Cheryl Sandberg From an Occasional Chocolate Talks to AC About Starting a Business and Her Products

As I was surfing the web one day I came across this site that had the most delicious looking chocolate on it. An Occasional Chocolate was the name of the business and Cheryl Sandberg is its creator. Cheryl was nice enough to grant me an interview to talk about how she got her business running and more details about that delicious chocolate.

What was your inspiration to create An Occasional Chocolate?
I have always loved making candies and desserts. I went to a few chocolate making classes and felt inspired to make some truffles for some friends and they were thrilled with them and said "You MADE that?!" Yes! I made those! The look of amazement on their faces was exhilarating! Even more fun was having them over and teaching them how to make them! I enjoyed giving my friends a new skill that could make them look like geniuses in the kitchen!

Was starting the business harder than you thought?
Starting a business was much harder than I ever thought. I have never made so many decisions in such a short amount of time in the beginning. What products to carry, how much of each product to have on hand, what will people be excited about? I don't have any business background so I was just going by gut feeling most of the time. I wanted to remain debt free so every choice was very important.

How did you begin to build your clientele initially?
Optimizing my website to be search engine and user friendly.

What is your favorite occasional chocolate treat?
I love bringing the dipped strawberries and truffles to parties because they are so beautiful and they feel so rich and extravagant! My favorite things to eat are more simple, dipped pretzels and graham crackers are what I really enjoy.

How has the company changed since it began?
I began wanting to make the candies and sell them in shops. After many sleepless nights of researching and thinking and praying, I decided it would be too labor intensive and costly to go the food handling route, especially in the state of California. I really am glad I chose this instead, I really love website design and customer service and this is a good fit for me.