Actress turned Entrepreneur Sarah Michelle Gellar Shares Her Recipe For Startup Success

“Baking is a billion-dollar industry that has not been modernized,” says Sarah Michelle Gellar, cofounder of subscription-based baking kit startup Foodstirs.

Las September, Gellar joined friend and PR specialist Galit Laibow and former Martha Stewart exec Gia Russo to launch their culinary lifestyle brand with a collective mission to bring their families and friends together in the kitchen. Both mothers, Gellar and Laibow had been hunting for fun and educational family activities that tore their kids away from their cellphones and TVs, but quickly became frustrated when they discovered limited options. Specifically, they hit a roadblock when looking for baking products with clean ingredients and fun, easy assembly. “People are clamoring for a better quality product and we knew we had an idea for innovative disruption,” she says.

“I’ve worked on billion-dollar franchises,” says Gellar, who vanquished vampires from 1997-2003 as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “and, at the same time, I think I can speak directly to the consumer.”

Foodstirs offers monthly boxes that come with mixes, sprinkles, popsicle sticks, cookie cutters and all other necessary tools to put the recipe together minus oil, eggs, yogurt (a healthy substitute for binding in frostings and batters) and baking pans. Box ingredients are preservative-free, non-GMO and void of artificial dyes and flavors.

“I think subscription is a really interesting way to be direct to your audience and get the products in their hands,” says Gellar. Foodstirs baking kits are available for 3-month ($72), 6-month ($132), and 12-month ($252) subscriptions and single kits and tools are also available for order online. Right now, the startup is offering seasonal specialty mixes for heart-shaped brownie pops, cake pops, cookie kits and more for Valentine’s Day.

Original article at Forbes