Founder · Wiki-Licious Malasadas
Wild, right? Single mom of five — four adopted from Ukraine — with one rule: I was NOT going to miss my kids growing up. So: shaved ice, then Hawaiian-style malasadas (the pillowy, filled doughnut-that-isn’t), now run from home by families in 13 states. (Still can’t believe this is my life.)
MOM OF 5EST. 20162016 an RV in Alaska 2020 a storefront today 13 states — run from home 20+ batches → 1 recipe
From scratch · chapter one
2016. Alaska. Freshly divorced. So I did what any rational person would do. (Ha.) Bought an RV, built a shaved-ice stand, and hit every tiny town in Alaska I could find — kids right there in it.
built by hand. every piece.Scrap wood and a whole lot of nerve. We built the entire tent setup by hand — the rack that served the shaved ice, the hand-wash sink, the boxes, the decorations. All of it. My toolkit: some awesome kids who worked hard, and advice from a friend who’d sold shaved ice before. And you know what? It was actually WORKING.
my girls, working the standGrass skirts. Paper lanterns. A chalkboard menu. And my girls handing rainbow shaved ice across the counter all summer — a family having FUN making money together. The Fourth of July in Seward? Busiest day we ever had. (Best coworkers I’ve ever had.)
our summer address — SewardThe RV was our ride, our house, and the whole company — until somebody backed into it and it spent the rest of the season in the shop. My brother took us in. Family kept it alive.
Then winter showed up. Turns out shaved ice doesn’t exactly fly off the shelves with snow on the ground. (Shocking, I know.) I needed something I could make from home — any month, any weather. Hawaii handed me the answer: malasadas. Twenty-something failed batches later — actual dough fights in my kitchen — one recipe worked. Four years after that, a storefront. Then a franchise.
the recipe, all grown upSugar-dusted, filled, no hole anywhere. The recipe that survived twenty-something failed batches now gets made in kitchens across 13 states.
Turns out the business wasn’t the problem. I was.
It wasn’t the market. It wasn’t the money. It wasn’t even the recipe. It was me — my thoughts, my fears, my anxiety, my own head.
So in 2020 I went all in on the inner work. I’ve been to over 25 personal-development events. I’ve spent thousands of hours listening to books — most of them while my hands were busy making malasadas. (Multitasking, but make it therapy.)
The biggest thing I learned? Your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings create your energy. So if you want your life to change, you manage what you’re feeling — and you never, ever stop growing.
Who you are isn’t what you say you’ll do. It’s what you actually do.
I go first. Not as a cute wall quote — as the way I raise my kids and run my company.
The new chapter · running it all with AI
Founder. Homeschooling mom. One brain trying to hold a company, a household, and five humans. Some seasons felt completely out of control. (Some weeks still do.) So I built a staff. Not one chatbot — a whole team. I built them, I named them, and they work around the clock.
Up before me every Monday. Pulls my real numbers, checks which leads warmed up over the weekend, hands me my top three. I sit down to a plan, not a pile.
Plans my workouts around what my trainer says, logs my meals when I text her a photo of lunch, and knows my protein number before I ask. Impossible to lie to. I’ve tried.
Knows my voice, my stories, my brand colors. Drafts posts from things I actually said — I approve, she posts. The blank page is gone from my life.
Menus planned. Groceries ordered. Kids' jobs assigned — with rewards when they actually do them. My brain is not the family filing cabinet anymore. (Don’t judge me.)
Just this year, this team dug my 2016 photos out of forty thousand pictures on my phone, built this website with me, and planned every week of my content — while I was at the gym. (Not kidding.)
Here’s the part nobody tells you about AI: it was never about the robots. It’s that my mind finally got quiet enough to lead. Did everything get easy? Nope. Easier. And that’s the win. I share what actually works — the wins, the flops, the exact prompts. Follow along.
Come follow along on Instagram →Work with me
I’m building my network on purpose this year — podcasts, partnerships, affiliates, people doing brave things with food and family businesses. If that’s you, I’m easy to reach and I show up prepared.
ALREADY HEARD ON Emerging Franchise Brands — “Wiki-Licious: Amy Johnson’s Journey to National Franchise” →
The from-scratch story — an RV, four kids, a wrecked season, and the recipe that became 13 states.
Mindset for real-life entrepreneurs — five years of inner work, feelings as patterns, doing the scary thing first.
AI actually running a small business — my named AI staff, the exact systems, the wins and the flops.
Franchise details live at wikidonuts.com/franchise · the free community at foodiebiz.com
What I’m about
I believe in growing constantly. Not comfortably. Constantly.
I go first — I’ll never ask you to do something I haven’t already done myself.
And I believe starting over at 40-something isn’t starting late. It’s just starting.
“The weather never changed. I did.”
AMY JOHNSON · SOMEWHERE IN ALASKA, 2016