Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Daniel.
Hi Benjamin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I got into pancake art in the usual way, filling in on drums in someone’s band!
My entire journey into becoming a co-founder of Dancakes was a series of strange circumstances. From that initial rehearsal (May of 2014) where I met everyone, in which I had zero interest in pursuing pancake art. To the following year, when we did a pancake art and music tour (we had our own separate musical projects), still uninterested in doing pancake art. But, there was a show in Austin where we were short a pancake artist (aka, none), and so I got a quick crash course and made a bunch of terrible looking pancakes for very polite people.
When we got back I kept doing it as a little side gig, I had a very successful career in telecommunications, which it what afforded me the freedom to pursue such a silly side project. Eventually it kept growing and growing until I didn’t have the time to do both, and I decided to take a chance and see what would happen if I joined the pancake circus full-time. I was very lucky that because I worked freelance in telecom, I wasn’t giving anything up, just taking some time off, and if it didn’t work out, I could go right back into it.
So, in 2017 I became a full-time pancake artist, and then in 2019, we reformed the company with Dana Baldus (our other owner/artist) and myself becoming co-founders in the new venture.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Just like anything in life, it’s been full of blessings, struggles, pain, hope, laughter, despair and everything in between. It’s been a decade of my life, so trying to boil it all down into a simple answer is impossible.
In the job itself, it’s a lot of time away. We travel, all year round to perform pancake art for people. Colleges, trade shows, cons, corporate events, etc… Just for myself it can be up to 100 flights a year, on top of gigs that require driving. Travel is amazing, you get to see and go places, meet people and experience things, but it is different when it’s your job, the allure of travel can start to feel mundane, and even tedious at times. But then, on occasion, you end up wandering through NYC, Central London, Hong Kong or Quebec City on a day off and you realize how incredibly lucky you actually are.
Within’ the company, we’ve had our shares of disagreements, arguments, and drama. We’ve spent so much time together that’s it impossible not to. But at the end of the day, I genuinely enjoy being around everyone in this company. I mean, just last night we all went to a movie together, not for any business reason, just to hang out and be friends.
I feel like this is a decidedly vague answer to the question, but to tell the whole story, good and bad, it would be an entire article, if not novel, unto itself.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Dancakes?
Dancakes is the first professional pancake art company. It’s a pretty small niche, even in the world of niche art, just the fact that we do this in a professional setting makes us unique. We travel, all over the world, and perform our art, live and by request. Someone can come up to us and ask to make literally anything, animal, vegetable or mineral and we’ll create a pancake of it. The only actual rule is that it can’t get us in trouble, otherwise it’s a complete free-for-all… Portraits, landscapes, logos, cartoons, memes… At this point we’ve probably made something like it before, and if not, we’ll give it a shot anyways.
On top of that we do a lot of Social Media content for brands and other creators, commissions (we have a preservation process), as well as the occasional livestream (we have a 4 camera studio in Maplewood), but the majority of our work comes from events.
We have 7 artists altogether, four of which live in St. Louis, but we’ve also have Artists in Dallas, Tucson and Anaheim. I think if you tallied up our collective experience it would be 50+ years of pancake art expertise. Which is impressive in any field, but I think considering how young of an artform pancake art is, it’s even more impressive.
As far as what I’m most proud of? I think the fact that everyone in this company has a respect, admiration and love for each other… Yes, we are co-workers, but if Dancakes went away tomorrow, we would all still be in each others lives.
Business wise, I’m proud of our ability to change and adapt. We’re constantly trying to find new ways to present and perform our art, new techniques to improve our art, ways to improve our live presentation… It’s an ever evolving space, and we all bring something unique to the table to make it happen.
There’s nothing like us out there, from the art we create, to our ability to present it to hundreds or more in any and every setting, from a child’s birthday party to a giant stage show at Mall of America. And our entire operation is self-contained, from our batter and griddles, to our state of the art multi-camera system. If you can provide the space and screen(s) (big or small, makes no difference), we can provide the most robust and unique art viewing experience in the world.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I’m also a software developer. Besides the Dancakes website I also wrote our camera software. Strangely enough, becoming a Pancake Artist is what pushed me back into doing software development. It’s what I went to school for, but I never finished my degree, and only did casual web development, personal projects and such for a long time.
It’s gotten to the point that I started picking up clients outside of the pancake circus and had to start a new company (EbFlo Technologies – https://ebflo.tech) in order to keep things separate. It’s strange how many opportunities have happened outside of pancake art, because of pancake art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dancakes.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/drdancake
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/drdancake
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dancakes/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drdancake
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/drdancake
