Joulenie Pierre began her entrepreneurial journey as a college student in Miami, juggling a double major in economics and political science with a pre-law focus. To financially support herself, she was working 30 hours a week at Lululemon, according to her TikTok posts.
Amid her busy schedule and stress, she turned to her strong passion for baking. With immense faith, Pierre has seen her bakery flourish from a humble beginning.
“Baking was my way of having my own peace, my own clarity, and being as calm as I possibly can be. It helped keep me grounded. It was like my form of therapy essentially,” Pierre, 20, explained on TikTok, according to AfroTech.
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Pierre and her business partner, Jovan, launched their bakery, Roll and Dough, during a financially difficult period for Pierre. At the time, she had only $100 in her bank account and was waiting for her financial aid to cover her rent. Despite not being able to pay her rent for two months, she prioritized investing in a stand mixer for the business.
“I was working at a golf course making $12 an hour, and I had $100 in my account, and I spent $50 on afterpay just for my stand mixer to break after the first use. And then I finally got a new one, and that lasted for a whole year,” she revealed in a TikTok video. “But I was so happy that I invested in it, even though I had no money at the time. I had no idea where the money was going to come from next, but I manifested it. I don’t care about taking a little risk because I know it’s always going to pay off.”
Pierre started small, baking just a few cinnamon rolls—about five—and getting maybe three to five orders a week, mostly from people she knew in her college town. She eventually started making cookies too, adding a special ingredient that gives a nod to her Haitian background.
“I started using this one element that a lot of Haitian cuisines use because I am Haitian … It made my cookies transform to a whole different type of like palette that a lot of the other cookies that I was trying did not … I literally was just raised on Haitian food, and for me to be able to like implement something Haitian into my food and my baked goods was, it was genuinely like so exciting for me because I was like ‘Oh my god I can actually share it to the world how good it is to implement things from different cultures,’” she said in a TikTok video.
Today, the young entrepreneur operates her sweet treat business online from her Florida kitchen. This is legally permissible, following her research, as long as her revenue stays below a specified limit.
The Roll and Dough website currently features items such as the original snickerdoodle, dark chocolate chip with sea salt, almond croissant, and honey cornbread. The business is particularly recognized for its cinnamon rolls, which are available in various flavors including apple pie, pumpkin chai, blueberry muffin, matcha, and dark cocoa s’mores.
The high demand for the business is evident from its success on TikTok, where it has accumulated 195,300 followers and 4.8 million likes. To accommodate this growth, Pierre decided to transition to mostly online coursework, limiting in-person classes to just one day a week so she could bake daily, as shared in an April TikTok video.
Although she finished some of her schooling in May, Pierre chose to return to her marketing and advertising degree. Her goal is to leverage this education to better understand and implement strategies for scaling her business.
Pierre recently began selling her products at a farmer’s market and has seen massive success. A video she posted in November highlighted a particularly successful day where 300 of her cinnamon rolls sold out in just two hours.
This timely success comes as she is planning to open a physical location, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“Having this business right here literally has provided me the freedom that I want, not only the mental freedom, but financial freedom as well,” she stated. “And I’m so glad you guys are coming out to support us and support our journey, because I don’t know where I would be without you guys. Thank you guys so much once again today.”
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