Buzzing Business
by Leo Burns
by Leo Burns
Introduction
In the kitchen, full of bright lights and the buzzing sound of the refrigerators, Suzanne stands behind a stainless steel counter. She is dipping small chunks of a honeycomb into a bowl of warm, melted, dark chocolate.
While she works, she listens to her favorite podcasts, one of them being “Off Menu” where celebrities talk about their dream menus. She listens to these podcasts in order to keep her busy mind focused. She takes the pieces of honeycomb out of the chocolate and places them on a large sheet of parchment paper on a tin tray. Then she sprinkles a pinch of salt on each piece of the chocolate covered honeycombs as the fnishing touch.
Suzanne is the very talented confectioner and the founder of Petite LaFleur, a mostly on line craft confections business. She makes a couple different confections, including her golden popcorn bark and the salted chocolate honeycomb, which is her specialty. She also is an activist who stands up for human rights, like LGBTQIA+ lives and other issues in the world. On the side, she enjoys making ceramics, most-
ly pottery and relaxing with her cat, Winston.
Chapter One
Food, sweets, and pastries have always been a huge part of Suzanne’s life. During an interview, she recalls, “I was raised in a food family, my parents both cooked and took us to restaurants and wanted us to try all sorts of things,” Suzanne’s jobs have all been related to food, which has ultimately led her to the career she has today.
Before she got into making and selling her own confections, she was a pastry chef. She learned a lot about being a pastry chef from culinary schools. Kirsten Burns, who works
as a web developer at 23andMe, as well as Suzanne’s close friend, recalls, “I know that she started working for a company, I think it was called Square… They make lunch for their employees, and she would do the dessert every day, and she would take pictures of all these really cool desserts,” explaining how whenever she would see pictures of these creative desserts, her mouth would start to water. Suzanne has also worked as a production manager at Dandelion Chocolate.
Chapter Two
Smarkets are tight, it can be challenging to get fnancing. That’s why small business owners must hone their business plans.”
Suzanne commented that when she frst started with her business, she had no idea what to make. She started with making a whole bunch of different things, and seeing what people liked best.
tarting in May 2021, Susanne began working on a business of her own. At frst, she made a variety of different pastries and confections: “I would make cookies and things like that, just to see how people would like them, if people would purchase them, and I found that chocolate was sort of my way to go,” she states. She called her business Petite LaFleur, French for “Little Flower.”. However, starting this business was not an easy feat: “Starting a small business is hard work in any environment, but it’s even more challenging in a tough economy. This is partly because when credit
It’s hard starting a small business to begin with, but harder being a woman, “Only 6% of the S&P 500 frms have a female CEO, while females earn around 80% of the workforce. In male-dominated industries, most of the labor market, support, and possibilities for women’s progress are extremely limited,” according to AI Bees’s article, “Gender in Entrepreneurship: Does it Still Matter in 2024?”. However, Suzanne claims that she got lucky with the second bit, “I found in my community that lots of other women are willing to help other women because they know it’s diffcult,” she explains.
Chapter Three
As well as owning a small business, she is a human rights activist. She advocates for women’s rights, but mostly advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights. Suzanne posts on her Instagram to raise awareness to world issues, and Kirsten mentioned that, “sometimes I don’t always have time to look at news, and then I’d see her post something, and I’m like, ‘Well, if [Suzanne is] posting this, it must be important,’ so then I’ll look at it and I’ll understand what’s going on in the world,” Kirsten explained, “It’s good that she posts this stuff, because … It makes people more aware,” As a part of the community, and identifying as a lesbian herself, Suzanne believes that, “…it’s important for all of us to accept each other’s differences and fght for transgender rights, fght for non binary rights, and make sure that everybody is able to feel like themselves and be themselves in this world” (LaFleur).
Conclusion
Having a woman-owned business is not the only hard part of Suzanne’s job. She also has ADHD, and that can get in the way of her work and what she needs to do to uphold her business. “Living With ADHD,” an article from The Recovery Village, states that, “ADHD can make it more diffcult to focus, meet deadlines, recall important facts and pay attention to others. This can create stress for someone who has ADHD in the workplace and can lead to poorer performance.” Suzanne says that the toughest part of her job is accounting because, as she puts it, “I tend to not be as patient with [accounting] as I am with the manual things. I can be more patient with that, but when it comes to computer work, … I struggle with some of that.” She planned to get help with accounting a week after the interview, so hopefully her job will be a little easier from now on. Suzanne noted that,
“I thought it would be a challenge and interesting for me to start my own business and see what would happen.”
About
The Author
Leo Burns is a junior who attends Los Altos High School, and is a Design student at Freestyle Academy in the afternoon. They have been living in Los Altos for about four years, with their parents, younger sister, and pet dog. Leo loves sketching cartoon characters, reading, listening to music, and watching shows. They like watching shows that range from weird and goofy, like The Amazing World of Gumball, to a comedic twist on the Apocalypse, such as Good Omens. Leo also loves cats, wild and domestic alike, and wishes they could adopt one someday. On top of that, Leo really, really, really loves chocolate. A lot.