Fruit cakes a business inspiration
by Joel Young
Kelowna Capital News, February 28, 2007. p. A21
If you can tie Moni Schiller to a chair long enough to tell her entrepreneurial story, you will truly be amazed how one person can manage to juggle a magical carpet ride as a wife, mother, career counselor/business partner and fruit cake entrepreneur.
I am known to talk long and fast, but when I recently met Schiller for a coffee talk at Tim Hortons in Westbank, little did I know I'd be in for the "race of the week."
First of all, we spoke as if we'd known each other for 20 years but had not visited for 10 of those years. The spoons melted in our coffee mugs with the verbal hurricane that erupted.
Some people I have discovered have been born into the world of entrepreneurship and some simply had to discover the dream first. Both paths are wonderful journeys. Schiller was born down the road a bit within our beautiful valley, in Osoyoos, to an orchardist father and homemaker mother.
Obtaining post-secondary education was not in question as she went to UBC receiving her bachelor of education in 1978 and her diploma to teach the deaf at the same time frame.
She ventured off to commence her career in Prince George teaching deaf children for about five years, where she met and married her first husband. After a fast two years, Schiller realized she made a hasty romantic decision and returned to UBC graduate school in 1983.
She found the love of her life on the coast during this post- graduate educational training and the family musing is that Schiller married her love in 1985 and had her first child and masters in education degree all at the same time.
The couple stayed in Vancouver from 1986 to 1990, where Schiller taught the deaf part-time while her husband continued with the Vancouver Police Service. During this coastal sojourn, the couple's second child was born in 1989. Schiller then realized she had reached the milestone of "multiple" job descriptions. It was during 1990, that Schiller and her husband looked at each other over the dinner table and in unison said "yes" to leaving their positions, selling their home and moving to the Okanagan.
The first year in the valley was brutal while the couple sought employment. After Schiller's husband obtained a position with the provincial government, she continued her excursion with part-time employment from 1990 to 1992. It was during this period, she met her friend and business partner Susan Rucastle while discovering the abundance of commonalities they shared between their immediate families. They decided that, with their university educations, love of people and abundant ambitions, they could do something together.
They discovered quickly that the federal government was funding project-based training for unemployed and somewhat disadvantaged people.
Well, incredibly they realized that they possessed the ability to write required proposals for training funds and 15 years later, the ladies are still at it. But now with provincial funding for their programs in place, Rucastle and Schiller Workskills Ltd. was created. Now, through the association of this first business venture, Schiller was offered some fruitcake in 1994 from their company accountant.
She loved it so much that she asked for and received the recipe. She began making and sharing the fruitcake with friends and family, and everyone loved it. The turning point for this "entrepreneur in waiting" was a friend who tasted the cake for the first time and exclaimed: "My God, this is the best fruitcake I have ever eaten. If you ever decide to sell this, I would buy it instantly."
So, being the shy, reserved woman that she isn't, Schiller said to herself: "Why not?" and, an entrepreneur was born in that moment
During a two-day workshop in 2004, that she and Rucastle undertook with Kelowna Community Futures, Schiller used the time to conceptualize the idea of selling fruitcake as an entrepreneurial venture. At the end of the two days, she was ready to tackle the journey. Hence, after much soul-searching with her family as sounding-boards, Schiller embraced her company name with a smile that breaks: "Nuttier Than A Fruitcake" was to be the banner cry to her customers of this home-based entrepreneurial extravaganza.
During 2004, she sold 250 fruitcakes. In 2005, Schiller had a web site created and sold 1,000 fruitcakes while visiting and becoming baptized in the world of craft fairs across the valley.
In 2006, Schiller enhanced her product labeling, bought a vacuum sealing machine and created a new product--Okanagan Harvest Cake-- mainly for the multitude of wineries in our region. And she sold a total of 2,500 fruitcakes that year.
Now in 2007, Schiller is waiting with baited breath for responses from two gourmet food distributors in Vancouver who she hopes can elevate her fruitcake sales to the global marketplace.
I love the tenacity and determination of this person who dares to dream her entrepreneurial dream and has a cut-out Dilbert cartoon on her fridge as an incentive that reads: "Work Like a Frightened Idiot."
Her web site has a wonderfully witty, anecdotal blog and a self- deprecating professional and new entrepreneur she is. Moni Schiller has crossed the threshold of the entrepreneurial world and she is not looking back. Nor should she. Her fruitcakes can be ordered at www.fruitcake.ca.
Joel Young is an entrepreneurship educator.
