Ep. 1: Modern cake decorating (with Thao Armstrong of Don’t Tell Charles)

Thao Armstrong is the founder of Don’t Tell Charles and the creator of the original Concrete Cake.

A self-taught cake designer with a background in Landscape Architecture, Thao taught herself to bake cupcakes and macarons, and in 2013, she opened Don’t Tell Charles Coffee & Desserts, a small specialty coffee & dessert shop in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. In 2016 Thao’s focus shifted to cakes and the cafe became Don’t Tell Charles, a designer cake studio specialising in high-end contemporary buttercream cakes.

Thao’s cakes became highly sought after, with clients even flying her internationally to make their wedding cakes. The workshops soon followed with the first ever held in Singapore in April 2016.

Thao taught workshops in Sydney, Indonesia, Auckland and London, and close to 100 physical workshops with students flying in from all over the world including the USA, UK, France, Canada, Panama, Argentina, Nigeria, Malaysia and Brazil.

In October 2017, the DTC Online School launched and currently enrolls over 6000 students across 6 courses with many more on the way.

Thao has a raging interest in food, architecture, interior design, art and fashion, and her aesthetic is contemporary minimalist. She loves clean lines and straight edges. Her goal is to push the boundary between where one design field ends and another begins; to inspire and empower people to explore and embrace their own unique artistic voice and to appreciate that there is no right or wrong when it comes to art.

We’ll answer…

• Did Thao always want to be a cake decorator? (Hint: No! She was working at Vodafone and as a corporate manager when she started baking at home for her partner.)
• How did Thao stumble upon her signature Concrete Cake technique? (And how has it grown over time into in-person and online workshops?)
• Why did Thao decide to teach online instead of only in person? (Is it harder to teach cake decorating in an online course?)
• Why does Thao refer to herself as a “cake designer,” and what are some other misconceptions about her work?

Where to find Thao

Website: donttellcharles.com.au
Instagram: Don’t Tell Charles: @donttellcharles
Instagram: DTC Workshops: @donttellcharles_workshops

Read the full transcript below.

Thao Armstrong: If you are stubborn and you hold onto the idea of this romantic idea of, of what you want to do in your head and you can’t see opportunities to change, then I don’t think you’re going to survive in this time.

Melissa Guller: That’s Thao Armstrong, the founder of Don’t Tell Charles and a leader in the contemporary buttercream cake movement in Australia. In this episode, we’ll learn how she taught herself to bake and decorate cakes and how one Instagram DM launched her cake decorating workshop business. We also talk about how Thaos business has evolved over the last six years and maybe most importantly of all, we share why it’s so critical to value your work and get paid for what you do. This is Everything is Teachable.

Announcer: Welcome to everything is Teachable, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes to learn how everyday creators have transformed their skills and passions into online courses and businesses. To introduce this week’s episode, here’s your host, Melissa Guller.

Melissa Guller: Hey everyone. I’m Melissa from Team Teachable and I am so excited to introduce this week’s guest. Thao Armstrong is the founder of Don’t Tell Charles and the creator of the original concrete cake, a self-taught cake designer with a background in landscape architecture, Thao taught herself to bake cupcakes, and in 2013 she opened Don’t Tell Charles coffee and desserts, a small specialty coffee and dessert shop in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. In 2016 Thao’s focus shifted to cakes and the cafe became, Don’t Tell Charles a designer cake studio specializing in high end contemporary buttercream cakes. Thao’s cakes became highly sought after with clients even flying her internationally to make their wedding cakes. The workshops soon followed with the first ever being held in Singapore in April, 2016 since then, Thao has Taught workshops in Sydney, Indonesia, Auckland, and London, and close to 100 physical workshops have been held in the Melbourne studio with students flying in from all over the world.

Melissa Guller: And October, 2017 the Don’t Tell Charles Online school was established and currently enrolled over 6,000 students across six published courses with many more on the way. Thao has a reading interest in food architecture, interior design and art and fashion. And her aesthetic is contemporary minimalist. She loves clean lines as straight edges. And her goal is to push the boundary between where one design field ends and another begins. She helps to inspire and empower people to explore it and embrace their own unique artistic voice and to appreciate that there is no right or wrong when it comes to art. So Thao, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I’m so excited to learn a little, a little bit more about you. And just to start at the beginning, did you always want

Thao Armstrong: to be a cake decorator? I actually didn’t know what I want it to be for a really long time. Definitely not a cake decorator. So I studied journalism and landscape architecture in Uni and I guess, well I didn’t finish either of them so I really didn’t know what I wanted to do and what I want it to be. And this was around the same time that master chef became really big in Australia. So I was working as a, um, we call it he owners corporation manager. So you manage like on of course corporations for apartment buildings and stuff like that. Which was a really kind of boring job. And I started baking on the side and it kinda just grew from there. So I guess to answer your question in short, I really didn’t know what I wanted it to be. I’m sure a lot of people listening can really relate to that.

Thao Armstrong: I think when I was a kid, I assumed adults had it all figured out and they knew what they wanted to be when they grow up. But I think that’s not the reality for a lot of people. Yeah. So, um, I was born in Vietnam and I came to Australia when I was 12. My parents were really creative, so I had a really creative childhood. But you know, coming to Australia I lived with my grandma and my mom’s side of the family. And you know, I always liked to make a joke about it, but with Asian, so they raised me the Asian way. And you know, being an artist or having anything to do with design was never in my path. I didn’t do anything artsy as a subject in school. So definitely, yeah, it was not something that I would even think of. So when did you start thinking about it, if you didn’t have any kind of artsy background growing up?

Thao Armstrong: I’ve always been kind of like a creator, but I did it on the side. Like I’ve made birthday cards instead of buying them, I’d make people stuff as birthday gifts. But in terms of a Korea that was never guided from my family I guess. And it was at the time when I was working as the owner’s corporation manager in an office. And this is funny because this office was underneath the apartment building, um, where I lived. And the space used to be a resThaorant and then they converted it into offices. I worked in the office, but they kept the commercial kitchen from the resThaorant. And so when I started baking they said, oh, well you can just use the commercial kitchen. So for about a year I was biking in the commercial kitchen, just selling like cupcakes and microns to friends and family using Facebook. This was, you know, at the time when Facebook actually had breach.

Thao Armstrong: So you’d post something up, you know, Oh hey, I’m making these flavors these weekend. And then you know, people will go, okay, I’ll have a dozen. And I did that for about a year until the office, the body corporate owners corporation office, they said to me, look, we’re going to move out. The space is probably going to be sold or leased. And then I thought, well, you know, that means I’m going to have to look at hiring an actual commercial kitchen or stop doing this all together. So we kind of just thought, well why the hell not? And then we opened the cafe.

Melissa Guller: That’s amazing. So how did the cafe get started? That was back in 2013 I believe .

Thao Armstrong: it’s all a blur now cause it’s like six years ago. And the business has gone through so many changes. I actually don’t really recall much. So I open the cafe with my now ex husband. So he, um, took care of the coffee shop side and I did more of the desserts. And on the first day that we opened the door, I literally had nothing but cupcakes in the cabinet. And it was cold, a dessert shop, not a cupcake shop. So from that point it was just distill. One of our thought was right. I guess like one of our, I want it to bake and then it just, it just evolved from there. So that was, yes, 2013

Melissa Guller: so it started off dessert in coffee shop, just cupcakes on day one. How did it evolve to where it is today? I know, I’m sure quite a few things have happened in those six years. Like you said [inaudible]

Thao Armstrong: a lot of things have happened. So from that first day where I only had cupcakes, um, cause my interest was never in cakes. It was in desserts. So you know, I was making little French Mousse cakes and things like that. And then we started because the space that we have, if you ever get to visit the workshop, it’s quite big, but it’s divided into sections. So I’ll have another room that wasn’t the cafe that we did, high teasing. And then as it evolved I also started supplying little coke. So other coffee shops [inaudible] was always in the picture. But you know, about six years ago there was still really old school, traditional fondant icing kind of cakes, which were never my jam. So I kind of avoided it until the buttercream crisis started happening in Australia of probably 2014 ish. And that’s when I kind of jumped on the bandwagon and never looked back.

Melissa Guller: Yeah. And for people who haven’t seen your cakes, which are beautiful by the way, we’ll make sure to include links to your website and Instagram in the show notes. They don’t look like what I think most people expect cakes to look like.

Thao Armstrong: Yeah. I guess that’s the thing. I’ve never been trained in case, so I, I went into it with no idea how things are done, so I kind of just did my own way. That’s kind of worked in my favor because what have I developed for my own processes was how I thought things would make sense to me. And as a result people started wanting to sort of learn how the hell I was making these phones cakes. And that’s when, I guess it occurred to me that a lot of people would want to do things maybe in a different way.

Melissa Guller: I love that because I think it’s great when people do have formal training in something and of course like learning from others is so valuable, but like you said, having almost a fresh eyes approach of learning it in your own way has led you to have this very like modern, clean line aesthetic that I personally had never seen in a cake before. And it’s really, it’s a kind of a delight to see your Instagram feed for the first time because it looks sort of like a cake, but it’s not something I had seen. Yeah.

Thao Armstrong: Especially the concrete cake quit actually looks like a block of concrete.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, I’d love to talk about that cake actually. How did you first come up with the idea to make that concrete cake style?

Thao Armstrong: It was actually an accident. So I, I wanted to make a great cake. And without going into it and actually revealing the technique, I’ll kind of accidentally make the gray paper look like a concrete cake and then went, oh wow. Well I’m just gonna post it up and call it a concrete when that’s when it started. And that’s pretty much how a lot of the things that I do, a lot of the great things, I guess that’s how they begin from accidents and from making you know, huge mistakes and having to improvise and instead of following, you know, I guess set rules and instructions that someone else has set for you. But the concrete, which is a huge thing now was literally an accident on accident.

Melissa Guller: I think that’s kind of a relief to hear in some ways because a lot of maybe listeners expect that great ideas pop up as this kind of genius and then you just executed and it’s the exact thing you had always imagined. But I’m guessing that you play around with cakes quite a bit and some of them work out and some of them don’t. And this one just happened to work out in a way that you probably couldn’t have imagined in advance?

Thao Armstrong: Yeah, around that time I was still pretty much in the learning phase, so I was just kind of just making what of I could get my hands on just to learn the various ways of doing things. It sounds like fun to me. How were you learning how to do this on your own? A lot of lungs. A lot of youtube. I used to watch a lot of cake boss that like just paying attention to what’s happening in the background and instead of, you know, like in some scenes they’ll be talking to the camera, but then you can see in the background some bikers doing something else and then you go, oh, so that’s how they do that. Um, so just looking at every corner of the Internet just to see how people do things. That’s very clever and a lot of trial and error. But yeah, I looked in places that you wouldn’t normally look like I said, you know, like in the same place, but most people would look at point a and I’ll look in the background and a lot of times you pick up really interesting things.

Thao Armstrong: I think that’s a good tip for anybody listening just to, you know, pay a little bit of attention maybe not quite where everyone else was looking to see what you find. Yeah, definitely. So your concrete cakes have taken off, your business has continued to evolve. We haven’t even yet touched on the fact that you then moved into in-person and then some online teaching. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? How did that first start? You know, I’ve, like I said, I’m self Thaoght and I’ve kind of gathered all these information and trialed a lot of different things. So I always thought that at one point I would like to share the knowledge back. I’d never thought I’d share in a workshop because that was really not a popular thing. I always thought I’d do a blog. And I spoke about a blog for about four years, but until someone from Singapore actually apart me on Instagram and said, Oh hey, would you come to Singapore to teach me how you do your concrete coke?

Thao Armstrong: And I’m like, Oh yeah, of course if you pay for me to fly over, but you might want to get a few more people otherwise you’ll be paying a lot. And so she got 10 people together and my first physical workshop was in Singapore in front of 10 people. Yeah, I would never have guessed that. But that’s such a great idea that somebody reached out to you and you said, well sure. And then kind of helped her build out that idea so that you could make it happen. Yes. So since then I’ve returned to Singapore three more times, so I’m total full time to do workshops. But yeah, from from when I got back to Singapore from Singapore. So I Thaoght in Singapore 2015 15 or 16 I April and then, you know, Instagram again, Instagram at that time had a lot of rage. So the minute I post up that I went to Singapore to workshops, I come back and people will be like, oh, you know, do you do workshops in Melbourne?

Thao Armstrong: And then I started taking students in my kitchen and that was two to three people max at a time while the coffee was still going on outside. It was really busy, you know, noise everywhere. And that’s pretty much how the physical workshop started. And then since then, how have they evolved? So my ex husband and I separated probably six months after and we decided for me to take over the abuses and I didn’t want to keep the um, coffee side of thing because that wasn’t my area of expertise. In the meantime, the workshops are really doing really well, but I can only do them once a week on a Sunday and I could only take two to three people at a time. So we shut the cafe and then I converted the front area, which was the cafe into the workshop and started running proper workshops that had eight people.

Thao Armstrong: And we pretty much sell out every class almost, if not instantly. Is it just word of mouth or popularity? I think it’s both. Instagram I think had a lot to do with it and at this point I had students flying in from literally every state in Australia and every country, like I’ve got people from the u s UK, Singapore and Malaysia, even Nigeria, New Zealand, and they will fly in from everywhere and all the wild people online will asking, you know, do you do online workshops, do you do online workshops? And this has gone on for like Erik and 18 months until I started doing something about it. So finally enough people asked. Yeah, like it at that point I knew that there were enough people that asked. I just just did not have the time because I was still doing cake orders. So weddings every week.

Thao Armstrong: And then I was teaching on Sunday. So literally no time and no idea how to do it. Online goals. Yeah, I mean that’s a great point. I think most people have no idea how to make an online course. It’s a new skill for a lot of people. Yeah. Especially when you’ve got a business that’s hands on, but it’s physical. Thinking about something in the verse of Internet and online it’s really daunting because you wouldn’t even know where to look. You know at least if you want to start a cake shop, you’ve seen cake shops pretty much all your life. So at least you kinda know, okay, they should have these, they should have that. Like I literally had no idea what you would need, where you would go to even begin looking at doing an online course. So where did you begin? So it just so happened that in the same building I met ago who already had an online school, I’m Teachable and she did brush lettering workshops and calligraphy and stuff like that, which was another area of interest to me.

Thao Armstrong: So I asked her about her online school and she told me about Teachable. I went on to buy calls just to see how, how all the people do their courses and this, this is what I mean by, you know, look, looking in places that other people wouldn’t normally look like if you are wondering how much to charge for cake than just go and ask for a quote from someone and they’ll tell you. So that’s what I did. I bought an online course and I’ve Kinda just go, okay, so this is how the platform works. This is how the courses are done. And a I’ve found, Nah, I already have a videographer who did a photo shoot for me not long beforehand. So I contacted him and um, yes. So like everything else that I’ve done previously in the business, it’s kind of dislike. All right, I’ve got an idea and that I described has it store it and then if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure out along the way.

Melissa Guller: I think that’s very resourceful though, especially to look into just what does an online course look like and how has somebody else built this and how did they price it? Even if it isn’t about cakes, you can still learn a lot about how to use online courses by looking at what other people are doing. Yay. Yeah, definitely. So you got your videos together. What was the first course you did? Was it the concrete cakes course?

Thao Armstrong: So I pushed out three courses at once when I launched. So how our courses are structured, you’ve got the big massive course that will show you how to do things from a to zed, not being biking to icing, decorating. And then you’ve got the little smaller courses and they usually are like cake recipes or decorations. And so my first three courses were the concrete, cause they taste say chocolate cake and chocolate sales decorations. So they all went out at the same time. And I still remember that night till this day because I stayed up like this podcast asked me not just to try and push it out because I’d already pushed the deadline in life back once already. That’s another thing too, actually. I told people on Instagram, this is the date that I’m going to launch the course. And obviously I was running behind. So I felt really bad about, you know, changing the date and pushing the deadline out. But what I didn’t realize is that that hyped it up even more and people were so eager to get their hands on these online courses. So in that I’d learnt a really good marketing trick. Yes.

Melissa Guller: It’s actually a great point because the anticipation of something is often quite powerful. Yeah. Yeah. So when you, when you were first selling it, you sold primarily to your Instagram audience? Uh, yes. And how did, how did they respond to your online classes? Especially because they don’t just have buy the course, right? They have to go out and get all the materials. And so I would think that that might be a possible barrier. But did people go out, do they create their own cakes?

Thao Armstrong: Yeah. So when I did the online courses, I was already doing wedding cakes and physical workshops and that was pretty much my business. So the mentality for me was that the online courses would just be something that will just give me some extra income and you know, also satisfy the people that follow us that cannot make it to a physical workshop. I never anticipated the response that we got from our line school. Like people went nuts, they’d love the courses, and then they asked for more. Um, that’s a good sign. It’s a really good sign. But it’s something that I didn’t prepare for because I still, you know, I kind of just, it was like doing a uni project, so you just sort of, you have to do it and you do the best you can and you push it out and then you just wait for, you know, your marks to come back.

Thao Armstrong: And that’s done. And that’s kind of like my mentality on it. But then here where people asking for more. So I’m like, alright, now I’ve gotta go back and do more. And me being me, you know, the reason why I started teaching to begin with is to actually help people and share my knowledge. So then I have to review the current courses before I push new ones out. What can I do better? What can I add? So if you actually look at the first courses that I’ve put out compared to the courses that we have now, you can actually see the difference like day and night because you know, I constantly update the courses to add more value also because I’m a perfectionist, so I just can’t stand the fact that something’s not finished or something could be done better. But yeah, so that, that’s a conundrum that I’ve found myself in, that people kept asking for more courses and these things take so long to make and it’s not something that I’m, that I’m familiar with.

Thao Armstrong: So what did you do? Did you end up adding more courses or how did you respond to that growing demand? So I added three more courses and you know, there are so many students on the school that have all the courses and they still messaged me and asked me for more because I’m constantly putting out new things on the cake side as well. So, uh, there came a point where I was literally juggling three businesses and that’s the custom designer wedding cakes, the physical workshops. And Mind you, the physical workshops aren’t just in Melbourne. I fly out to do them as well. So I’ve flown to London, Auckland, Singapore and Indonesia, and then the online school. So these are literally three separate different businesses I was juggling. And I felt like I didn’t do any of them well enough because there was only one may 24 hours in a day.

Thao Armstrong: And I’m trying to run three businesses within this, you know, Don’t Tell Charles brand. So I picked what people wanted the most out of the three, even though there were, I would call raging demand in all three. But I spent the least time on the online school and I was getting the most response from it. So October last year we decided to temporarily, uh, stop taking custom cake orders. So at the moment, you literally cannot order a, Don’t Tell Charles cake. I’ve actually had someone try to bribe me, doubled out of phase, you said to make their wife’s birthday cake. But yeah, so we don’t do custom cakes at the moment. I’m focusing on doing the online school properly, so I’m in the process of creating a few more courses and hopefully they will come out by July.

Melissa Guller: That’s really interesting to hear the whole evolution of your business because I think it’s very easy to, let’s say discover a new business today and assume that what they’re doing now is how they’ve always operated. Yeah. But you’ve truly evolved through many different forms of sharing either cakes or cake knowledge with people and it’s been, I think a fairly short amount of time, six years that you’ve evolved quite a bit. It’s very impressive to hear about how you’ve really seized opportunities.

Thao Armstrong: Yeah, I think it’s important in this time, especially because everything is moving so quickly. Take Facebook or Instagram for example, even during this time of six years, like they’ve changed so much and how you do business on these platforms have already changed. So if you are stubborn and you hold onto the idea, this romantic idea of, of what you want to do in your head and you can’t see opportunities to change, then I don’t think you’re going to survive in this time. Yeah.

Melissa Guller: You’ve mentioned Instagram a few times changing. Maybe can you just give an example of how you’ve seen Instagram shift between when you started and today?

Thao Armstrong: Well, when I first started, this was on the back of influences already, you know, blogs and stuff already making their mark. So you know, Instagram will show your content to more of your followers than how they do it now. Like only a small fraction of your followers, I think it’s 10% now will see your posts. Whereas back then, um, the reach was a lot bigger and also the algorithms changed. So now because Instagram makes money through ads, so does Facebook, they want to limit your reach so that you have to use the, um, avenues running ads. So yeah, the reach on Instagram has changed massively. And then I’ve had to really rethink the quality of the post that you put up as well. Like back then on the feed I could put up, you know, random picture and have a rant on the caption and people still see them and people will still jump in and have a comment now, like if you look at my current feed in the last three days, I’ve put up three black and white photos and the reach or you just look at the light, it’s this small and then I’ve just put up a pink cake tonight and straight away you say like five times the amount of attention that it gets.

Thao Armstrong: So it’s, it’s really hard now and compared to back then how you capture people’s attention on Instagram, especially because everyone’s getting so good at putting up beautiful pictures. You’ve got to always lift your game as well.

Melissa Guller: That’s definitely a challenge. I’m sure anyone listening is dealing with, if they’re trying to get their name out there or thinking about marketing, whether it’s their own blog or their own business that like you said, all these algorithms are constantly changing and you pointed this out, I’m not sure if many people think about this, but Instagram, Facebook, they’re all businesses and at the end of the day they need to figure out how they are going to earn money. And so oftentimes that means that what they’re doing doesn’t necessarily frankly benefit the users. It means that it wants the user’s attention or it wants you to figure out how you can spend more money with their platform, which is kind of a tough reality.

Thao Armstrong: I think it’s a good lessons for business though because they, they give you a really good product for free to hook you in and then once you’re in, that’s when they start making the money. So I guess, you know, there’s a few lessons there for you to, for you to learn from.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, absolutely. I mean that’s a great point. They are a business and I respect that fact because you know, Teachable. Where a business Don’t Tell Charles your business as well and you said it well, you want to capture people’s attention and then once you’ve earned their trust or their interest, then you want to figure out how it makes sense for you to earn money. But in a mutual way. I think often people think about money or products as being bad, but I’m sure when people buy your courses, they’re excited, they’re delighted, it’s an exciting moment for them and they’re thrilled to pay for what you’re providing. Yeah. The

Thao Armstrong: tricky part is people. Yeah, like you said, people think money is bad or making money is bad, especially in the creative field. Like because the creator supposedly get a lot of, um, satisfaction from creating the scene already. So then making money off it offered, they seem to be bad. And also in [inaudible], I don’t know in this, you know, time where knowledge is so readily shared and a lot of knowledge is free. People think that sharing knowledge in exchange for money’s bad. That’s what I’m want to kind of change in terms of, um, the mindset of take makers is that it’s an art and you put a lot of heart and soul and time into it and so you need to value your money. The time that you put into practice to acquire your knowledge, to go through, you know, a hundred articles on the Internet to pick out what is good and what is not. That is what people are paying for. They’re not paying for free information because they can’t go into those 100 articles and pick out the same thing that you did.

Melissa Guller: No, I think that’s so important. I think what you just said about the time somebody would spend to go through a hundred articles is key because there’s maybe a misconception about why would somebody pay for an online course if I could read a bunch of free blog posts, everything on the Internet is free, why would I pay for this? But you just hit the nail on the head. It’s the time that you personally have spent learning how to do these techniques and figuring out how to create a beautiful cohesive cake. That time that you’ve put in is so valuable and what people want is to pay for a shortcut to that outcome you’ve already figured out.

Thao Armstrong: Yeah, people’s time is so valuable these days. Everyone’s just want quick, fast, reliable information and it’s the reliable part that is really great because there’s information everywhere. So how can you tell whether it’s reliable or not? So I think, you know, having courses that someone has gone to, the effort of putting together because they’ve done enough research is it’s something that I would trust if I had the money to spend, I would trust that kind of information over freely available articles on every blog.

Melissa Guller: Right. So people aren’t necessarily just paying for information, they’re paying for the trust for the time that they save to learn that skill. Yeah, definitely. It’s really fascinating. So you mentioned, this is kind of a misconception, I think that why would somebody pay for an online course when they could get it for free? Have you found that there are other maybe myths or misconceptions about your business that people are surprised to learn about you and Don’t Tell Charles [inaudible]

Thao Armstrong: I think it’s funny because back then when people used to ask me what I did, an ivory sponsored a, or I’ll make cakes, I make wedding cakes and they’ll go, oh, that’s cute. Do you do it from home? Um, and then I’ll have to go and try and, you know, explain what actually do. And then I’ve changed my response later on when people ask me what I did and I said, oh, I’m a cake designer. Straight away they got, oh, that’s cool. Like what? Like what’s that? And so like when it comes to cake making, I realize that there’s, it’s an old school thing and people just think that you make cakes. They put cake makers in the category of food instead of art. So if your cake maker, you work in the food industry, you’re, you’re not a designer, you’re not an artist. And that’s something that I’m trying to change, not through the people that are looking at the industry, but through the people that are in the industry, making the cakes themselves, seeing themselves as artists instead of just laborers, you know, toiling away in a hot kitchen. I’m making a bunch of cakes

Melissa Guller: as somebody who’s not in the cakes world. That’s so interesting to hear. I would have never considered the artist versus not artist debate, but it’s clear from me looking at what you do that it is. So obviously art and maybe because Instagram is such a visual platform that I can see it. Yeah. But how, I’m curious, how are you trying to change that narrative or what are you doing maybe today to help support the art of cake decorating?

Thao Armstrong: It’s Cliche, but it’s actually through these online courses. What I preach inside these courses I guess, and, and how I present my work. Um, I’m hoping, I guess to, to change people’s mind in terms of how they look at their own work. So I’m not really fussed about people who at the moment anyway, I’m not fast at clients who don’t really have an understanding of how a cake is made. I want to change the mind of the people who make the cake. Then it’s through these courses is what I do. This is how I do it. That they will start to realize that what they do is an art form that deserves as much money as the next art form. And only when they start to see it themselves, well other people believe them. So it’s through these courses and through my, um, yeah, it’s through my work that I’m hoping to change this mindset. If people interested

Melissa Guller: in learning more or checking any of your content or your cakes or your courses out before we wrap up shortly, where can people find you?

Thao Armstrong: They could definitely find us on Instagram. So we have two Instagram accounts. One is Don’t Tell Charles and one is Don’t Tell Charles underscore workshops. You can also find us on our website. That’s www dot. Don’t Tell Charles.com Donahue and also on Facebook if you just search our name.

Melissa Guller: Perfect. And we’ll include links to all of those in the show notes as well. Now before we go, I’m curious, what’s up next for you? I know you mentioned you’re focusing some more on online courses, is that correct?

Thao Armstrong: Ah, yes. I’m focusing on online courses at the moment. My goal this year, because I’m chronic with piling stuff on, I think I can do everything I want to do at the same time. So my goal this year is to just strip back, focus on one thing at a time. So that online courses this year. Um, but I recently got married again and so that’s really made me think long and hard about my lifestyle and you know what I really want out of the next 10 years. And that’s certainly not working seven days a week. So maybe next year I’ll look into um, working from home a little bit more and start exploring other area of interests. Like maybe making led lamps. Yeah, I’ve got a, I’ve got a thing for a lot of things. So like I said, like I have to try and stop my mind from just wanting to do everything. But that’s another thing I consider myself an artist. And at the moment it just so happens that Kx is my medium, but it might not be in 10 years. It might be, you know, a canvas and paint. It could be, um, like I said, my came lamps, not sure. But right now my focus is on the online school and spreading my message.

Melissa Guller: I left you that, you mentioned your lifestyle because you even mentioned there were three parts of your business in one point. All kind of in the realm of cakes. But I think it’s often easy to overlook. How does the work that you do affect your lifestyle? It’s easy to just get caught up in the goals and the execution of big ideas. Yeah. But I think it’s really important to consider what does that mean for the rest of your life, for your family, your relationships, even other hobbies that you might want to pursue that don’t earn money. So I love that you brought that up. Okay.

Thao Armstrong: Yeah. Um, especially in the last three years, I’ve gone through a lot of major personal life changes. My grandmother passed and of my divorce to my ex husband and you know, Don’t Tell Charles taking a drastic change in the indirection. And you know, I just sort of just put my head down and poured everything into work and it wasn’t sustainable. I kind of had a little breakdown at the end of the last year. And so, um, yeah, I’m, I’m trying to just sort of do it for the long run and you can’t look at what the next person’s doing and try and keep up because um, you just burn out and you just got to do it at your own pace and it might look like you’re moving slower than the next person, but they also have their own struggle that you don’t know about. So just do what’s best for you and have a life really. Yeah. Great Advice.

Melissa Guller: Well, before we go, are there any final words of wisdom or inspiration you want to share with anybody listening?

Thao Armstrong: I’ll just want to rewrite because I think it’s very important that you value your time and your work and your worth. So don’t do things for free unless you know that it’s what you want to do. Don’t let people dictate how much you’re worth. Um, you got to start valuing that first. So that would be my one and only advice if I ever had to just give one piece of advice.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope somebody listening hears that today and feels inspired to value their work or even just take the next step towards something they’ve been thinking on for awhile.

Thao Armstrong: Me too.

Melissa Guller: Well, thank you again for joining us. It’s been such a pleasure getting to learn more about your story and the art that you’ve been sharing.

Thao Armstrong: Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Guller: Thanks so much for joining us. In this episode of everything is Teachable. You can see links to the resources mentioned in today’s episode in the show notes at Teachable.com/EIT1 now. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast player so you can receive new episodes right when they’re released. And if you’re enjoying the show, we hope you’ll leave us a five star review. We really appreciate your feedback, especially since reviews help us reach an even larger audience of great listeners like you. So thank you. On behalf of team Teachable, we hope you enjoyed this episode about cake decorating with Thao Armstrong. We’ll see you in the next episode of Everything is Teachable.