Q: What inspired you to start your own baking business while still in high school?
A: Growing up, I’ve always just loved baking. I’ve always baked cakes for my family for birthdays and other events. Something that inspired me to start a business was my mom. My mom always wanted to start a business, and I thought, why don’t I just try it out and see how it goes? One of my former friends used to always ask me to bake him tres leches cakes, and different desserts, and I never made them before, so I just thought, let me try, and they were good.
Q: How did you manage balancing schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and running a business?
A: I only bake on the weekends, and that’s because I work Monday through Friday, and then my Saturdays and Sundays are always free, so I just use it as my time to bake. I promote my cakes and stuff the week of, and then I bake on the weekend, so people know it’s coming
Q: What challenges did you face in managing your time, and how did you overcome them?
A: I love to procrastinate, I love to just tell myself, I’ll do it later. I’ll get it done later, and then I’m always rushing to make orders because people are on their way to pick them up.
Q: Were there any unexpected obstacles when starting your businesses?
A: Some unexpected obstacles that I came across were that I never expected to sell out, but I would sell out so fast, and then I would feel so bad for people who didn’t get to try some of it.
Q: What role has social media played in promoting your business?
A: Social media played a huge role and promoting my business. I started with just posting on Instagram, and I have a decent following, so they were all very supportive. I was getting customers from like 30 minutes away, 45 minutes away, and people were doing the drive just to get my cakes. Also, when people would buy my desserts, they would repost them too and tag my account so which brought in more customers.
Q: What’s your signature baked good or product?
A: My signature baked good for my family is definitely ice cream cakes. But I haven’t accepted any ice cream cake orders from any customers yet, so my signature baked good for my customers is my Biscoff tres leche, Dubai cookies, and my red velvet Oreo cookies.
Q: How did you figure out the pricing of your products?
A: The first day I sold my cookies, I underpriced them, and my customers told me to raise my price. When raising prices, it’s kind of scary because you don’t think that people are gonna continue wanting to order from you because you put your prices up. Surprisingly, I got just as many orders, if not more.
Q: What are your future plans for the business after graduation?
A: My future plans for my business after graduation, I won’t lie, I haven’t thought much about it. I always really did this as a hobby, but baking is something that I truly do enjoy, and I have so much passion for so down the line I could see myself opening up a small business! I really do love nursing as well, so I probably will be pursuing that career cause I’m already a nurse at my job right now, but I do love baking, and when I have time, I’ll still be doing baking, business or not!
Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your baking business so far?
A: My most memorable story for my business is when I first started selling my baked goods. I went over to my friend’s house, the one who got me into baking in the first place, and I surprised him with a cake, and his little brother tried the cake, and he loved it so much he started to eat it with his hands and licked his fingers.
It made me feel really good to know people enjoyed my baking, and it made me feel more confident in my skills. Another memorable baking story from when I was selling my cakes was this boy, his name is Ramy, he’s a junior, he came to pick up cakes during the storm, and it was just so funny because we were both just running around outside getting completely drenched.
Q: Was there a particular milestone or achievement that made it all feel worth it?
A: The first day that I started selling, I made back all the money that I spent on ingredients. That felt very rewarding because I was really scared that I was spending a lot of money on stuff, and nobody would buy my treats. Another rewarding moment was when I started to get custom orders. People would order stuff that I didn’t have on the menu, and it was really great. I got to try new stuff that I never thought I would try.
Q: What advice would you give to other high school students thinking about starting their own business?
A: Advice that I would give to other high schoolers thinking about starting their own business is to just know you’re worth it. People with small businesses get bashed because of their price, but people don’t understand how much Work actually goes into making it look the way it does, or taste it the way it does, or just being homemade.
Q: Based on your experience, what would you recommend they do—or avoid doing—when starting out?
A: Based on my experience, something I would say is to use pre-pay! I always require people to put down a deposit before I save a dessert for them! And for custom orders, I require people to pay the full amount before I make a custom order.
