 Welcome back to Entrepreneurship Tuesday. My name is Michelle Ashira at Y-254 channel is where you can follow us across all our social media handle health head to our Facebook page that is at Y-254 channel and you have a question for you and the question goes like would you rather save money to purchase a product or anything that of your interest or take a loan but then get to pay slowly I would like to hear your comments and what are your thoughts on that so head on to our Facebook page that is at Y-254 channel and Michelle Ashira is where you can reach out to me if you want to get personal at Entrepreneurship Tuesday is where you can find us so use the hashtag entrepreneurship Tuesday also so let's get just drive into this particular interview that we have for you right now we're all about talking about home based catering business so I am sure that there's no like a fire recipe for successful home catering services or even a business on that matter so but all that matters is just a dash of determination and grace that will take you by so for the lovers of food and especially when it comes to cakes this is a conversation that you want to stick around and listen listen into it and if you also want to get into this particular business that is catering so this is the conversation for you at Michelle Ashira at Y-254 channel is where you can you can find us and my guest today is Darlene Muravey Young Entrepreneur in her early 20s she'll be taking us through what it takes to start a home based catering business and if you love definitely if you love the idea of cooking and baking this is the place where you should stick around so Darlene Muravey thank you very much for creating time to be with us thank you for hosting me too and so before we actually been getting to dive into this particular conversation about baking about just like a home based catering services and how different that is I'd like to find out who Darlene Muravey is who's Darlene Muravey someone who's watching yeah I'm Darlene Muravey I'm a financialist by profession I'm a young entrepreneur trying to make life meet I'm a Christian so from that short bio that you've given us what you missed out to mention is the fact that you have done a couple of ventures before you settle for home based catering business probably you can start from a couple of business ventures that you've been you have done before and then you can get into matters pertaining like home catering business well I've run a fashion shop on CBD Nairobi have done farming have done you know a bit of writing and now I moved to baking all right so is it okay if I call you a serial entrepreneur it's fine let's find out what time or what particular time within your your life did you start the Darlene Empire and what is bad did I started while in campus you know doing a random shopping I would move from school go shop come sell at school then as I was approaching winding campus then now I got a small shop I started at that point at 2019 then now I got a bigger space and it has been running till now okay one thing that you've stayed then that actually stood out for me and we have also some section of students some of the students who actually get into business well in campus but majority of students have been wired in a way that they believe they go to school get education and get the skills and wait for an employment and unfortunately in most cases it doesn't happen that way what drove you into starting your own business well still being in school as a third year student for me I you know I don't come from such a rich family so we had bills in school to to do you made paperwork to do you have things that you need to print at times you don't have this money and I was in a private campus I was on a scholarship a bit but then my parents also chipped in so I decided what can I do on my free time despite we had days that we didn't have classes so I basically didn't want to sit around and you know how campus can be sometimes there is pressure you may find yourself not doing so good character wise so I decided to do yeah well what now Dolin Empire now Dolimura started a catering business how did that happen how did that transition take place it happened on March around March as we were approaching April my fashion shop wasn't doing so well so I decided what can I do I have been having passion for baking I could bake small cakes for my family my friends and stuff so I decided why can't I do this I decided to do so especially because this time of COVID people are eating a lot so I decided to bake thinking like an entrepreneur looking for opportunities so how did you learn to to bake because some of me be watching this and be wondering how did you get get the skills regardless of you actually being passionate about the whole baking aspect all my skills I learned from YouTube then I did practice I would watch something did practice then also think and come up with my own thing yeah so in a good week let's look at in a good way how many cakes do you make and how many go on sale in a good week you might have orders every day sometimes but let's say you know assuming on Monday you might be getting two orders then you might miss on a Tuesday you get on Wednesday Thursday Friday I don't bake on Saturday because I go to church so I solely don't do work on that day but basically business come and you know friends have been good yeah so what does one need to get started when it comes to a catering service home based business yes it depends with the amount of money you have because now finance is key as in line with this business if you can afford to get an oven right you can do that you can get one and the equipment is necessary for you to pursue the baking of cakes but also if you don't have money you can decide to buy a bigger jico you work with it so I think finances and equipment to use are key for you to start from home what did you start with what was your initial capital what did you own well just starting of the business as we had a cooker which also had an electric oven which we've been using at home every day so that's what I asked to the oven side that's what I use I bought tins around river road they were very cheap I bought nozzles and you know a few things that you may need to make a cake to come out good so I at first I spent around eight to ten k to buying the tins and equipment because I already had an oven yeah there's one need like a the state to approve or like a government license or operation or anything of the sort consider like like for you you are home based how does that work if you know it depends also with your clients you don't want people to buy a cake from you maybe they you get on bad hands so it's good you get the license however if maybe you don't do that much and your clients are within you you may decide to not to but it's important to get the license for you to be on the self side speaking about clients a lot to find out how how was it possible for you to just break through into the market and actually tap into your own clientele how did that happen how did you go about that what happened before I started baking people used to invite me in their homes to go and cook maybe chat parties if they are friends I just go and help you know so I had a very good connection to start with so when I started as a business I told them I you know what I'm doing this thing and I would like you to support me so they indeed supported me then I started also posting what I've done in social media and it worked for me okay still on matters about clients have you ever worked with a client who who had unreasonable expectations and with your time travel also and how was the experience like well okay they happen clients are different they are those who will tell you I want this but when you you actually present what they they told you to do they are like this is not what I ordered and you're like but this is what you showed me this is what you explained so when I encountered search was April towards the end of April I had a worker in my you know whenever I be and he asked me want you to do a cake for my love so I'm saying okay do you have an idea no choose for me so I did what I could do as if it were me if it was presented to me I would say okay but I don't know what happened it was it was a little bit bitter about it but still he took it because he had paid so I couldn't redo okay so for anyone who's watching and they're looking for probably to head on to a bakery shop to get maybe a cake and you're sitting from the other side of of expensive different clients what would you tell this particular person who's going to see a baker like how clear should they be when going for whatever they want for me I think it's important first when you have your clients you understand what they want so that you don't find yourself in so much friction with them however as a person you may also want to give the best that you can so that even if someone says no to that you know from the bottom of your heart what I did is best for me or it's the best of interest that I added on to this particular thing so it's good to have your skills you know into perfection as much as you can all right so do you know these times of the pandemic majority of people and everyone is very keen on whatever they're eating and how just the process of preparedness there are particular roles that you have probably with the people you work with that ensure this proper handling of food and following the government regulations just to make sure your clients are safe yeah when we're doing clients order I live with my sister-in-law so she's probably the person who can help me around we do wear our gloves sometimes we you know not every time we wear masks because we actually at home so we barely do that but we wear gloves we wear a baking head gear so that you are you are safe but we also handle our things with high hygiene so you are when it comes to this particular business and just looking at it being home-based bakery we have a couple of other businesses that actually running what makes your your bakery different what's Danish and I know people are hearing us talking about bakery bakery so you'll tell us the name of this bakery because she's yet to officially launch it so probably you can tell us what is the niche of your business what's the different point of it yes for me what I do when you know like when we're talking of different types of cakes they are common recipes that everyone uses but then it's up to me to find something that will make it taste a little bit different to stand out from the others so I think that has been my strength yeah well let's look at I know that you're very much okay we already have some couple of images on our screen and we get to look at this probably in a few oh let's just check it out oh so maybe you can take us to this particular cake okay my director take us through this mandazis and how you prepare them and yeah like my recipe just a brief description yes so what I do with this I supply them to supermarkets I give is summer is smart home choice and tum tum so I bake as normal mandazi but I have a secret ingredient to it which makes it secret okay I feel which makes it a little bit different but it's not hard to work with it you need flour you need baking cinnamon if you want yeah okay the scones for the scones you also need flour you need yeast you need special ingredient there yes you also need crescent green whichever you may choose you may also need a color oh wow here we need yeah so the amazing cake okay here we need whipping cream for you know the deca part of it you need these ones are silver balls we also need flour to market we need eggs we need milk but it depends some clients will tell you I don't want this I don't want that so you will work with their specification but basically you will need eggs you will need flour and you'll need margarine and the essence of the cake you are using oh wow for the young kids out there so let me ask I can come with my own design and you can actually bring it to existence through my to a cake if I can if I if I can't I'll tell you I can't are you be honest like that yes like that tell us take us through this uh cake uh this one you will get help us from um cake supplier shops for you to make like now the superman and these are the things it's a mold you make from uh fondant for you to tap them in and also flour like now any other normal cake oh yeah looks so yummy thank you so I know you're very much passionate about your baking aspect catering and everything but how do you separate passion from action and looking at it in on the aspect of business wise oh yeah passion and business goes hand in hand because for you to run a successful business then you have to be passionate about it that is when you will have to put your time in there to get returns that is true yeah well now looking at the business aspect of it that's what I wanted to like get a little bit of difference because there's passion and then there's the business side of it the for the business side of it then we will just say that um you need to be careful on your pricing so that you get returns and also you need to be careful on what you are producing for you to mean to maintain your customers yeah for someone who's watching and wondering well what is the minimum price for a cake if i want a cake probably we can give us in cages and the price uh defense and uh yeah people they are looking forward to get the yummy yummy cakes yeah so it depends with the with the essence we are using or what kind of cake you want but minimal amount for one cage is 1300 it can go up to 2500 so it depends with what you want but minimum is to 1300 sorry okay do you do you actually meet your to pay your bills with this particular uh business yes i it makes like everything i use i get to account for it okay by operating at uh at home what are some of the cost that actually you got to cut cut down and what's your advice for someone who's looking forward to just start a business uh at their own space at home so what are the some of the operational business costs that you got to cut off at home you don't need rent so and rent is expensive in Nairobi so that's a big saving you also don't have tax nobody's following you like you need to pay monthly tax of what you are selling you also don't have that friction like i'm supposed to close at this time so you have all the time to do what you want yeah all right let's speak about let's look at the pros and the cons of the home-based uh catering business so like what are some of your of the achievements that you've you've had and that you look back and you be like you know i'm so proud of myself you know and uh and also you can look at challenges that you'll face since you started officially in the in the baking in the baking us industry for baking i think the greatest achievement i met someone gave me a design over cake and i was like can i do this but then i did it and she loved it so that thrilled my heart and from her i got three clients actually she's alice i'm thankful she could be watching yeah so that's the greatest achievement i've met so far and i've been able to equip my bakery now to standards that i can go outside there and start up like any other baking business for challenges uh sometimes there's no uh power and maybe you are baking at home so no generator for you that means that cake will go to our west and um with family you need to bake for them too you know you're baking a cake they need a piece or something so that's a challenge too they don't understand its business uh sometimes they don't understand that they're like if you are making for someone you need to make for us yeah so that's a good double word okay let's look at um on august 16th something big is happening tell us more about that yeah i'm i've made a brand of the bakery already i've done the required you know things that are to be met by the government so on 16th i'll be opening my space in cbt for baking and i'll name it i don't know if it's good to say right now but i'll say anyway okay i'll name it fresh fest cuisine to pay that again fresh fest cuisine fresh first fresh fest cuisine yeah okay but we aren't going to do just baking we'll do baking and food so it will be an industry uh it will be an industry that deals much of cakes yes but we will also be offering food services yeah to then to take it actually different occasions and events for your clientele yes okay what will be your advice for someone who wants to start a business it could be a home-based catering business or any other form of business just back at their comfort of their of their home just operating back at home what would be your advice for that particular person uh never give up pass through what you want if you've got you know if you've got so much determination towards what you want to achieve then you want to start and don't wait to start big just start from where you are if you don't have the right tools god will provide for you even as you continue but now you don't want to sit and let me achieve so much before i pursue this just to pursue wherever you are if you have a jico you know how to bake use it to bake it will work out for you start from where you are and what you have okay so i'll let you share your social media handles and how people can reach out to you make orders for their for their particular cuisines that they want uh from dolin moras so this is a chance give us a social media handle so that you can follow you and get to know more about your work well uh you'll find me on facebook at dolin's empire you can use the microphone okay you'll find me at facebook at dolin's empire you will get a number of things that i run on that particular page i also have my own handle where i post at dolin yambati also at instagram at dolin yambati but at instagram i don't post for business but i'm working on a page which should be out by next week at fresh fest cuisine okay so i'll be updating at instagram all right so when you launch officially you can find your own instagram yes at fresh fest cuisine okay there you have make sure you follow uh dolin mora on matters pertaining uh getting to know more about our business that is on a home base catering business services i just know how to go about it if you have interest in that particular area and if you want to order some amazing cakes she's the person to look out for at michela shira is where you can find me across all my social media platform followers across all social handle that is at y254 channel coming up we'll be having an interview that looks into the filming industry i had a seat down with these amazing young men from glight leaks and let's work again at this particular interview and get to learn more on matters of film be right back