By Rachel Goff
Carole Kelaher is moving to Cape Cod. But she wants her business to stay in The Valley.
Kelaher, the owner of Mix Cupcakerie in Waitsfield, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to find someone to take over her store, which sells, cupcakes, pies, coffee and prepared meals.
In addition to collecting donations from the community similar to a Kickstarter campaign, Kelaher's dreambrokerindustries.com campaign invites those interested in inheriting her business to submit a $75 entry fee, a 100-word essay and a cupcake recipe. If the campaign raises enough money to reimburse Kelaher for what she put into the store, she will select a winner to take it over, complete with fittings, furnishings, equipment and inventory.
Basically, "We're raising money to put a qualified person in place that maybe doesn't have the money to start on their own," Kelaher explained. If the project meets its goal, the person Kelaher selects would also receive two rent-free months in the space as well as 80 hours of training from Kelaher herself.
Kelaher was approached by dreambrokerindustries.com to try the new crowdfunding method. "The idea behind it is to kind of get the community together to keep the business open," she said. "I want to sell it, but my pool of prospective buyers is really small in this Valley," she said. "By doing this, I'm reaching out to prospective buyers in Vermont and in neighboring states.
Already, Kelaher has received submissions from people interested in inheriting the Waitsfield store. "There's some good ones, but there's not enough," she said, explaining that if the project does not meet its monetary goal, no new owner will be selected and everyone who donated will get their money back.
But, if the project raises enough money, "I get my money back," Kelaher said, explaining that she is looking to reclaim only what she put into the space in terms of renovations and equipment and whoever takes over "gets a business for basically nothing," she said. "I win, they win and The Valley wins," Kelaher said, speaking to the importance of maintaining a strong local economy.
"I could take all this stuff and go to the Cape and start another business," Kelaher said, "but I feel like the store should stay open," she said. Mix Cupcakerie turned 2 years old this past March and already "There's a lot of value in what I've put into it," Kelaher said, speaking of the space itself but also of the relationships she's built with customers in The Valley. "What I've done here seems to work here," she said.
For more information about the campaign or to donate, visit dreambrokerindustries.com/index.php/2015-04-10-03-16-47/mix-cupcakerie-kitchen.
