was like a switch getting flipped. And in my mind it's like somebody in a Facebook back room with the dashboard and being like, okay, we're going to turn off Pinch of Yum today. And it's like the next day you post and you just don't have the same amount of reach. And I'm sure, you know, it's probably some algorithmic thing that they roll out over time, but it's hard because it's like when it works, it works TikTok like people can grow super big followings really quickly there and that's working for a lot of people. And then things change. So it feels like there always has to be this balancing act of where you're focusing your time. Don't build on just one platform, but also if there is a platform that's working, maybe you want to dedicate more time to that. How do you view that doing this full time in regards to what your day looks like? Any platform that you focus on, are you trying to optimize around kind of joy in the work? Like going to do the stuff that makes the most brings you the most joy or is it optimizing around like growth potential? Do you have any reflections on how you spend your time in your days?

Yeah, definitely. I think it's a mix of both, you know, so the things I don't like to do, which are Pinterest and Facebook and editing videos, I have people doing those things for me because it takes a lot of my time, especially like editing the videos. I like recording them, I don't like editing them. So I have people doing those things for me. Anything that I don't enjoy doing, I try to get somebody to do it for me. It took me a long time to be able to afford somebody, you know, paying somebody to do it for me. But I'm very happy to not be doing those things right now. I really like being on Instagram. I like posting on Instagram and connecting with the community there. I feel like that's really valuable. And that's where like niching down comes in. Because even if, you know, Pinterest goes, you know, goes away or whatever, I feel like I've established my name as a, as a good, you know, big name for the macaron community. So people just, they go naturally to my website to look for stuff for macarons. So I think that's, that's something very valuable to kind of, you know, be a name that people are looking for. I've seen on searches like macarons, pies and tacos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are looking for that, so they're naturally coming to me. I'm not like really relying on a platform or anything. Also, I'm trying to build my, my email list. I took the course, I think it was email autopilot. So I put, you know, I did like a, a sequence so I can send to people so I can have people coming on my, on my, my blog all the time, you know, providing them with useful information for their macaroni baking skills and stuff like that. So I feel like just, I'm really focusing on building around my, my niche right now. I feel like that's very valuable to have that at this time where it's so uncertain what's going to happen with the platforms because, you know, even Instagram could go away or Facebook or whatever.

But yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Idea being what I heard you say a little bit is like not even just thinking about, hey, is this traffic back to my site? But hey, when somebody searches on Instagram for macaron, is it going to come up and are you going to show for that? Optimizing around that and viewing it not just as like a traffic driver, but viewing it as a community. That was the other thing that I heard you say, that being so important.