Alina Eisenhauer lives in Worcester, MA and helps coach cottage food entrepreneurs with her business, Cottage Baking Success Academy.

Alina started her first baking business way back in 2003 when she was 6 months pregnant. A couple of years later, she expanded into her first storefront, and then kept expanding the idea until she had a full-blown restaurant with 40 employees.

She has competed in many cooking competitions on national TV, has been featured in many books, and has consulted for major restaurants. Eventually she shifted her focus to coaching, first to help people with gluten-free cooking, and now to help cottage food entrepreneurs too.

In this episode, she shares many of the lessons she learned, including avoiding burnout, becoming profitable, and leveraging productive business systems.

3 Key Takeaways

• Start Small and Stay Sustainable: Alina learned firsthand that “bigger isn’t always better.” Even after building a 5,000 sq. ft. bakery with 40 employees, she realized that home-based businesses often have better margins and less stress. Her advice? Focus on what fits your lifestyle before chasing scale.
• Systems = Freedom: Burnout hits fast when everything lives in your head. Alina swears by simple systems — production schedules, recipe organization, and batching tasks across days. “You shouldn’t be mixing, baking, and packaging all in one day!” she says. Structure = sanity.
• Build Relationships (and an Email List!): “Start collecting emails yesterday,” Alina jokes — because staying top-of-mind turns one-time buyers into loyal fans. Whether through a notebook at your market table or a quick signup link, nurturing your list keeps your community coming back for more.

Resources

Chef Alina website (Facebook | Instagram | Youtube | Classes)

Ultimate Cottage Baking Checklist Pack

Cottage Baking Success Academy (use coupon code “forrager” for 10% off)

Gluten-Free Baking Bootcamp

Facebook Groups:

• Gluten Free Baking Secrets, Tips & Tricks with Chef Alina
• Cottage Baking Success Academy

Episode 150 (features Alina)

Free Tutorial: Intro To Email Marketing

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Are you building an email list for your business yet? If not, you really should be collecting customers’ email addresses and emailing them on a regular basis. Even these days, email continues to be better than social media for generating consistent sales, and the best part is that you own it. Once you build an email list, nobody can take it away from you.

I created this free tutorial that will walk you through the essentials of using Kit to build an email list and get more followers!

Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/153