Chat with young woman entrepreneur Nancy Aglae, owner of bakery business at Ile Du Port |19 March 2021

‘There isn’t any ‘ideal’ time to start a business’

At a time when the majority of businesses were reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and struggling to remain afloat, a young woman full of enthusiasm to get her bakery business started, saw a great opportunity and seized it.

It was around August last year when 27-year-old Nancy Aglae and her husband started hunting for an ideal and affordable place to rent to set up her bakery business. Two months later, they found the spot at Ile Du Port, only five minutes from the centre of town.

Speaking to Seychelles NATION this week about her business venture, Ms Aglae said: “Frankly I believe there isn’t any ‘ideal’ time to start a business.”

She recalls a friend who was helping her set up the bakery last year telling her, “so while businesses are struggling under the economic impacts of Covid-19 here you are starting your business”.

“In fact she reminded me that no matter what situation life presents, God’s will always prevails,” says Ms Aglae.

“Indeed it was God’s timing for me to start the bakery business on a full time scale. I realised that having two small kids, if I was to have a full time job and try managing baking on the side, I would not be able to cope and keep up with the demand. Hence after my husband and I discussed the matter at length, and with the demand for cakes increasing around that time of the year, we agreed that launching the business on a full time scale then was the right move.”

But Ms Aglae admits that nonetheless they encountered several delays and setbacks which definitely affected the business output for December.

“But despite the setbacks, we were still able to make the most of the festive season and had a variety of products on offer – from our rich fruit cakes, to our customised cookies, brownies, cupcakes and more,” Ms Aglae says.

Baking skills and interest in cake designs

A recently graduated student with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Seychelles, Ms Aglae had a great full- time job as a sales executive with a local printing firm and was really enjoying the experience and growth that it was giving her.

“Nonetheless, I felt in my heart that it was time to move on so I decided to go back to university as a full-time student at the age of 23. With the spare time here and there that I had while at university, I decided to go back to baking for fun. Having lived in England for some time I always baked for fun from time to time, mainly for family and friends,” she says.

Ms Aglae said being at university gave her the chance to explore her passion more.

“To my surprise the cake samples and other goodies I’d often bring for my classmates were very much welcomed and enjoyed. From then on, I would occasionally get requests from them as well,” she recalls.

But she says she developed her skills in cake making over the years.

“I extremely enjoyed watching online tutorials on new baking techniques and how to do many other things. Also, I would say that having done Art and Design in college has definitely helped me to widen my creativity. I love carving characters, shapes and so on and enjoy painting even more. Definitely cakes have to taste good but at the same time people pay for the final products with the decorations on the cake to their liking,” Ms Aglae highlights.

What’s in the business name ‘Cake My Day’?

Ms Aglae says from the very beginning she wanted to do things the right way so since she was still at university she had been thinking about registering her business officially with Enterprise Seychelles Agency (ESA) and the Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) so she had also started to think about and to choose the right business name.

“I had a few ideas jotted down but in the end my husband and I decided to go with ‘Cake My Day’ as I believe people normally order cakes for a special occasion and not just for any random day. As people would normally say, “it made my day” which means that something in particular made them happy on that day…hence their cake…Cake My Day!”

A large variety of cakes for different occasions

With her baking talent and great artistic skills, Ms Aglae specialises in a variety of cakes from customised birthday cakes, wedding and anniversary cakes, character cakes for different occasions and so on.

Ms Aglae says the latter is very popular among kids nowadays.

Other products she offers include cupcakes, cheesecakes, ombre cakes, customised cookies, brownies and many more.

Ms Aglae affirms that the most popular products so far are definitely the birthday cakes, cupcakes and customised cookies.

“For now as I have just recently ventured into the business full time, I am making cakes for a variety of occasions such as weddings, birthdays and anniversaries,” she says.

For the time being Ms Aglae says she is baking on orders only but she is quite flexible with last minute orders and try to accommodate them as best as she can.

“We also tend to launch special promotions to make the most of special occasions for instance like we did for International Women’s Day where we had a promotion on our assorted brownies,” she adds.

With the public health restriction calling for limited people to people contact as much as possible, Ms Aglae says her business offers delivery services for an additional fee.

She advertises her business through the social media platforms including Facebook and Whatsapp which she deems highly useful in getting the business name out there to new customers. Words of mouth from other clients, friends and families have also been very useful.

A growing clientele

So far in spite of the current difficult economic situation, Ms Aglae says people are still ordering a cake to celebrate their memorable occasions and this is good for her business as her clientele is gradually growing and she has a lot of returning customers.

“I think what clients appreciate the most from me is the fact that they can easily discuss what they want and communicate their different designs and based on their budget, we can come to an agreement with which both parties are happy. With the economic situation right now, families are really feeling the pinch so budgets for customised cakes are generally lower which I perfectly understand. But parents still want to go out of their way to please their children on their birthday by at least having a cake for them but without having to break the bank so to speak,” Ms Aglae explains.

Ms Aglae says for now she has not yet taken employees on a full-time basis but she often takes part-timers when there are a lot of orders particularly to help out with packaging.

Challenges

As she started baking from home, Ms Aglae was already aware of the many challenges this type of business would bring such as the unavailability of material like different shapes of cookie cutters, baking ingredients, accessories for packaging such as cake boxes and boardsand prices are generally high.

Ms Aglae regrets that in terms of packaging, particularly for delicate goods, Seychelles does not have much to offer that would add value to products for an affordable rate.

“But nonetheless, I am extremely grateful for the facilities my main suppliers provide me as it really enables me to benefit from bulk buying as opposed to buying in retail.”

But the challenges aside, Ms Aglae says she is just about able to manage with the sales she is doing right now.

“For sure it’s quieter now that families are not able to conduct parties or gatherings but I am generally satisfied with the current sales given the situation.”

But what are her future plans for the business?

Ms Aglae hopes to grow her business in terms of the types of products she offers at the same time to employ people with background in this field and who also love to provide a good service and value for money.

The accompanying photos show Ms Aglae in her element as well as some of her creations.

Marie-Anne Lepathy