How Kayla Burton Left Corporate America to Run Her Blog

Just a few years ago, Kayla Burton knew nothing about blogging. Today, she’s a full-time blogger (she left her full-time job after about a year of blogging) and coaches other food bloggers. In this interview, Kayla shares the details of her quick journey from novice to pro blogger.

How much revenue and profit does the business generate?

The business generated about $95k in revenue in 2023.

Tell us about yourself and your business.

Hey, I’m Kayla! I’m a creative entrepreneur living in Chicago with my partner, Chris, and our cavapoo, Archie. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, where food always brought us together. As a kid, I loved baking and decorating cookies with my grandma, and I’ve always been fascinated by technology. In the age of AIM, I spent my free time creating animated logos and playing around with web design.

After graduating high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to experience a new place, and college would let me do that. I enrolled at UW-Madison as an undecided major and explored various subjects like engineering, interior design, and psychology. I ended up graduating as a biology major and working in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

I bounced around corporate jobs for a few years and was often bored by the tasks and frustrated with management and how they treated us. Eventually I turned to baking as a hobby and it grew into a baking blog, which I called Broken Oven Baking Company (due to my old and finicky mini gas oven at the time).

This entrepreneurial journey has let me lean into my old hobbies and do things that I truly care about every day. There’s always something new to learn, problems to solve, and interesting connections to make. I’ve had the opportunity to work with big brands like Target, get featured on Good Morning America, share delicious desserts with the world, and help other amazing and talented food bloggers grow their businesses!

How does your business make money?

Today, my income comes from three main sources:

1. Display ads
2. Food blog coaching
3. Sponsored brand work

When I first started making money in 2021, my income was mainly from sponsored and freelance work with brands. In 2022, I joined Mediavine and added ad revenue into the mix. Last year, I added another income stream by helping other food bloggers grow their blogs!

What was your inspiration for starting the business?

A big inspiration came from my partner, Chris Pieta. He started a product photography company around 2019. Being front and center as he brought it to life gave me a new perspective on entrepreneurship!

At the time, I was working at a biotech startup with terrible management. Then, I switched to a job in healthcare that was pretty tough on my mental health. I wanted a hobby to take my mind off of work and I’d always enjoyed baking growing up! Since Chris was practicing photography, he took photos of my baked goods, and I started sharing them on Instagram. That account sort of took off and introduced me to the world of food blogging!

How and when did you launch the business?

I started sharing my baked goods on Instagram at the beginning of 2020 and had my blog launched by mid-May. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but web design and technology have always intrigued me, so I was enjoying the process of setting everything up! It was also really fun creating sweet new recipes and sharing them with everyone!

After a few months, I finally learned about SEO and started to implement better practices to set my blog up for long-term success. By May 2021, I’d landed a few brand deals and made the extremely difficult decision to quit my 9-5. I’d saved up a few months of expenses and told myself, “If you can do all this on the side of your corporate job, just imagine what you can accomplish if you did it full-time”.

How is the business funded? 

My business is completely self-funded. In the beginning I probably spent a few hundred on my blog’s theme, web host, LLC, etc. I also spent about $2k on photography equipment when I took over photography duties.

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A post shared by Kayla Burton | Food Blogger (@brokenovenbaking)

How did you find your first few clients or customers?

My first few brand clients came from Instagram. I’d reached 10k followers after about a year of posting consistently and engaging with the community. I started reaching out to brands and some found me. We worked together on freelance and sponsored content.

As for my first few coaching clients, I’d give quite a bit of credit to Casey Markee. I had an SEO audit with him in 2022 and then he started using my site as an example in his audits. Food bloggers began reaching out to me with questions about SEO and blogging, and I really enjoyed answering and connecting with them! I loved it so much I decided to start offering coaching services to help others improve their blogs and grow their businesses!

What was your first year in business like?

I received my first paycheck from a client less than a year after launching my blog in May 2020. I was still working a full-time corporate job, so I put all of my free time into my business. In the beginning, my goal was to grow my blog to 50k monthly sessions so that I could qualify for Mediavine.

My mornings, lunch breaks, evenings, and weekends were mostly spent learning and implementing as much as possible. It was a lot of work, but having a partner who was focused on growing his own business made it easier. We were there to support and encourage each other.

I’d been posting consistently on Instagram since early 2020, so I was able to grow that to 10k followers within about a year. Before I was even close to qualifying for Mediavine, I landed a few brand deals for, I think <$5k total. I took that as a sign to put my all into my business, so I gave my notice, and April 30, 2021, marked my last day in corporate America.

What strategies did you use to grow the business?

For my food blog, I’ve been focusing on SEO, keyword research, social media, and email marketing. Most of my blog traffic comes from Google and Pinterest, which also have the highest RPMs. These days, I think diversifying, building a brand, and focusing on your audience are all super important.

Growing my food blog coaching business has been a bit different. Over the past year or so, I’ve found that I’m much more passionate about learning and teaching the business and technical side of blogging than I am about the creative side. I’ve connected with many food bloggers over the years, so I listen to their stories & struggles and create content that I hope will help them.

I started a free weekly newsletter last year where I share tutorials, resources, and other food blogging tips. I also try to post on my @foodblogcoach Instagram account, but it’s been difficult to keep up there lately! Recently, I launched a new food blog coaching website where I plan to publish helpful content and create communities for food bloggers. I’m very excited to build this out and help even more people grow their own businesses!

I don’t do as much client work these days, but when I was, my strategy was mainly reaching out to brands on Instagram, building relationships with them, and providing an excellent customer experience.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome?

Personally, I’d say my biggest challenges have been saying “no” and ignoring imposter syndrome.

I get so many ideas in my head and opportunities popping up, but I know I need to put my head down and focus on the bigger picture. It’s been tough, but I’ve had to learn to say no to things that don’t align with my vision (even if they sound fun and interesting). It was extra hard in the beginning because I needed to pay the bills, but I’m finally at a point where I’m can turn things down.

I’m still overcoming imposter syndrome. Still, almost every week, I question if I’m good enough to create recipes and teach others how to run a food blog as a business. No matter how many great testimonials I get or the positive results my clients get, I still have doubtful thoughts about myself as a creator and coach. When this happens, I ask myself if my thoughts and feelings are actually true and look at the evidence.

What have been the most significant keys to your business’ success?

Not giving up 😅 There have been plenty of times when I’ve thought, “Life would be so much easier if I’d just stuck with my 9-5.” But I know I’m much happier and more fulfilled learning about and doing things I love every day. I get to work with so many interesting creators and help them turn their dreams into reality. I’m so grateful for it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Beyond that, just showing up every day and putting in the work. Consistency and doing anything (big or small) just to get a little bit better every day, regardless of how I feel, have really helped me succeed over the years.

Tell us about your team.

I currently have 4 part-time remote contractors helping me with Pinterest, blog writing, photo editing, and video editing. I’ve never really enjoyed using Pinterest, but I knew it was important for food bloggers, so I immediately found someone to manage my account on Upwork.

Shortly after that, I received a DM on Instagram from a local baking enthusiast asking if I needed help with anything. She’s been helping me write blog posts ever since! Next, I hired Chris’s photo editor to take that over – she does an absolutely amazing job. Most recently, I realized that I needed to outsource video editing because every time it was on my to-do list, I procrastinated like crazy. Once I found someone to take that over, my productivity increased, and my video edits got much better!

What are some of your favorite books, blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels?

My favorite book I read this year was Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal.

For food blog information, I like to listen to The Food Blogger Pro podcast, Eat Blog Talk, The Blogger Genius, and TopHatRank’s SEO for Bloggers webinars.

Above all, Alex and Leila Hormozi have had a huge impact on my business and even personal growth. They both share incredibly insightful information across their social and YouTube channels. I also cannot recommend Alex’s $100M book series enough!

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

Be curious and authentic, and don’t give up. Entrepreneurship can be scary, lonely, and exciting all at once. It feels like a rollercoaster. Keep the big picture in mind, do the boring work, try new things, don’t stop learning, and never let fear stop you. The more you do while you’re afraid or uncomfortable, the more resilient you will become.

What are your future plans for the business?

This is constantly evolving, but I feel like I finally know the direction I want to take things! I’d like to outsource the creative side of brokenovenbaking.com (the recipe development and photos/videos to start) and build out the food blog coaching side of things.

I still plan to manage my own food blog so that I can continue learning and stay up-to-date with the industry, but I really love creating tutorials, strategies, and communities to help other food bloggers. Right now, I’m focused on group coaching and masterminds, 1-on-1 coaching, and building a library of accessible resources and tools.

If you had to start from scratch, where would you begin?

I feel like I did everything wrong when I started my blog. I got set up on wordpress.com instead of .org, used a cheap shared hosting service, and bought an unoptimized WordPress theme. These and many other mistakes initially set me back quite a bit!

If I were to start a food blog today, I’d get set up on wordpress.org with a reliable managed WP hosting plan and an optimized theme (specific recommendations here). I’d make connections with established food bloggers and offer to pay a few I admire/relate to for their time to learn what mistakes they’ve made, what’s helped them grow, and how the industry has changed over the years.

You’re going to learn a lot as you go, but investing time and money into the right things from the start will put you ahead and make things easier in the long-run.

One thing I do believe I did right was make connections with food bloggers who were getting started around the same time as me. I’m still friends with many of them today! Blogging can feel isolating at times, and having a community who supports you & understands what you’re doing is invaluable.

No matter what stage you’re at, I’m always happy to connect! Feel free to reach out to me on Instagram anytime 😊