Start a Micro Bakery
Bake and sell bread from your own kitchen under cottage food law, with a setup under $1,000 and your first pre-orders in weeks.
A micro bakery is one person selling baked goods from a home kitchen, legally, under the cottage food law of their state. No lease, no commercial buildout, no employees. A scale, some loaf pans, a permit in some states and nothing at all in others, and a weekly rhythm of pre-orders and pickups. This course walks the whole path: what your state's law allows, what permits and labels cost, how to price a loaf so you actually earn, how to run the bake week, and how to find your first thirty customers without spending on ads.
The money here is honest but modest, and this course treats it that way. Ingredient margins on a sourdough loaf run high, but small batches pay a low effective wage, and operators who scale up often discover that ovens, energy bills, and burnout grow faster than profit. You will get the real unit economics, the state-by-state sales caps, and the failure stories other courses skip, so you can decide with clear eyes whether this is income, a bridge, or a craft that pays for itself.
This course is not a sourdough technique masterclass, not a guide to opening a storefront bakery, and not a packaged-food brand playbook. When your bread leaves the cottage law frame for grocery shelves and co-packers, that is a different business, and we will hand you off to it at the right moment. What stays in this course is everything it takes to go from your kitchen today to a legal, repeatable, paid weekly bake.
First, the Truth
What a Micro Bakery Actually Is
The cottage-law business model, the pre-order advantage, and what this business is not.
Is This You? A Fit Check
Audit your kitchen, your calendar, your temperament, and your household before you spend a dollar.
The Honest Money
Loaf-level costs, real prices, the effective-wage truth, state sales caps, and what operators actually report earning.
The Law Is the Frame
Cottage Food Law Is the Frame
What cottage food laws allow, how wildly states differ, where you can sell, and how to find your state's actual rules.
Permits, Certifications, and Insurance
The compliance stack, what it costs, the business structure decision, and the paperwork order of operations.
Labels and the Allergen Line
Anatomy of a legal cottage food label, the nine FDA allergens, cross-contact control, and the products that cross out of cottage law.
The Craft of the Batch
One Signature, Two Supports: Your Menu
Choose a signature product that scales, two supporting items, and shelf-stable profit boosters that raise the average order.
The Kitchen You Already Have
The short equipment list that starts a micro bakery, what to defer, and where operators actually buy.
Your Real Week
The prep, dough, bake, and sell day rhythm; how fermentation fits a day job; and what to do when a batch fails.
Choosing Your Storefront
Bread stand, porch pickup, online pre-orders, or farmers market booth: costs, time, and fit, plus the fees nobody mentions.
Finding Your People
Getting Found Locally
The free local machine: Google Business Profile, an Instagram bio that sells, door hangers, cross-promotion, and the repeat-customer loop.
Your First Thirty Customers
A three-post launch, the friends-and-family trap, reading real demand, and the scripts for a shaky first week.
Making It Last
Hard Truths: How Home Bakeries Fail
The six repeating failure modes: underpricing, energy costs, burnout, enforcement, safety incidents, and over-scaling.
Growing Past Your Kitchen
The cottage ceiling, the profit-density lane versus the licensed-kitchen lane, wholesale boundaries, and quitting-day-job math.