Today we’d like to introduce you to Teara Moore.
Hi Teara, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Hi, I’m Teara. My business is a collection of ideas coming together to express all the things that I have a passion about. My brand name is TearaVon. It showcases the baking, Wedding Officiant, Loan Signing Notary, Peace Coach, Motivational Speaker, Child baking, cake design, cooking classes and a children’s books. I began baking with my grandmother and like she did for me, I am in the process of sharing that love with my grandchildren. I have been baking and selling my desserts by word of mouth, pop-up shops, farmers markets and as of 6 years ago online via my website www.tearavon.com. I pride myself on my desserts being full of flavor and not overly sweet. There is a challenge I give myself on a monthly basis to create a new flavored dessert. Currently, I am up to 63 flavors of pound cakes. Thanks to my neighbors, co-workers and friends for being the taste testers. I also have my own cake mixes that are available for purchase on my website.
As a Baker: I love the smile on people faces when they see and taste my desserts. The feedback that I get is both funny and helpful to me being better. The funniest one was – a lady opened the banana pudding cookie, bit it, looked at me said how did you do this and then grabed 4 more cookies and took off running. – she did come back and pay but bought 3 additional ones.
As a Author: I write everyday and being able to express myself through writing I enjoy telling the world my stories, poetry and cooking ideas. I currently have 5 books on Amazon and work on book 6.
As a Notary: I am able to help the home buying experience with a smile I have been a Notary for 30 plus years. People have located me on Google and Yelp for my Notary services as well.
As a Peace Coach & Motivational Speaker: I help people find a small piece of happiness that they can use to build on the next happy points to keep a smile on their face. Am helpful by talking to people about those happy times and helping them tap into their inner child.
As a Child Baking and Cooking Coach: Children are our future and they are excited about learning new things and having them learn to cook and bake and seeing the smiles on their faces once they have finished is EVERYTHING! Nothing is more rewarding. And the fact that this something that they will have as a life long skill is feeding my passion.
As a Wedding Officiant: Being the person to start the life long journey of uniting two people is a blessing and the happiness that they will have for a life time. – Side note I have done themed and traditional wedding. My favorite one was dressing up like the characters of snow white.
Cake Design Classes: These can be catered to children or adults and will include some type of entertainment. These classes are in the client home or location that they pick. I do have some venues that I work with that I rent a space for larger crowds that the client can book.
Recently, I have gotten into performing spoken word. This is yet another way that I express my talents. My poetry is performed under my stage name “Klimaxx”. I currently perform at open mics throughout Houston and the surrounding areas on a weekly basis. I can perform at up to 3-4 open mic performancesa week. Currently, I have a weekly event called Get on it, Paint on it, Spit on it, Open Mic. The concept is:
-Get on it: A person looking to learn, be encouraged, needing help with poetry, comedy, skits or song I offer that in the first hour. This part will help them get started.
-Paint on it: This part can startat any time during the event time. The person can purchase a ticket that includes cake and entry. They will be given a mini cake, a paint brush and a paint palette filled with assorted food colors that will be used to create their edible art. Sometimes the cake make it to be photographed sometimes they don’t.
-Spit on it: This is the part where if a person created something on the get on it part they can perform at this time.
We do have people that come and perform. They are sprinkled in through the event time as well as myself performing.
I have been writing poetry for over 30 years and have 5 books out. They are available on amazon and on my website or in person if you see me. It took a lot of liquid courage to do my first ever spoken word performance which was two years ago.
Since then, I have been performing on many stages and private events, You too can book me. I have been a paid feature poet at 3 events, I have put on 10 of my own events that include my poetry and my desserts. And I have been in 2 music videos and on about 7 podcasts. I pride myself on being my true self and along with that I bring a token of appreciation to every podcast that I am on. Nothing beats a happy expression of a dessert given smile.
The takeaway from my story is to start something, live in your passion and create a happy experience; it will get you far. (Eventually)
My business summary is:
Food is a love language.
Poetry is the voice.
Peace keeps you happy.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Being a home baker, you have many challenges that the large corporations do not. I have been using my own money purchasing my supplies and ingredients, as well as the transportation to get to the farmers’ markets and pop-up shops. As a business owner with no funding I went through half of my 401k just to maintain my business. That in itself is a challenge. Being a one-woman show I do reach out to family and friends to help to assist when I am attending a market. Sometimes I have help and sometimes I don’t. It is always good to have help because you will need to pee. Just in case there are any solo vendors out there just getting started. Because I left to go pee and came back and was missing some items. So it happens. I just chalked it up to they needed what they took. Having to choose to spend money on what could happen is the biggest challenge. For instance, I have signed up to be a vendor at about 14 pop-up and farmers’ markets to date. Of those, only 4 of them I was able to sell out of all of my desserts. That was a blessing. However, the ones that I paid to be a vendor that the cost was between $275-$400 I did not even make both fee. That was very discouraging. Some of the reasons being that there was little to know foot traffic and also there were 3-7 other dessert vendors. That makes it very hard to sell out. It is disheartening when you think you are asking all of the right questions so that you don’t over-bake and sadly have to come home with an overflow of desserts.
The plus side of being a vendor is that SOOOO many people are able to experience my personality and my desserts. If you ever come to a pop-up that I am at you are going to get a smile, I am dancing and signing; you will have a yummy dessert, and also leave feeling like you have become a family member. I pride myself in being happy. A happy baker puts the extra LOVE into everything we bake. You can just taste it.
Recently I went through a rebranding and along with that, I decided to shop my desserts to small restaurants, lounges, gas stations and mostly with no bites. But 2 places allowed me to sell my desserts there. OH the joy of being able to say I have my desserts in multiple places was a blessing.
Now, please note just because you have your desserts in a brick and mortar somewhere does not mean that you will sell any or sell out. So off to social media I go. “I am terrible at posting but I try learning tools every day.”
I received my first monies I was so excited I was hugging everyone in the location that day. I was rich, I made a whopping $95!
Still far from the challenges being over. Laws are changing, people are not purchasing every day but I am still smiling as I wait for my break. I would like to partner with others that will allow me to have my desserts at their locations.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a Payroll/HR/Accountant professional. The job had a lot of challenges but mostly a lot of rewards. Being able to assist a person with payroll concerns, helping with their benefit questions and helping to explain on-boarding processing to make an employee feel more comfortable always kept a smile on my face. What sets me apart is that not only do your hear and feel the smile on my face, but an employee or manager will leave my care knowing that I have helped to the best of my abilities.
With the current economic changes, I have recently been laid off and am looking for employment.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I take risks lots in my everyday life. Believing that if I don’t try I can’t win. Currently, I have been betting on myself, trying to build a recurring event. Good old ME decided to create my on market. I have been combining my poetry and my baking. I figured that it’s new, exciting and catchy. That it would get a crowd of people. But nope not so far. BUT IT IS GROWING.
I won’t say that I have failed at it, but I have had to create different names of events, locate places to have the events, and was slightly sad when only 1-4 people would show up.
When the event happens, I perform as if there are 100-400 people in the room. Making the people who did show up feel that they got their money’s worth and more. This year along I have created 16 events but none have not quite taking off as of yet.
Will I continue to create until I find that event for me? Absolutely, I will!
Pricing:
- Cake Mixes $5 each
- Learn grocery shop starting at $50
- Children cake design classes $25
- Adult cake design classes $50
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tearavon.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/tearavon
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/tearavon7
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tearavon
- TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@tearavon
