How I started my award-winning cake business with pocket money —Oloyede

From History and International Relations to baking, how did that happen?

I am the only female child among my parents children and I always love to make pastries for my siblings and from there, I started baking for my course mates and later on, everybody started asking me for cakes and from there, I went to learn it from professionals and from a humble beginning of passion, it turned to become a business for me.

I never thought I wouldn’t be making money from the course I studied, no one wants to just study and not practice but as soon as my passion for making cake came in, I had to focus on it. I left international relations for baking.

When was your business established?

I started my cake business in 2012 and our vision is to make cakes for all reasons and seasons with taste of class and beauty. Our mission is to bake the best wedding cakes ever. We are into all type of cakes, desserts and we handle events. We don’t stop when we are tired; we stop when we are done.

What is the inspiration behind the name Ronniex Cakes?

A friend of mine suggested the name to me when I started out in 300l. She said to me, we could call the business Ronniex Cakes and that was how I got stuck to it till date. The friend is also doing well in Ife.

People call you the queen of bakers in Ibadan, how do you feel when people call you up for events?

I’m always excited. To me, it’s another opportunity for me to do more.

You made a particular giant cake for the Alaafin of Oyo’s daughter’s Royal wedding sometime last year, how did you feel when you were called for the job from the royal family?

I was very glad, that would be the second time that I would try out that design. I made it the first time for a friend and then the royal wedding. It was a huge opportunity for me, it came with fear though but I was glad because I knew I will do a great job and I already had an experience which helped me and the cake became the talk of the town.

What are the challenges so far?

They were quite a lot of challenges, but I thank God I’m able to pull through and I am still pulling through on challenges such as getting the right methods for cake making. Most of the time, people are not always open when you go for training, so you need to get it right on your own. Getting the right positioning for your cake, you don’t want to bake a cake that’s tilting or not straight, bending or bad. You just have to get it right. Getting the right people to work for you, getting the right location, getting funds for buying quality and good products for your cake, getting customers to pay you well for the service you want to render and also be able to trust you.

How did you raise capital for your business?

I always like telling people about my story because people usually think if you don’t have a huge capital or people financing you, you cannot succeed, that’s a lie. I started my business in school at 300-level with my pocket money, the little money coming in as a student. I bought my equipment gradually. The only equipment I remembered people bought for me was a mixer of N8,500 and a measuring scale of N2500, aside from these two, I bought everything with my business money, as I was growing at it. My dad wasn’t in support of the business, he wanted me to practice what I studied, my mum was indifferent, and my brothers felt I was stressing myself. So there was nobody to give me money. I used everything I got from the cake to build the business. There was no uncle, no boyfriend, just God’s grace. Everybody out there can start a business on their own without anyone funding it and with God on their sides. All the industrial equipment I have today is from the business.

People believe a baker must have a great social media presence, what’s your view on this?

For me it’s more than baking the right cake, taking the right pictures and posting it on your page for people to see. It’s all about intentionality; you don’t do all these because you want people to know what you do, then give them something that is not attractive. Take good quality pictures and if it’s just one that’s good out of every picture you took, just post that one. Also, I don’t neglect my comments section. I always answer all my comments immediately or within 24 hours. I don’t ignore people because you never can tell.

What are your expansion plans?

Our expansion goal is to have a standard cake making school in the next one to two years; a school that will accommodate people from all phase of life, regardless of their class, colour and race etc. We will give equal access to people to learn and be master in their craft. It will be our joy to hear our students making waves and exploits everywhere in the world. We also attended trainees to get to where we are, of course with our commitment. We intend to pour our knowledge into people to make them veterans.  We have trained more than 100 bakers within and outside Ibadan and we look forward to training millions.

Like we all know that the cake world has moved from what it used to be known for some years ago. New ideas and different level of creativity have evolved, hence making it a very competitive industry.

Have you won any grant and award so far?

We have won several awards, we won Best Baker in Oyo State in 2018, Best Wedding Cake Award in 2019 from Ibadan wedding awards, Best Use of Colours, Naija Top Baker Award in 2019. We look forward to winning more awards in future and we celebrate and appreciate people that kept choosing us and believing in us. We are here because you trusted us to deliver and we do not take this for granted.

How many people have you trained so far on the job?

I have trained between 100 and 150 people and they are all doing great. I keep hearing good things from them. We are starting our training for this year soon.

So what’s your advice for young entrepreneurs?

Consistency, be consistent with what you do. Push yourself to do something better than you’ve always been doing. Like I always tell people, don’t stop when you are tired but stop when you are done. Finishing matters a lot in every industry; let your finishing speak volume. Don’t be in a hurry to stop. You don’t have to depend on people or have to get a huge sum of money before your business can succeed, start somewhere with the little you have and trust God to help you.