An appetite for business

03/05/13

Mellissa Morgan founded London's first vegan bakery, Ms Cupcake. To mark Cooking up Success, Mellissa has shared her story and given us some top tips on how to succeed in the baking industry.

Before I started my business, I spent a good deal of time researching and meeting people to further understand the bakery market.

A business advisor asked me one very important question ‘Do you want to make and decorate cakes for a living or do you want to own a cake company?’

Without a thought my answer was ‘I want to own my own cake company.’

His response was ‘Great, that’s the right answer; you will run a successful cake business.’

Being a baker and decorator or running a cake business are two entirely different things.

When you start you do everything you bake, sell, clean, balance books, get the supplies, update your website and many other things

You don’t mind all the hard work because you have passion! It then becomes very clear very quickly that it is impossible for one person to do all of these things and move past the ‘hobby and part-time income’ stage.

So you take on staff to help out and you begin to realise that you need to stop being the ‘maker of the cakes’ and start being the ‘owner of the business’.

No one will be able to grow your business for you that’s your job. I am often asked what my top tips for new business owners are and I think these are pretty core to the success of any business:

1.	Always, listen to your customers.
2.	Take on board criticism and trust yourself enough to know when to disregard it.
3.	Accept that you personally can’t do everything and learn to delegate.
4.	Always do everything by the books in terms of HMRC, FSA, your local council, and the law. These are NOT places to make short cuts or claim ignorance. It’s your business on the line.
5.	Only sell great cake. This might seem like a no-brainer, but ensuring that your customers ALWAYS get top-quality means that they’ll keep coming back.

Mellissa has recently been selected for our Innovating for Growth programme gaining access to £10,000 worth of funded bespoke advice and support. If you are an exciting and ambitious London-based business, Find out more and apply now.

You can also join us for our series of special events for businesses in the food and drink industry 'Cooking up success.'