A lady was running on a commercial enterprise from domestic, be it sourcing and promoting dress jewelry, sarees, or homemade treats like desserts and cookies, pickles and papads, is frequently now not taken critically. She is typecast as a hobby chaser, with now not a whole lot ambition. But what many don’t comprehend is that these sales-making projects are very beneficial, and offer many with a tidy income – occasionally more than what that they had earned in advance at an everyday job. And that is proper from the comforts of their home, in which lifestyles, paintings, and obligations all come collectively harmoniously. Yes, you can have your cake and devour it too, and that’s what hundreds of home bakers around India will inform you. And the icing at the cake is they don’t must step outside their houses, thanks to generation. HerStory caught up with two busy mothers who wanted to no longer merely fill a gap within the unorganized home baking enterprise, however also provide fellow bakers an opportunity to attach easily with their clients.
Anuradha Kambi and Anjana Lath, her sister-in-law, started the HomeBakers in 2018 while Anuradha’s choice to wonder her nephew with a themed cake for his birthday fell flat.
Whipping the industry into shape Living in London, Anuradha wanted to send a cake to her nephew in India but had constrained options to have a cake customized. “Either I had to order from a bakery, which does not offer any customization, or order via existing web sites, where customization turned into a difficulty. Alternatively, I could reach out to domestic bakers in Bengaluru thru Facebook organizations, but then charge and consider is a difficulty. When there are first-rate bakers who do a much better activity at customization and taste, customers from any a part of the sector need to be now not suffering to connect to them,” she says. Seeing the want to offer a platform for talent bakers, Anuradha and Anjana commenced HomeBakers.Co.In as an online market to connect cake consumers from any a part of the sector to the home bakers in India. Home baking has taken off massively in India: e-commerce has made it feasible to purchase what had been once distinctly coveted baking gear, YouTube and websites like Skillshare have allowed girls to select up essential techniques, and social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp have made marketing easy. But maximum of all, virtual bills have made transactions easy as pie. But some issues persist, and numerous gaps stay. “As a patron, I noticed the dearth of an internet platform for connecting to Indian domestic bakers who can supply a freshly baked cake to my loved ones in line with my specifications,” Anuradha says. Anjana, a self-taught home baker who lives in Hyderabad, started her domestic bakery to fulfill her passion, and at the identical time to spend greater exceptional time with her daughter. She wanted to scale her commercial enterprise but changed into unable to do so because of a lack of a platform to manage order bookings. “To our marvel, the hassle Anjana faced became a not unusual one, and there has been no current solution, so we found one and accomplished it,” Anuradha provides.
At HomeBakers.Co, Anuradha is the Director- Business, and Anjana is Director -Operations. Along with Sonali, another team member, the three mothers have dedicated themselves full time to the business. Anjana says, “It is an initiative for women, using women. It is our tiny step to convert this unorganized home-primarily based bakery region into an organized one through imparting a platform to the homemakers.” Sugar, spice, and masses of studies Starting up become no cakewalk and the duo spent nearly three months to validate their concept. They spoke to extra than one hundred home bakers and clients to apprehend the gaps they were trying to deal with. They then centered on the website and doubled down efforts on ensuring its ease of use. “We needed to make sure that it’s smooth to apply for customers and home bakers and but fee-powerful when we are bootstrapping. We started the paintings on constructing the website in August 2018, and launched it in November closing 12 months.” With a maximum of the team based totally out of Hyderabad, they selected to start there, and take a look at the waters to see if the concept worked, and gauge what appealed to clients, and what didn’t. Based on this they controlled to show things around in which wanted. They are fully operational in Hyderabad and feature launched in Pune and Bengaluru, where they are onboarding bakers at the gift. Next within the pipeline is Kochi and Chennai. Onboarding high-quality bakers are the first-rate task. The quarter is unorganized, and subsequently, there’s no standardization. Citywide bake indicates you are assisting them to connect with the nearby home bakers. “We are nonetheless working on constructing the right filtering system. And getting to paintings with the right humans i.E key cake artists and suppliers to assist us sell. We are evolving and getting to know with each event and order,” says Anuradha. The group is likewise running on adding an FSSAI certification to its offerings. While strictly dependent on social media advertising, their consciousness is on Facebook and Instagram. From films to demos to purchaser fulfillment memories, to meets, occasions and panel discussions – they have got created each online and offline avenues for engagement.
As the cake rises, so does its call for Though unorganized, the house baking industry is prospering. On HomeBakers.Co.In, the bakers have the right to rate the goods. Prices generally begin from Rs 360 for 12 cupcakes, and cakes can even pass as much as Rs 12,000 depending on the customization and paintings involved. The modern-day average order value at the web site is Rs three,000. Customers can charge the bakers according to their satisfaction stage. A survey was done via HomeBakers.Co.In of over two hundred bakers showed that bakers earn on a median Rs 14,000 a month. “As as compared to bakeries, where cake usually charges around Rs 500, our bakers are capable of getting even Rs 1, two hundred for cakes baked for specific occasions. Sometimes, we’ve had orders clocking Rs 10,000 too,” she provides. Cakes have become a mainstay for any birthday party, be it birthdays, anniversaries, ship-off parties, office get-togethers, celebratory dinners, and galas. And the demand is only going up, as a disposable earning boom, and those can come up with the money for such treats extra frequently. “People now need to look their lifestyles/occasion depicted on the cake. The demand is likewise because of improved attention of such customization, progressive flavors, and dietary requirements, which home bakers can cater to in contrast to commercial bakeries making mass-produced cakes,” Anuradha explains. Melting butter and stereotypes When Anjana give up her career to be a complete-time mom, she set plenty of tongues wagging. And when she commenced baking from domestic, it simply got worse. Anuradha points out that this kind of criticism is usually confronted with the aid of girls who are training session of home. “There is also the stereotype that in case you aren’t an engineer or a health practitioner you couldn’t prevail,” she provides but says things are slowly changing. “I have in my view met pinnacle expert bakers like Samie J Ramachandran, Subhashini Ramsingh and Ashwini Sarabhai, who are all qualified engineers but have pursued their profession in the baking enterprise. My associate, Anjana, for positive has no regrets as she can balance her paintings and being a full-time mum,” she says. But domestic baking isn’t any piece of cake. It needs masses of sweat, toil, and tough paintings. “When you turn something you’ve got excelled into an enterprise, you have got won half the sport. Again, being a domestic baker includes its proportion of hard work, from networking to pricing it proper, deciding on the right ingredients, and bringing magic to the desk. That is the second one half of the warfare to be won.” It is the war of batter and HomeBakers.Co.It is doing the whole thing to make sure its bakers emerge the winners.