How this entrepreneur turned home baking into a rising business

While some people were baking sourdough bread during the pandemic, Alexandria Diggs was nurturing a different kind of starter.

Diggs never saw herself starting her own business. As a biochemistry student, she planned to pursue a career in medicine before eventually pivoting to teaching. But looking back, she said the signs were there early.

Growing up, she watched her parents run several businesses, including a hair salon, a moving service, and a logistics company. Diggs learned how to bake from her mother, who often baked cakes for church events.

“I grew up in a family that cooks very well. I feel like we all have a love for cooking and a love for food,” Diggs said.

In high school, she began baking cookies for classmates after friends repeatedly asked her to make more. For a year and a half, Diggs baked roughly 100 cookies a night to sell at school the next day, while her parents bought 50-pound bags of flour and encouraged her to think bigger about the business potential.

A lousy cinnamon bun in college unintentionally pointed Diggs toward her future path.

“I wanted to try to make cinnamon buns, because I had gone to a farmer’s market that was close to my apartment, and I had some, and I just didn’t like them at all. I didn’t think they were good, and I’m like, I know I can do this better,” she said. “I wanted to get a part-time job, like selling makeup, and my father told me I should just make the cinnamon buns because everybody loves them. That’s where the vision finally caught on. I’m like, ‘Okay, I can do this.’”

In December 2020, Diggs launched Lou’s Buns, selling cinnamon rolls with flavors like sweet potato and matcha. She was still teaching elementary school while baking late into the night.

Today, Lou’s Buns has expanded into a storefront at L’Enfant Plaza with partnerships that include hotel and cultural hub Eaton DC.

In a conversation with Founder Brew, Diggs reflected on navigating slow seasons, scaling a food business, and the financial realities of turning a grassroots baking hustle into a sustainable endeavor.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You relied on family members to help distribute cinnamon buns throughout your community. What did those early days actually look like, and what do you remember about getting your first customers?

My first customers really came from social media…After the social media rushes and waves, then [my family] started to go into barbershops and hair salons and car dealerships, and wherever would allow them to sell the cinnamon buns. My younger sister would go in and sell them, and my father basically laid out the routes for her, and would take her everywhere to go sell them.

What was the process of getting the storefront like?

How any deal looks: a lot of back and forth, a lot of, “I’m okay with this, I’m not okay with this.” That’s another thing I wish I would have been better prepared for. Sometimes, when you’re an entrepreneur—you’re young, you’re Black, you’re a woman…you just take the first deal that you’re given instead of negotiating and having someone look things over…I did not expect to have such a slow season.

What’s one thing about running a food business that people underestimate?

When I first started, I was buying a lot of stuff from the grocery store, which was super, super expensive. Then I started going to Restaurant Depot. At first, I was buying one 50-pound bag of flour, and that would last me two or three weeks, honestly, because it wasn’t like I was tearing up orders.

But when you’re having to double it up to four or five 50-pound bags of flour a week, plus a 50-pound bag of sugar, and three or four bags of that, it gets expensive.

What have you learned about being an employer?

The employees don’t care if you got it or not. If they’re working, they want to be paid. It’s not like, “Oh, that’s my friend,” like, “Oh, can I do this? Can I wait two weeks?” No, they want their money right then and there.

When you get a good team of employees that work together, that are serious about being on time, about the overall product, and they see the business how you see the business, and the growth, and what the business entails…you’ll have a smooth running operation.

Are you at the stage now where the business feels financially comfortable, or does entrepreneurship and running a business still feel like a grind behind the scenes?

I’m just getting to a space where I feel—I’m not even going to say comfortable, because it’s not comfortable—it’s more like finally I can breathe a little bit.

I experienced my first real slow season having a storefront and having to open up every day, even when you know you’re not selling any cinnamon buns, having to bake cinnamon buns every day when you’re not selling them.

When you experience your first winter…you know for next winter: I need a coat, I need covers, so let me start making these things now. Let me prepare because winter is coming—on Game of Thrones, that’s what they used to say.

I would rather be prepared and have everything set in stone than to not be prepared and have to catch up.

What’s one mistake you made building Lou’s Buns that costs you something early?

My father used to tell me I needed to be making TikToks and making an Instagram post and letting people know what’s going on, talking to people, tell them, “Hey, this is the journey. This is what I’m doing today.”

I did it, but I didn’t do it consistently. Now that I’m here, people think it’s like, “Oh, she just came out of nowhere.”

If I would have documented my process better, or just been consistent with it…I would have a larger following and a larger customer base than what I do have now.

What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn about building this business?

Everything is not going to go my way, but it doesn’t mean it’s not the way I’m supposed to be going. Sometimes I have a vision for my business or myself in my mind, and that’s not what God has for me.