1. What's your name?
Lily Milioni
2. What’s the name of your business and what products/services do you offer?
I run a food blog called “Lily’s Humble Kitchen” where I share my favorite recipes – some of my own creation, but mostly recreations or adaptations. I also post occasionally to my lifestyle blog where I share all things lifestyle, health, and travel-related.
3. Let's get to know you! Tell us 3 facts about yourself
Fact 1: Brunch is my favorite time of day. Especially if it’s nice weather and I can sit out on a patio.
Fact 2: I recently moved to the mountains of Colorado, but I’m definitely a beach girl at heart.
Fact 3: I actually have a degree in Creative Writing, but don’t work in an English-related field. Having this blog is a great way to stretch those creative muscles.
4. What inspired you to start your own bizz?
This blog started out as a series of individual Instagram posts documenting my experience testing other people’s recipes. I’ve always loved baking, but I wanted to improve my baking and cooking skills and step outside my comfort zone. After a few months, I made the jump to move this journey from Instagram to a blog. My goal isn’t necessarily to profit from this blog (although I will never say never), but to learn, improve, and just enjoy the process. I’m hoping that through my blog, others will find their own inspiration and love for cooking and baking.
5. Where do you find your motivation?
Everyone has to eat. Even as a foodie and a food blogger, I find that planning out my meals for the week is one of the hardest tasks I have to do. I love trying to find different ways to recreate traditional meals so it doesn’t feel like I’m eating the same thing day in and day out.
6. What do you do to feel more inspired/motivated on the days that can feel a little mundane?
I thrive off of planning, schedules, and organization. When this first began as an Instagram series, I made a personal goal to bake a different dessert every single week. I wrote out all the recipes I wanted to recreate, set a baking day, and stuck to it. With this plan, I was able to successfully bake every week for the five months that I had planned out. I find that writing down specific tasks for the blog is motivating because it’s so disappointing to write something down on a to-do list and not get it done. I’d rather have the satisfaction of crossing it off as a completed task. If I’m really struggling to find new inspiration, I’ll hop over to Instagram or Pinterest to see what other bloggers are cooking up and how I can incorporate that into my own cooking (giving full credit where it’s due) or if one of their recipes sorta sets off a lightbulb in my mind of a recipe that I might try and create based off of my own tastes.
7. What kind of tasks are better to automate vs manually do each day/week?
Just start and try to be consistent. Whether that’s three posts a week or one post every two weeks. Consistency is something I’m still working on. Since this is just a hobby for me now, I probably don’t invest as much time into it as I would if I were actively trying to make it a profitable business. I also recommend finding people in the same field who inspire you, while still being authentically yourself. Especially when it comes to recipe creation, people get protective of their products because it’s something that can’t be copyrighted yet. So give credit to bloggers you’ve gained inspiration from, but still try to make the recipe your own.
8. If you could give advice to another woman starting her own bizz in the same industry/field, what would it be?
I would advise anyone starting a consulting business focused on education or career advising to gain as much experience as possible before doing so; be patient, and build a strong foundation of real-world experience. This might mean enduring some crappy jobs, but if you play the long game and can see the value in every role, you’ll be better off for it. I guess as I get older, I see the value in the wisdom I have developed over the 15 years I have been working in education, and how important those early—very crappy—jobs were.
9. Share with our community where they can follow you and your bizz (website, socials, etc)
Blog: https://lilyshumblekitchen.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilianmeili
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lilianmeili
