Book by Leo Burns

Buzzing Business

Leo Burns

Buzzing Business

Leo Burns

Dedication

To any and all chocolate lovers out there.

Suzanne LaFleur with her cat, Winston

Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone at Freestyle Academy that helped make writing this book possible, including Mr. Greco and Ms. Parkinson. And a big thank you to my mom, Kirsten Burns, who helped me get the interview.

Suzanne breaking a honeycomb in two

Preface

When I first started this project, I had three people that I thought I would have a good story to tell. However, none of the three were actually interviewed. Instead, I told my mom about this project and hoe I had trouble choosing someone. She suggested interviewing a couple more people, who seemed like they had much more interesting stories that the people I picked. First, she suggested a friend of hers that works at the fire department. My mom also suggested another friend of hers who has her own business as a confectioner. I thought about these options, and ruled out the fire department option, as the job is pretty busy and it would be hard to contact her, much less find free time before the deadline of the interview. So I settled on the confectioner, who was much easier to reach.

This book is written with content taken from an interview with Suzanne LaFleur, a confectioner whose

interests lie within and beyond making sweet treats. In this interview, Suzanne shared her experience of moving up from making small treats for herself and family to being a small business owner and making treats for anyone who is interested.

As you continue to read, you will learn that Suzanne is not just a talented confectioner, but a human rights activist who helps little by little in shaping a better world for everyone.

This story holds the idea that a small piece of effort can go a long way, and even the smallest action can make the biggest impact. Suzanne is a talented confectioner, who owns a small craft confectionery business, best known for her salted chocolate honeycomb. Raised in a food-loving family, Suzanne’s culinary journey led her from being a pastry chef to starting her own small business.

Introduction

In the kitchen, full of bright lights and the buzzing sound of the refrigerators, Suzanne LaFleur 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 finishing 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, mostly 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.

“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 LaFleur

Suzanne putting Salted Chocolate

Chapter Two

Starting in May 2021, Suzanne began working on a business of her own. At first, 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 markets are tight, it can be challenging to get financing. That’s why small business owners must hone their business plans.” Suzanne commented that when she first 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.

It’s hard starting a small business to begin with, but harder being a woman, “Only 6% of the S&P 500 firms 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 difficult,” she explains.

Kirsten Burns

“She would do the dessert everyday, and she would take pictures of all these really cool desserts”

Kirsten Burns

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 fight for

transgender rights, fight for non-binary rights, and make sure that everybody is able to feel like themselves and be themselves in this world” (LaFleur).

Bag of Salted Chocolate Honeycomb

“I thought it would be a challenge and interesting for me to start my own business and see what would happen.”

Suzanne LaFleur

Suzanne 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 difficult 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.”

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.”

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

Works Cited

Adams, Katie. “Starting a Small Business in Tough Economic Times” Investopedia, 6 Dec, 2022, https://www.investopedia.com

Burns, Kirsten. Personal Interview, 10 Mar 2024

Hull, Megan. “Living With ADHD” The Recovery Village, 26 May, 2022, https://www.therecoveryvillage.com

LaFleur, Suzanne. Personal Interview, 25 Feb 2024

Mecan, Dara. “How to Support and Champion LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs” Source Link, 8 July, 2021, https://www.joinsourcelink.com

Vidadievna, Emilia. “Gender in Entrepreneurship: Does it Still Matter in 2024?” AI Bees, 2020, https://www.ai-bees.io

Author’s Bio

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.

Leo Burns