THE FIRST STEP
While I was busy seeking the guidance of fellow Rodinhooders before taking my first step towards entrepreneurship, my wife, Kiran was busy with her own plans to start her own business venture. I am still struck with the question, “to be or not to be” or what to do with my life?
But Kiran has already launched her own small food business venture. She is a foodpreneur now. She is an excellent cook and she likes to bake also. Cooking is her hobby and she wants more people to enjoy the food cooked by her. It gives her immense satisfaction when people compliment her after tasting the food prepared by her. In the past, she has conducted baking classes for her friends without charging any fee. In fact, the cost of all ingredients for these classes was borne by her and the cooked delicacies are served to the friends attending the classes along with complimentary tea. Her friends have requested her to bake cakes for their families on the occasion of birthdays or marriage anniversaries.
So, she decided to use her cooking talents to spread happiness by serving healthy and hygienic cakes to the families residing in our society.
Once her mind was made up she drew up a menu of cakes which could be baked at home. She wrote down the recipes for the cakes and prepared these, number of times. Thus, she arrived at the standard product for sale. Once the recipes were ready, she decided on the price she would charge for the cakes. This was a tough step as she was not sure of the price the customers are likely to pay for her products. She visited a few bakeries and priced her products at a discount to the price being charged by the local bakeries. She argued that the people will be ready to pay her price as the cakes are being baked at home using good ingredients. She knows that all cakes not sold in the market will be consumed by the family members and this acts as a quality check for the preparation of cakes.
Thereafter, she contacted a printer to print flyers / leaflets for her venture and got the flyers printed. The number of flyers ordered for printing is equal to the number of flats in our society. A photograph of the leaflet is pasted below for information.
In this venture, I was given the following responsibilities:
- Purchase Raw Materials
- Distribute Leaflets
- Deliver the cakes
She herself is responsible for taking all the orders over mobile phone and bakes the cakes as per the orders from customers.
It has been a week since the flyers have been distributed to all the society members. There have been five orders and a couple of inquiries. A lady enquired about the schedule of the baking classes. The overall response has not been up to her expectations as she expected the orders to pour in daily. There have been no orders in the last two days.
Her aim of starting the venture is to use her talents to spread happiness and make healthy and hygienic food available to the families of working mothers in the comfort of their homes.
The production can be scaled up by having a dedicated kitchen for baking the products. The recipes in the menu can also be increased as per the requirement of the customers. she is also open to the idea of cooking other vegetarian recipes. She is a vegetarian and cooking of non vegetarian food is strictly out of bound in her kitchen.
We are writing this post to seek help of the fellow Rodinhooders to get a feedback on following points:-
- Is it a workable plan?
- How can she get more orders?
- What are the likely reasons for a poor response to the venture?
We are based at NOIDA and are willing to supply the cakes anywhere in NOIDA. We will also appreciate orders from fellow Rodinhooders.
We are open to other kind of collaboration.