For her son’s first birthday, JoAnn Fox wanted to decorate his cake herself. After scouring Baton Rouge for the supplies she needed, Fox discovered a niche in the market for party planning supplies.
As Business Report details in its new Entrepreneur feature on Fox and her daughter, Donna Travis, Fox filled that gap with her business, Creative Cake Supply—now known as Party Time—in 1979, which she originally ran from her living room. Her only competition was a bakery across town that offered cake decorating lessons but typically guarded its trade secrets.
“I didn’t want to be in competition with the person who walked in the door,” Fox says.
Instead she gave them all the tips they needed to make a professional looking cake.
“Every mom wants to be super mom,” Fox says. “It is the memories and pictures that make you glad that you did it.”
Fox created a party store industry in Baton Rouge long before Party City arrived. Eventually, she outgrew her living room and her carport where she stored inventory. By 1985, Fox expanded her operations to a second location and over time increased her inventory to more than just cake supplies, selling fixings for every type and every piece of a party.
Today, Party Time uses more than 300 vendors to stock the store. National competitors didn’t enter the market until about 1995, Fox says.
After consolidating her operations in 1992, moving the store four times and changing the name in 1995, Party Time found its current home in a 30,000-square-foot warehouse on Bluebonnet Boulevard. Fox built her success on trial and error.
“You just have to learn what works and what doesn’t,” Fox says.
With a business built on creating an atmosphere of celebration, Fox and her daughter hurry to stay ahead of the ever-changing trends of the party industry that move at lightning speed thanks to social media sites like Pinterest and the crafty blogosphere.
Travis basically grew up in her mother’s store and now manages it herself. Her job is to breathe life into each party.
“It is no longer just about the cake and the napkins,” Travis says.
Read the full feature. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
