She built a luxury dessert brand out of a family cookie dough recipe — and a nonprofit out of the doors that stayed locked when she was starting out.
In this episode of Breadwinner Sessions, Claire Howard sits down with Zakiya Ellick, founder of The Cookie Dip Company and Dipping Into Change, to talk about what it really takes to build a business as a solo mom with no partition between "work" and "home."
Zakiya opens up about homeschooling her neurodivergent son while scaling a self-funded company, why she doesn't believe in balance ("I think priorities exist"), the health scare that finally forced her to stop glorifying hustle, and how a career in accounting, HR, and retail quietly built the founder she'd eventually become.
We get into:
- How one vending booth at the Playboy Jazz Festival turned into a company
- Why "luxury" is about how something feels, not just what it costs
- Building a business and a nonprofit that run on opposite instincts
- Exclusivity vs. access
- Learning to ask for help after years of "I'll just do it myself"
- Why she measures success in numbers, not feelings
- Her advice for the woman starting with no capital, no partner, and one good idea
This is for every woman carrying more than one full-time job at once — the breadwinner, the mother, the founder, all in the same body, same day, same breath.
Read the full feature on Substack
For more information on The Cookie Dip:
- Website: thecookiedipcompany.com
- Email: cookiedip@thecookiedipcompany.
com - Instagram: @_thecookiedipcompany
This episode is brought to you by The Breadwinner Planner, from Breadwinner Collective: https://breadwinnercollective.com/products/the-breadwinner-planner?variant=53839025078579
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About the Author
I’m Claire L. Howard — a marketing and communications strategist with 15+ years of experience helping brands and organizations grow. I’m also a solo mom building multiple ventures at once, including CLH Cosmo (my consulting practice) and Breadwinner Collective, which was born out of my own need for better tools to manage money, home, and ambition — all while doing it on my own.