By CHRISTINA LIEFFRING
Columbus Telegram, Neb.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Meet High School students Abbie Perault and Alyssa Kuta. The two seniors created their own cake pop business. They say they scan Pinterest for decorating inspiration.
COLUMBUS
Scotus Central Catholic seniors Abbie Perault and Alyssa Kuta have been friends since the fifth grade.
“We live about a block away from each other,” said Kuta. “So when we couldn’t drive we’d just walk over to each other’s house.”
When they signed up for the Entrepreneurs In Action (EIA) program through Central Community College-Columbus, they knew who they wanted to partner up with.
The next step was coming up with a business.
“We knew we wanted to do something with food because we both like to bake and to cook,” said Kuta.
Their business, The Pop Shop, sells decorated cake pops in a variety of flavors.
“I always used to make cupcakes for people,” said Perault. “I thought if I could handle cupcakes I could handle cake pops.”
“It was something unique that we both know how to make,” said Kuta.
The two created their own recipes and scan Pinterest for decorating inspiration.
“We get creative and come up with new things if we can’t find anything online,” said Kuta.
They also hope customers will come with their own ideas for the pops.
“We decorate all our cake pops differently,” said Perault. “Our main goal is to have our customers decide on the decorations.”
Their friends and family were guinea pigs for the creations. For Christmas, they delivered peppermint-flavored pops as presents. And they made some of their tasty treats for a baby shower.
“Everyone in my family loved them,” said Kuta.
Starting a business together brought their friendship, which was already very close, to another level.
“It’s definitely brought us closer,” said Kuta. “We’re like sisters — we fight all the time, but it’s a good thing.”
“At the end of our arguments we just laugh because we always fight over the little things,” she added. “So it’s not going to affect our business.”
With EIA they learned the basics of getting a business started — developing a plan and getting it off the ground.
“Doing something different outside of school, where we could say we started our own business, was kind of cool,” said Kuta.
“All our teachers were really helpful in just making sure that we succeeded in what we wanted to do.”
“If someone has a great idea and they’ve always wanted to start a business, I think that this is a really good opportunity for them,” Perault said.
The Pop Shop will have lemon, vanilla, red velvet and chocolate peanut butter cake pops for sale at Monday’s EIA showcase, set for 4-7 p.m. at the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce, 753 33rd Ave.
“We have a lot of classmates and family members who have said they’d come to show support,” said Perault. “After all the hard work you hope it sells.”
They’d like to continue the business after graduation and into the summer. But come fall, Kuta is going to the University of Nebraska at Omaha to study business and Perault will attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to study architecture.
After that, it’s hard to say what will happen.
“It’s kind of a bittersweet moment that it’s coming to an end,” said Perault. “It’s a lot of time and work, but it’s totally worth it in the end.”
