My Son, the Entrepreneur

Lorraine Earle of Johnny Cupcakes is a doting mother who also runs the family business founded by her son, John.

Richard Schultz

MOTHER'S DAY Mama Cupcakes nourishes son John Earle with business advice in the morning and eggplant parmigiana at night.

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To some customers, Lorraine Earle is Mama Cupcakes -- the warm, wiry woman who delivers hand-packed lunches to the lines of young people who wait outside Johnny Cupcakes stores when new limited-edition T-shirts go on sale. To her son John, the 27-year-old founder of the $3.4 million apparel company, she is the cocoon protecting him from the creativity-damping pressures of the business. "In a sense, I'm still like a kid," says John. "I never stress out. I'm always happy. When I come up with my ideas, I'm thinking of the solutions, not the problems. My mom is a big part of that."

Earle, a former office manager at a big Boston law firm, encouraged -- and often bankrolled -- her son's early business ventures, which included selling glow sticks on the beach near their home in Hull, Massachusetts, and candy and gag items at his high school. In 2001, when John began designing whimsical cupcake-themed T-shirts that he sold from the back of a van while touring the country with his band, Earle kept her son stocked with shirts, tracked sales, and processed and fulfilled orders. John was just having fun, until one day Earle informed him he had a promising business. She cut her law-office hours to manage Johnny Cupcakes's finances and operations. Three years ago, running John's business became her full-time job.

My office is in my dining room. It's very cozy. I have my own art on the walls and flowers I've pressed. There's a glass cabinet full of special things people have given me. I work on a Mac, but that's as high tech as it gets. I file my bills in accordion folders, and I use a calculator that's at least 25 years old. It's added up a lot of money over the years. Subtracted it, too. If it ever gives me a wrong answer, I'll stop using it.

John and I spend way more time together now than when he was a kid. I begin my day at 6:30 by checking e-mails that have come in overnight, including some from him. John stays up late writing blog entries and responding to messages -- our customers are very enthusiastic and feel like they have personal relationships with him, so he gets a lot. Also, when he gets excited about an idea, which happens constantly, he can't drag himself away from it. So he usually doesn't go to bed until 4 or 5 a.m. and sleeps until 10 or 11 a.m. It's not so different from when he was a kid and I had to drive him to school every day because he never woke up in time to make the bus.

My husband and I have lived in the same house for 30 years. John lives about three miles away. He usually drops by here on his way to the warehouse in Weymouth or to the Boston store. I'll make him blueberry pancakes, and we'll talk about new products or employee issues. I'll give him papers to sign and tell him what I need him to do that day. We might have to go together to the bank, for example. My daughter, Linsay, who is 23, started managing HR and customer service last year. She sometimes stops by to discuss payroll. It's a real family business. My husband, who is a contractor, did all the work on the Boston store and built out the warehouse office space.

I'm training Linsay's best friend, Kelley White, to do the books, so she comes over at 9 or so. We live right up the street from our first retail store -- we've since opened two more, in Boston and Los Angeles -- and the manager often visits before he opens for the day. All of the employees are young, so it feels like the old days when this was the house where the neighborhood kids hung out.

John is CEO, and I'm CFO. I handle all the finances, the trademark and legal issues, the staff. I'm very good with numbers. I act like it's my money, even though John owns 100 percent of the company. I always know where every penny is.

John checks with me before he hires anyone. He meets a lot of people who have skills he thinks we need, but often it makes more sense to train someone in-house and make it part of that person's job instead of bringing on a 40-hour person. Anyway, that's part of running the business, and he's not too interested in that. He has no idea about rents or anything like that. He doesn't care about the money. He doesn't care about the bottom line. So I have to be extra diligent. I have to say no more than when he was a kid. He'll say, "Mom, why do you have to be so negative?" But later, he's grateful. A few years ago, he wanted to open a store in New York. He was standing on the street in this one spot taking pictures so I could see how many cars were going by. "Look, Mom -- 400 cars an hour go through this intersection!" I said, "No, John. If we do that now, the business will suffer." Six months ago, the same thing in London. "Look, Mom. I found a store!" "No, John. You can't." He talked me around on Los Angeles. I gave him a $60,000 budget, and he spent $750,000. Fortunately, the L.A. store is doing very well.

I have to be the worrywart so my son feels free to exercise his imagination. John comes up with all the products. He's constantly feeding ideas to our graphic designer, Clark Orr, down in Florida and Jenna Rivers, a local fashion designer who creates our clothes and accessories. John also tries hard to make work as much fun for our employees as it is for him. In December, he flew the staff of the Los Angeles store out here for our Christmas party and interviewed everyone about his or her favorite childhood toys. Then he went on eBay and bought them all as presents -- Nickelodeon Moon Shoes, Disco Barbie. John is always doing things like that.

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