What started as a friendly gesture to meet her new neighbors quickly became a multimillion-dollar business for Amanda Wilbanks, founder and CEO of Southern Baked Pie Company. In this episode of The Roadmap with Ted Jenkin, Wilbanks shares her grassroots journey from baking pies in her kitchen to building a recognized brand with loyal nationwide customers. Her story is a masterclass in bootstrapping, branding, and believing in your product — one slice at a time.
Amanda Wilbanks didn’t plan to build a pie empire. Thirteen years ago, she was simply baking pies at home to meet her neighbors in Gainesville, Georgia. But when her husband joked that he was eating too much of her homemade buttermilk pie and suggested she start selling them, she took action — fast. He signed her up for a local festival, and just days later, she was selling her first pies at the Mule Camp Market under a homemade banner and business cards designed in Microsoft Word.
Her first big sign of demand came that holiday season when she baked hundreds of pies from her home, delivering them in her husband’s Lexus and, later, her mother’s Suburban. “There is a need for this,” she realized. That turning point led to her opening her first retail store in Gainesville.
However, getting off the ground wasn’t easy. With just $400 in capital, Wilbanks had to figure out everything from construction and staffing to building a brand. “I had never built out a house, let alone a bakery,” she said. But what she lacked in experience, she made up for in resourcefulness. She leaned into social media and email marketing, even before those platforms were widely adopted for small businesses. Email marketing, in particular, paid off handsomely — with one $30,000 campaign in 2019 generating $1 million in revenue.
Wilbanks also grew through corporate gifting and e-commerce, shipping pies across the U.S. thanks to her husband’s logistics expertise. Her success didn’t rely on paid influencers or big ad budgets — instead, she built trust through authentic social media content, strong Google reviews, and word of mouth. Celebrity mentions from the likes of Jenna Bush and Hoda Kotb added national visibility.
She’s remained disciplined with her product line, too. Southern Baked Pie Company sticks to six core family recipes and three pie sizes — whole, petite, and slices — avoiding food trends favoring timeless classics. “Keep it simple, stupid” is the motto she stands by regarding new SKUs and seasonal offerings.
For Wilbanks, building a lasting brand means staying true to tradition, delivering quality, and letting customers do the talking. Her journey proves that with grit, great taste, and grassroots marketing, even the humblest home business can rise to national prominence.
"I put my face on social media, and I would talk and taste the product and tell people about it.. that's really how I started with no paid advertising. Everything was organic." – Amanda Wilbanks.
