How one OUWB medical student and her mother built a successful cupcake business
Whatever you do, don’t call Annabel Shaffou’s cupcake business a side hustle.
Instead, the first-year medical student at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine would much rather you refer to La Fleur Cupcakes as a “passion project.”
Or art. Or a kind of stress-relieving therapy. Or quality bonding time with her mother. Or simply, fun.
Whatever you want to call it, there’s one label La Fleur Cupcakes can’t avoid — successful.
That’s because the business continues to grow, largely by word-of-mouth. It’s been invited to “Best of Detroit” parties. And some have even offered to invest in the business to foster growth.
“It started as a passion project and to see it spread outside of us has been really beautiful,” says Shaffou. “It feels like a lot more than we ever anticipated it being.”
“When you start making cupcakes you don’t anticipate it’s going to have such an impact on people’s lives,” she adds.
(Only partial stories are posted here with hopes to provide a brief overview and introduction to my most recent work. The full version of this story may be found on the OUWB InMedicine site here.)
