Tricky Foods: Bringing people together over playful, enticing food
In March 2023, Therese Merkel, owner of Tricky Foods, was preparing to expand her charcuterie and cheese styling business into a brick-and-mortar space at 121 E. Lakeside Street in Madison, and she needed to provide financial projections to the bank to secure her loan. Her friend Shelby Olstad, owner of Miggy’s Bakes, recommended she contact the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center at the Wisconsin School of Business at UW – Madison (SBDC). Merkel participated in the SBDC’s Accounting and Projection Clinic (APC), run by SBDC business consultant Anne Inman, and found the skills she learned valuable. 
“I’ve gradually increased my sales and production capacity every year, but I took my biggest leap with the brick-and-mortar expansion in terms of expenses, risk, events, and production,” Merkel says. 
“The SBDC helped me with financial projections to get a loan and helped me develop financial understanding and confidence. It’s an amazing free resource.”
After attending the APC clinic, Merkel worked with SBDC business consultant Chris Gruneberg and director Michelle Somes-Booher on specific aspects of her business, like human resources. She also took a finance class through the SBDC at UW – Madison.
“My most challenging learning curve is in business finance, so developing a deeper understanding of my finances and financial projections has been really helpful,” she says. “It’s so much more aggressive than personal finance because it feels like you’re drinking from a garden hose, with so much coming in and going out constantly.”
“The SBDC helped me with financial projections to get a loan and helped me develop financial understanding and confidence… My most challenging learning curve is in business finance, so developing a deeper understanding of my finances and financial projections has been really helpful. It’s so much more aggressive than personal finance because it feels like you’re drinking from a garden hose, with so much coming in and going out constantly.” ~Therese Merkel
Tricky Foods’ beginnings
Merkel has always loved cooking and has pictures of herself at thirteen in a chef coat and hat. In college, she’d often post her own cooking videos and photos on the Tricky Foods Instagram account, which she’s run since 2017. But cooking remained strictly a hobby as she graduated from UW-Whitewater in 2018 and moved to Madison to work at Epic. She stayed for two years, working long hours and traveling to client sites every other week until she burned out.
“I put in six weeks’ notice and planned to take time off to travel,” she says. “Four weeks later, the pandemic shutdown happened, and my calendar was blank.” 
Tapping into her passion for food, Merkel decided to try to start a food business. Inspired by photos of elegant charcuterie boards made by a business in Racine, she decided to test the market in Madison. She consulted Merlin Mentors and the UW-Madison Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, who suggested she join a commercial kitchen, so she took that official step and established Tricky Foods as a legal business in 2020.
“I bought $500 of supplies, moved $3,000 into a business bank account, and made my first charcuterie board,” Merkel says. “Then I broke it down to make smaller sizes and posted the photos on my Tricky Foods account. My first customer was my old manager at Epic, and she is still a customer.”
Word spread quickly, and friends – then friends of friends! – were hyping Tricky Foods on Instagram. Merkel admits that her first order that didn’t come through someone she already knew was a little scary, but she pulled it off.
“Repeat customers are the best validation of my business,” she says.
She participated in the virtual SCORE mentoring program before finding the SBDC and opening her physical space on September 9, 2023.
“The goal is that this is the first of multiple locations, going toward Oconomowoc and Milwaukee,” Merkel says. I’ve learned you can have ideas and goals about how you’ll expand, and it’s also what the market dictates.”
Merkel believes her newfound financial competency will help her the most.
“Your first year in business, you think it’s about expressing yourself and creativity–the goal is not necessarily financial competence,” Merkel says. “But every six to twelve months, I wear a new hat. My current role as an owner, four years into the business, is finance and HR–those are the two biggest things I do–so I appreciate SBDC advice. I’m also taking an HR class with the SBDC in April.” 
Merkel says her confidence has grown as she’s learned more about running a business.
“I like that it’s constantly changing; I was ready to let someone else make the boards and teach the classes,” she says. “People are the reason the business is successful–they make the product and serve customers, and the finances have to make sense, so I can make it worth it for them and for myself.”
Merkel and her eight-person team are working on marketing–in person vendor events, social media and newsletter marketing, as well as Facebook marketing and paid ads.
“We were so reactive until the end of December 2023, getting comfortable in our space and training people,” Merkel says. “After I reviewed our numbers at the end of January, I started looking at ways to bring new people into the space – like venue relationships, where we make charcuterie boards for those using a venue for a bridal or corporate event – or they refer people to our space for smaller events that don’t make sense for a larger venue to take on, since we can hold up to 50 people.”
Merkel says she loves entrepreneurship and has other business ideas.
“I feel pretty firm that I will never work for someone else again,” she says. “I’m chasing the lifestyle; that’s what drives me–it’s not just about the money. It’s the flexibility, creativity, fun, constant learning, and pushing myself beyond what I initially thought I could achieve.”
Merkel and Olstad support each other’s businesses and co-host the podcast “Screw It, Let’s Do This,” which Merkel says she believes in as enthusiastically as she believes in Tricky Foods.
“Shelby’s one of the biggest reasons I stuck with my business early on–we get a lot of inspiration from each other,” she says. “Being part of a business community of women and having that support keeps me going. My group of friends are women entrepreneurs, and we talk about opening second spaces or buying a building together.”
“If there’s something you want out of life, surround yourself with people who have that same drive,” Merkel says. “I’m grateful to the SBDC for connecting me with people I can have these conversations with.”
