From a home kitchen to Hollywood clients, Laurie Petrolino built a thriving cake business while saving 20+ hours a week with HoneyBook.
Laurie Petrolino didn’t set out to bake and decorate cakes for a living. Instead, cakemaking was something she loved to do—and something that kept finding her throughout her life.
From her high school years decorating ice cream cakes at Baskin-Robbins to working part-time at a bakery while attending UCSB, all the way to finding herself back in a local bakery post-grad. “I’ve always loved the process of creating something beautiful that’s also something that’s eaten and enjoyed,” said Laurie.
For Laurie, baking wasn’t just a passion, it was a calling.
So, when the bakery she was working for was sold, Laurie knew she wanted to take baking into something long-term, and most importantly, hers.
With the encouragement of a friend, she launched Room for Cake from her home kitchen in Santa Barbara, specializing in intricate wedding cakes and large-scale birthday celebrations.
The bakery quickly took off, so much so that she quickly outgrew working out of her home and moved all of her operations to a commercial kitchen.
Since then, Laurie has grown her business at an astounding rate—counting celebrities and high-profile clients among her clientele, earning features in Vogue Weddings and People Magazine, and scaling her business and revenue by 508% in the last 6 years—all as a solopreneur.
Her secret? HoneyBook helps her run all her business processes: contracts, invoices, payments and more . While everything is organized and running smoothly in the background, Laurie has the time and space to focus on her artistry and clients, without sacrificing her personal time.
Here’s how she makes it all happen.
Searching for the right solution to time-consuming tasks
Especially in the early days—running Room for Cake came with plenty of challenges.
“I was working out of my home kitchen with my three-year-old son at home, so it was a chaotic production of cakes and chasing around a very energetic child,” she said. Often, she would put off baking until late at night, when everything was calm and quiet. While it worked for a little while, she was ultimately sacrificing the time needed to grow her business and most importantly, the time for herself.”
Being a mom, a baker, and a business owner quickly became overwhelming—and Laurie was hitting her breaking point.
“It was a painful process of sending clients back-and-forth emails, creating contracts in one specific format, invoices in another, and taking payments separately, too,” she said. “with all of the work that needed to get done running my business, a lot of the administrative and client work would constantly lapse.”
The inefficiency frustrated both her and her clients. “It felt disorganized, and I knew something was missing that could make everything easier”
That’s when Laurie realized she needed a better system. “I needed something that could act as my business partner and save me time so I could increase my revenue and propel my business forward.”
How HoneyBook minimized daily operations and tasks
As a solopreneur, Laurie needed every step for every client to be seamless—from inquiry to project completion. In her search for the CRM —only one stood above the rest, HoneyBook.
Here’s how.
Seamless contracts, proposals, and invoices
“I decided that HoneyBook was the right fit because it had everything I was looking for,” she said. “Admin tasks that would take me days to get around to could now be done in seconds it was a gamechanger”
“Before HoneyBook, everything was a manual process,” Laurie said. “I was creating contracts in Microsoft Word, which clients had to fill out with pen and paper, scan, and send back to me. I then had to use separate PayPal invoices for payments and manually track due dates to send reminders.”
Additionally she had to enter every meeting or project into her Google Calendar. “There was no streamlined system for organizing contracts, tracking payments, or keeping client information in one place,” said Laurie.
Now, instead of using 4 different business tools Laurie was able to use HoneyBook as her single source for client and business management. From hosting and sending paperwork, payments, client communications, HoneyBook acted as her behind-the-scenes partner to take care of all the time-consuming business tasks.
“Once I got HoneyBook, it wasn’t just easy for me to send contracts, invoices, and proposals —it became easy for my clients to complete tasks like signing, payment, and approvals on projects from beginning to end.” Laurie continued, “This helped me save so much time, and has made basic admin a breeze.”
“Before, my clients really struggled with ‘I can’t open this file,’ or ‘How do I send this back to you,’ and it took a lot of back and forth communication,” said Laurie. “With HoneyBook all of it’s just a distant memory.
Working smarter with automations
The word of Laurie’s cake-baking artistry spread, capturing the attention of brides, event planners and several celebrities. As a result, the amount of inquiries soared: averaging up to 30 inquiries a month. To handle the volume, she leaned on HoneyBook’s automations to speed up these make it or break it moments of the client journey
Instead of responding to each one-by-one, Laurie’s built an automated email and paperwork process to thank clients for their inquiry and follow up with a scheduling link to set up a consultation call. “It syncs directly with my calendar, so I’m not worried if it’s going to fall through the cracks,” said Laurie.
After the consultation call, Laurie then automates the invoice and contract, which were easily created with HoneyBook’s file templates. Payment reminders and processing is also automated..
“HoneyBook allows me to spend less time on tasks that used to take me hours,” she said. “It’s also allowed me to take on more creative projects and spend more time with that part of the business.”
Her clients also benefit from the quick and professional communications. “I want to make things easier for my clients because their time is precious too,” she said. “They appreciate having an organized platform and quick responses.”
With HoneyBook working for her every step of the way, the chaos of her home kitchen days is long behind her.
Set up custom workflows that take care of every client touchpoint automatically—no manual work required.
The HoneyBook impact: Owning a renowned brand without sacrificing balance
- 508% revenue growth
- 20 hours saved each week
- High profile work featured in Vogue and People Magazine
“Someone asked me how I do it all as one person. My answer every single time is HoneyBook,” said Laurie. “It’s this amazing all-in-one CRM with all the tools and features a small business owner could ever need.”
“Using HoneyBook has really freed up my time and allows me to spend more time with my family and devote more time to my clients,” said Laurie. “I couldn’t imagine this would even be a possibility when I started my business.”
Beyond the rapid growth of her business over the last six years, Laurie’s success has reached even loftier heights—with her cakes being prominently featured in publications like Vogue and People. “It was by far the proudest moment I’ve ever had as a business owner,” said Laurie.
Laurie’s advice for scaling your business
Now that Laurie has successfully grown her business and achieved a healthy work-life balance, she’s setting her sights on the next milestone: building a team that will allow her to scale even further. By delegating responsibilities like marketing and client management, she’ll be able to focus her energy on higher-value projects and strategic growth.
Her advice for other entrepreneurs? Don’t wait to invest in the tools you need.
“It’s important to get help with your biggest pain points, because it’ll save you a lot of time,” she said. “You’re going to feel pulled in so many different directions when you’re in the thick of it, and it’s so important to invest early.”
For Laurie, though, the journey itself has been the greatest reward. “I’ve enjoyed the process so much, and it’s been exciting to work with so many unique people,” she said. “I just want to continue doing what I love.”
Scale yourself and your business on HoneyBook, the leading CRM for independent professionals.
