How Martha Stewart's First Catering Business Changed Her Career Forever

Martha Stewart is all kinds of goals. It's difficult to not respect a woman who turned a catering business into a brand and then transformed that brand into a multi-million dollar empire. As the story goes, Stewart had a successful career on Wall Street, but a pioneer at heart, she decided to start her own catering business in the 1970s.

Before she could become the O.G. of domestic goddesses, Stewart was just like other caterers starting out. She ran the business out of the basement of her 1805 farmhouse in Westport, Connecticut, creating all of the recipes herself — and making them from scratch.

In 1977, just four years after launching the business, Stewart was hired to cater a book release party, where she met the late Alan Mirken, former vice president of Random House. Looking back at the run-in during an interview with Sun Sentinel, Mirken stated, "I asked her if she had thought about doing a book, and at that time she wasn't ready. But about a year later, she came back with a proposal." Stewart's "Entertaining" cookbook was published years later, in 1982, selling 625,000 copies and becoming an instant hit that set her up for super-stardom.

In addition to being a caterer, Stewart was also a party planner which is why she is so great at giving us advice for bringing a dinner party gift. But if you think about it, being a caterer and party planner requires great organizational skills and attention to detail — two qualities Stewart is brimming with. Her business acumen and her willingness to try new things contributed to her path forward. That little catering company and her penchant for food and entertaining have transformed into magazines, television shows, a Las Vegas restaurant, wine labels, and homewares. Her success is the kind of stuff legends are made of with 66 million consumers engaging with her brand, which includes over 8,000 Martha Stewart products.

Stewart explained to Oprah that her achievements have a lot to do with her mindset, stating, "I think baking cookies is equal to Queen Victoria running an empire. There's no difference in how seriously you take the job, how seriously you approach your whole life."