With their Moto “Work hard and be nice to people” Pleesecakes became an Instagram sensation and successful business in just under two years acquiring 100k followers in their first year alone.
So what makes them successful where others fail?
How It Started
Launched on Instagram in January 2017 before later rebranding as Pleese, Pleesecakes was born through Joe’s love of making cheese cake. Joe Moruzzi started making cheese cake for his friends and family a couple of years earlier, not able to work out how to remove the cheese cake from the tin he would deliver them and have to buy a new one before he could start again!
With 240k followers on Instagram and a similarly large following on their other social media channels, Joe continues to charm his followers with his personality and cheese cakes, living up to their moto every day.
The Launch
Previously a painter and decorator, Joe didn’t pick up a paint brush again from the day Pleese was launched on Instagram. With the help of endorsements from fellow Social Media sensation Joe Wicks aka The Body Coach, Pleesecakes followers quickly grew to 25K in just a few weeks.
9 months after painting Selfridges ceilings, Pleesecakes had a meeting at their Flagship store to discuss the stocking of their Pleesecake mini’s and in March 2018 the product was launched with great success. The Pleesecakes make your own bar also took residence for 7 weeks from April which secured the future of their agreement with Selfridges who continue to stock Pleesecakes in their Flagship London store.
Dragons Den
Joe appeared on Dragons Den in September 2018, securing an offer from Touker Suleyman and in October 2018 Pleesecakes released their first book of no bake cheese cakes recipes and by then they had appeared on This Morning twice.
Joe said “hard work and networking with like-minded people” really helped launch Pleesecakes and they agreed deals with Deliveroo and Ocado.
Keen to give back, Joe released a 6 part “Start-up insights” in 2020 to help others succeed and donated Pleesecakes to numerous NHS staff during the pandemic. In March of that year Pleesecakes started delivering “feed me boxes” to those who couldn’t get out to buy their essentials.
How We Met
I met Joe back in 2020 when I attended one of their Pleesecake workshops, he demonstrated how to make the cheese cake step by step and sat and chatted with us during the break. He really does work hard and is nice to people!
Rebranding – Pleese
Not afraid to make changes to their Brand, we have seen some new and improved logos and brand colours along the journey along with an addition to the offering. Launched on 29th June 2020, Freezecakes are pots of frozen cheesecake, initially launched on their website, Freezecakes have been available in stores nationwide since 2023 including Co-op, Waitrose and Consort and they have recently signed a deal with GoPuff. In 2023 they also rebranded as Pleese to coincide with Freezecakes being launched in the Co-op.
Aldi
Recently, they embarked on a mission to raise awareness for all the small brands that have had issues with big companies copying their products after Aldi brought out a dupe product called “Freezecake” They even used their slogan “It’s not Icecream” Pleese is a small company with under 5 employees and Aldi know that they are not able to fight back. I for one, will never shop in Aldi again, and I hope you will join me.
What Can We Learn?
So what can we learn from Joe’s journey? Work hard, listen to others, don’t give up and be nice to people. It really does pay off!
People want to see your personal story on social media; it helps make you more relatable and evokes an emotional connection to your brand.