THE SHORT VERSION
Wunderkeks was founded in 2012 in Guatemala City on the idea that childlike joy is a value to uphold. Its mission statement is to “nurture the inner child.
WHY WE DO THIS
We make cookies because they make us happy.
And, sure, who's not happy with a cookie? But for us, coming from a... not so LGBTQ-friendly place like our home country, the joy a cookie could bring was, at certain times in our lives, literally life-saving.
Growing up, being actually happy didn't seem possible, for many reasons. So we coped by creating: Luis became a photographer, Hans became a baker. When we met was that we both had made careers out of creating the world we wished we lived in.
With time-the colors, the characters, the disco balls and the dinosaurs in tutus came alive. We are well aware that, for Millennials on the older side, this seems childish and immature. That is exactly the point. Wunderkeks is our little playground, and we hope to have as many of you as possible to share it with us.
We hope you will think of Wunderkeks as just that: the little corner of the world where you are, for a few minutes, innocent, careless, happy.
OUR FOUNDERS
LUIS GRAMAJO
Luis makes friends very easily and has a background in marketing, trade marketing and PR which comes in very handy since he’s our sales and customer relationship manager. Luis has wide experience managing sales at retailers such as Walmart and PriceSmart (Latin America’s subsidiary of Costco) both for major CPG companies and for Wunderkeks. He is also the “kitchen” side of the operation and is responsible for our product development. Luis is also a photographer, if you were wondering why our web page and Instagram feed is so pretty.
HANS SCHREI
Hans has been baking since he was four years old, and has a background in marketing and design. Over many years doing this at Wunderkeks he’s become a master recipe developer and tester, though nowadays his full attention is on developing the Wunderkeks experience online, be it paid social, email and SMS or our website. Over the last years he has become an expert on digital marketing.
THE LONG-FORM STORY
Hans started baking at around age four with his mom and his siblings during Christmastime, and never really outgrew it. It was their most cherished family tradition, and frankly, the Schreis were good at it!
As years went by, the usual grownup stuff happened and the tradition was kinda lost, until one year when Hans took a staycation. He had so many pending vacation days from his job (said job was killing him, btw) that he decided to take the whole month of December off and bake one type of cookie for every day of Advent. We’re not sure how many types he actually made, but by Christmas Eve he had more than 1,000 cookies to give away as presents. A lot of people said, “Wow you should sell these!” And a few months later Wunderkeks was born.
Did we mention all of this happened in Guatemala, where Hans was born and raised? And that fateful staycation was just six years ago!
Anyway, the business flourished and Hans was the golden boy of cookies and pastry. Hans is the type to clap in glee at the sight of a Strawberry Shortcake doll, and never really understood why that would be a bad thing. The whole mission of the company became to “feed your inner child” and every recipe, label and Instagram post was made with this in mind.
(We’re skipping the section when we detail the many nuances of building a business in a Third World country, but suffice it to say, it's tough and brought Hans to the point of madness).
Enter Luis, the most successful Tinder date ever. He also claps with glee at happy things (different things, for good or ill) and had never ever baked a cake, as a child or otherwise. But he instinctively understood what Wunderkeks was all about, and the many ways that preserving childlike joy and innocence were (are!) important. For a long time Luis was Hans’ rock and support system, until a bad corporate deal nearly struck the company down. Luis jumped in to fight for Wunderkeks like it was his own (brain)child.
Together, Hans and Luis realized they could conquer the world, so they bought plane tickets to Austin, Texas, which sounded like a great place to give Wunderkeks a home. They actually flew in and out six times in 2018, setting everything up for their move early 2019. After a year and a half here, the cookies have built quite a reputation, so now they ship nationwide.
And then things got real in March 2020... there's a video for that!
Thank you @BusyPhillipps - Wunderkeks from Lester Platt | Director/DP on Vimeo.