Starting a business

ghartley

I need some help please. I am hoping to start my own cake decorating business within the next year. I just need some advice on starting up please? And also is it possible to make an average wage just selling cakes? Thanks

Faith

I think you'll get better advice here.

Gloomtastic!

ghartley wrote: »

is it possible to make an average wage just selling cakes? Thanks

She may be Paul Mccarthy's ex but she's done pretty well 'just selling cakes'.

http://www.janeasher.com/

TGi666

I would advised you do a start your own business course, also my Mrs. was looking into doing something similar and I think she found out she would need a separate kitchen to keep the health and safety crowd happy.

Liccle trinity

I 2nd the Start Your own Business course. There is alot more to it that just the craft itself. You would need to do a business plan to figure out how much money you will need and of course get in return. Doing a course will tell you how to do a plan.
Local community colleges VEC etc will offer evening ones for about 50 to 80 euro. Well worth it.

ghartley

Thanks everyone, I have a good background to the business side of things as as I have a business degree but I will look into doing a course to dust up on things

jimmii

Will you be doing it full time or part time? With something like this I would suggest doing it part time at the start until you are getting enough orders in to justify going full time. How do you plan on getting people aware that you are offering the service? Do you have anyone you plan to approach about having some sort of contract work to supply them with X number of cakes per week or anything like that?

Do a few Sunday markets or something like that so you can gauge interest you'll often be surprised at the things you thought would do really well actually prove not to be so popular and the experiment that went a little wrong is for some reason the most popular thing you stock! There are products we thought would fly out the door sitting idle doing nothing whereas things we bought just to fill in the gaps are needing to be reordered every couple of weeks!

To get a bit of interest brewing I would bake a few mini cakes and give them out to companies who you think would be in need of the service you are offering. I would have thought that most places that sell decorative cakes etc would have someone on staff that make them or would be using large companies that can produce them in bulk very cheap.

enricoh

my tuppence... start off small, no hse inspected kitchen crap, supply a couple of small local shops, even butchers or do a car boot sale etc. u'll know after 2 months if its a runner or not.
never did any setting up courses myself, just lash into it, dont spend a fortune, if i works out great, if not on to the next idea n no 10k shiny kitchen annoying u every time u go past! good luck!

seosamh1980

enricoh wrote: »

my tuppence... start off small, no hse inspected kitchen crap, supply a couple of small local shops, even butchers or do a car boot sale etc. u'll know after 2 months if its a runner or not.
never did any setting up courses myself, just lash into it, dont spend a fortune, if i works out great, if not on to the next idea n no 10k shiny kitchen annoying u every time u go past! good luck!

Worst advice ever. HSE approval is free, why would you start taking paid orders without something that is so easy to get? Not to mention the fact that any decent store shouldn't take goods made on a premises that has no HSE approval or insurance.

Why would a butchers sell cakes?? You're confused or something.

Hanley

Re: "I did business degree in college" - that comes up a lot when ppl are talking about starting a biz. It really means jack sh*t!! You get very little practical info from them. This is coming from a guy with a 3 year honors accounting degree and 3.5 years of audit industry exp under his belt who started a biz in the last year btw

Nothing you can do that isn't specific like a SYOB course will prepare you. Please do one. Or three

And if you're really good about what you do, and passionate (and willing to hustle) yu can do it

enricoh

hse approval is free, the stainless steel kitchen aint.

my local butchers has a stand selling cakes. also sells spuds, duck eggs n a bit of vedg all off local small producers.............must check out if he's confused:rolleyes:

phormium

You don't need a stainless steel kitchen, in fact you need very little for what I think the OP is talking about. HSE will register your home kitchen, in fact it has to be pretty much bog standard to be registered as home baker, normal domestic applicances etc, otherwise you come in under their commercial rules. These are not the sort of cakes that are sold to shops or at market stalls, that is more the scones/buns/cupcakes type thing (however I could be wrong and maybe that is what the OP wants to do).

There are numerous threads on this forum about this topic, put cake in the search bar above and you will find some of them. I have replied on several already so am not going to repeat myself.

However since those discussions this business has really taken off and the country is full of hobbyist/home bakers, bakers is probably the wrong description as I think what the OP is talking about is Sugarcraft which is more about the decorating than the baking. There are shops popping up everywhere selling the stuff for cakes and online as well, there are classes and free demos all over the country. You will not make a fortune but might make some pin money, depends what you want, practically any paid job even at minimum wage will pay you more but if being at home is important then you may be willing to work for less for the benefits of being able to do it from home.

You need to be good, any competent home baker can produce a fondant covered cake with some decoration cut out of the many cutters and moulds available, there are youtube tutorials for practically everything. To distinguish yourself and be able to charge a decent price you will need skill, artistic flair and the ability to produce something that does not look mass produced.

Jane Asher is both a good and a bad example, bad in that she is based in a city of millions with many many wealthy people who can afford to pay for her cakes, if you are based in a small Irish town then there is a serious shortage of this sort of client so not an example of what can be achieved here. However Jane herself says there is very little money to be made at it but she loves doing it, this is the case for most sugarcrafters. Interestingly all the big international names in cakes are hardly ever making them any more but are travelling the world teaching instead.