Chef Ces started her food brand in 2018 serving vegan desserts, and now she’s cooking restaurant-quality meals for the masses. Since founding the brand 1 BITE in 2018, Chef Ces has cooked for hundreds of people for birthdays, vacations, brunches, weddings, video shoots, hosted pop-ups in DC, created private dining experiences in many homes, and has experience cooking for high-profile clients ranging from athletes to music artists, and government officials. When you eat her food, it will be love at 1st bite!
- CEO Story: Started the business with just a conversation that sparked her dream of having a business. After her research of trending foods, it was vegan edibles that she took advantage of. One of her clients gave her a tip to make desserts, and it took off! People started inviting her to shows and events. She then started cooking food for the masses.
- Business Service: Private dining, weddings, catering, bigger events, serves high profile clients, including products like cookbooks and seasoning.
- Secret Sauce: Followed what she was led to do and was obedient. Accepted the challenge and delivered.
- CEO Hack: Having a team of different talents. App mention: Square – ordering and making invoices.
- CEO Nugget: Remember the why behind what you’re doing. The why humbles us. With your team, remember to ask for help.
- CEO Defined: Living in purpose and freedom – there is liberty. Anointed and appointed. To make a difference in the world.
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Transcription
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00:21 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:49 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gretch from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Cecily Thompson of one bite. Cecily, it's great to have you on the show.
00:57- Cesily Thompson
Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Gresh, thanks for inviting me.
01:01- Gresham Harkless
Yes, I'm super excited to have you on and glad to have you here. Before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Chef Sess so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Chef Sess is originally from Washington, DC, but was primarily raised in PG County, Maryland. Her passion for great food was influenced by her family and watching the Food Network at a very young age.
From sitting in the kitchen with her father, who is a professional chef, to her aunts and uncles who have natural gifts for cooking, she's been learning the art of cooking, balancing flavors and techniques for over 25 years. Chef says started her food brand in 2018 serving vegan desserts, and now she's cooking restaurant-quality meals for the masses.
Since founding the brand One Bite in 2018, Chef says has cooked for hundreds of people for birthdays, vacations, brunches, weddings, and video shoots, hosted pop-ups in DC, created private dining experiences in many homes, and has experienced cooking for high profile clients ranging from athletes to music, artists and government officials. When you eat her food, it will be love at first by chef says. Excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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02:08 – Cesily Thompson
I am more than ready.
02:10 – Gresham Harkless
Thank you for doing all the hard work. I just read all the awesome things that you're doing. So before we jump into more on what you're doing and how you're doing, I wanted to rewind the clock and hear a little bit more about how you got started. What I call your CEO story, man, okay.
02:23 – Cesily Thompson
So I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet, I promise. But, you know, I got started in 2018. I've been cooking for a long time, but being in business, I started in 2018. And honestly, the business started based on a conversation I had with my uncle, who I call my cousin because he's younger than I am. I always love to throw that joke in there, but he and I were sitting in the car one day, and he was telling me about his girlfriend and how she started a business. And while he was talking, it was like Charlie Brown, like, womp womp, womp womp womp. Cause I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like, oh, my goodness, I can do this. I can start a business like I've always dreamed of owning a business. And something just sparked.
And so when I left the car, I went home, did some research, and I wanted to make a product that was marketable, something that, you know, was kind of the trend, if you will. And it was vegan edibles. That was the thing. This was, like, right at the peak of. Right at the peak of the CBD, the weed industry took off, and I just took advantage of it. And from there, I did shows. I met a lot of cool people. I did a lot of radio shows that pertain to the CBD industry and its education.
And a client of mine, you don't even have to put CBD in your product. You should just make desserts. And I said, okay, I'll try it. So I made desserts. And from there, Gresh, it really just took off. People asked. People invited me to their workshops, to their different vending events, sold out every single show, and it was great.
I had a launch party in, say, late 2018. I had 50 of my closest friends, and I also invited other entrepreneurs to launch as well. So it was a really big launch party. And in 2020, the end of 2019, the same person I was in a car with called me and said, hey, I want you to cook for myself and a famous rapper. And I'm like, what? Now? I've glossed over a lot of details, but this is just the big picture of what happened.
And he said, surely, I need you to cook for a high-profile client. And I said I've never done this a day in my life. I've never catered anything. I've never cooked for the masses, only did desserts. And so he said, but I've had your food before, and you need to do it. So, great, I did it.
It was the craziest, most stressful experience I've ever had in my life. And I wouldn't trade it for the world because doing that sparked something that had been in me for some years now that I never tapped into. So 2020 came, of course, the pandemic happened, and I got furloughed from my job, and I was sitting at home with my daughter. And that's another main reason why I started my business, because I was in a place where I could do more and I wanted to provide for my daughter a little bit more than what I was doing, and this was the means to do it. So that was really the driving force behind it.
But fast forwarding back to where I was, I want to say March of 2020, I was sitting at home and my daughter and I were after school, virtual school, mind you. I said, what am I going to do? I cannot sit in this house all day for 8 hours. Just taking care of my daughter, taking her to school, it was like, stressful. Every other day we're crying because this is not the norm for us. And I said I was going to start making food.
And one of my really good friends, who was a mentor throughout this journey, said, Cecily, come in the kitchen with me. Create a menu and put it out there and see what you can do. And gosh, I did that. I put a menu out on Instagram. I already had a following. Put a menu out there. And history has been made with my history. What I was. I followed what I was led to do, and I just. I was being obedient, if you will. And it all worked out nicely.
07:12 – Gresham Harkless
I appreciate you sharing, you know, your story and your journey. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear how you're serving your clients that you work with. Could you take us a little, a little bit more about that and how you're making that impact?
07:22 – Cesily Thompson
Yeah, absolutely. So now I'm in a space where I do a lot of private dining. I do catering, weddings, and a lot of bigger events with parties of 100, upwards of 200 people. I also serve high-profile clients, as you mentioned in my bio. That's really what. That's the space that I'm in right now. Another thing that I'm tapping into is because I want to transition into the product, which we could talk about a little bit later, but I have a cookbook that's in the works. I have a seasoning that I'm testing out right now. And so now it's my time to connect with my digital audience. So I've been doing a lot of creating inside of my home and it's been really good, but that's really what the basis of my business is. Now it's time to go to product so that way I can start to make money while I'm sleeping, you know?
08:20 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. Think about, you know, building, you know, the multiple streams within, you know, your business and opportunities that you have, you know, there. And Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. And it doesn't have to be for any of your recipes or anything, it's just for yourself. The business, what you feel, kind of sets you apart and makes you neat.
08:38 – Cesily Thompson
Two things. Number one is a team. When I first started my business, I had this ego and this pride that said, I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to build this business on my own, I'm going to work hard. And I took pride in staying up to like 03:00 in the morning, 04:00 in the morning, trying to cook, trying to come up with a different recipe. And I got burnt out so fast. And it really wasn't until 2020 when I actually needed help and I could not do it at all. And because I had a, I'm not going to lie, it wasn't perfect.
I had a couple of mistakes where I had to give people a couple of refunds because maybe I was late and I said, I cannot do this on my own. I cannot. I tried to, I tried to cook, I tried to deliver, I tried to stay in the kitchen and wait for people to come to pick up their food, and it did not happen and it was unsuccessful. And so I think the biggest thing, number one, is a team in any way, shape or form. You need partners. You need people who have different talents and skills that can be connected to your puzzle.
0:54 – Cesily Thompson
Order to make the big picture work. I think that's number one, and I think number two, my life hack is square. I know that it's a system for businesses, and if it was not for Square, I would probably be in a lot of debt with the IRs, I would note, be as organized with my customers, the invoices, orders, and things like that.
11:28 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It's something that you might tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine.
11:39 – Cesily Thompson
There are times when, being human, our human emotions, and the way we feel, kind of get in the way of that, and not on purpose, but we can get overwhelmed in entrepreneurship. We can get tired, we can get discouraged. And I think the one thing that I would say to any entrepreneur, and even to my younger self when I first started this journey was just remember the why behind what I'm doing, which is my daughter. She was the number one motivation. And sometimes she doesn't understand why I work so hard.
And now it's a little less because I'm able to, I'm able to manage my time a little bit better. But she didn't understand why I worked so hard why I would get so frustrated because a cake or something that I was making didn't turn out right, or why I would act silly in front of a camera. And she'd look at me like, what the heck are you doing? So, you know, she, so seeing her look at me and seeing her even ask questions about what I'm doing is and was the motivation to keep going. And I would say, just remember the why behind it, because we tend to forget even when we make it big or have those big moments in life, we forget why. The why quickly humbles us when we get a little bit big-headed.
So that's one thing that I would say, is just to remember where you came from and to remain humble. I think the next thing is a little nugget going back to the team. Don't be afraid to ask for help. We are, as human beings, we're very prideful. And even in the United States, we are really prideful, and we do not ask for help. And there are so many resources out there for business owners, as entrepreneurs. And once we tap into those other gifted people again, you will be able to grow your business significantly. They will teach you things because we're always a student. They will teach you things that you would not have learned or come across had you done the journey by yourself.
14:02 – Gresham Harkless
I love those nuggets. I wanted to ask you now, my absolute favorite question is the I am the CEO question, which actually defines what it means to be a CEO. Our goal is to hopefully have different quote-unquote CEO's on the show. So, Chef Seth, what does being CEO mean to you?
14:17 – Cesily Thompson
Two words. Passion. Actually. Purpose. Let's change. Passionate. Purpose. Purpose. Living in purpose and freedom. There's liberty in being a CEO. And you can have a dream to be a CEO. But when you are, so there's two anointed and appointed people that are anointed to be a CEO or to be that big entrepreneur. It's more for us as a purpose. That's why. That's what a CEO is for me. Being able to live in your purpose, having the liberty and freedom to do what you want to do, to help people, to make a difference in the world, to make people smile. That's why I cook. I'm overextending myself because I love what I'm doing. I love to see people smile, to see people happy through food. And even from a CEO perspective, the people that I have helped, I just love to see where they are right now. To be an inspiration, to show people just like me that you can do it too.
15:35 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the chef says, I truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you're working on.
15:51 – Cesily Thompson
Awesome. So you can reach me on Instagram, and my website it. It's going to be chef cess. Chef ces for my website. You can reach me at www. Dot eat, the number one bite.com. and then you can also email me if you want. If you have any questions. Infoeatthenumber one.com dot. Those are the three best ways to get in contact with me. What I have coming up again, as I said before, is I'm going on tour with Wild n Out and it's actually kicking off. It kicked off this weekend, but I'll be starting, um, Memorial Day weekend in Virginia Beach, then back to my hometown of Columbia, Maryland.
And then I want to say it's about four more cities after that. And then what else am I working on? Spices. As I said before, I have a spice that's right now in the tasting phase. Hopefully, we'll be able to bottle it by the end of June and get it out to the masses, which I'm super excited about. And then also I'm working on my cookbook, which is kind of a passion project because I'm able to tell my story a little bit more in-depth. You all see my story on my website.
17:03 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate that, chef. And what we'll do, of course, is have the links and information in the show notes as well, too. Appreciate you again, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
17:12 – Cesily Thompson
Thank you so much. Brash. It's been a pleasure.
17:14 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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