@sweetcravingsdesserts / 08097405050 / 08033360261
Sweet Cravings is a brand that was developed out of love for baking. The founder Ololade, quit her job to take this full time and the brand has been a staple in major weddings and events in lagos.
Podcast Key Notes
Can you pleases introduce yourself and tell us about your background –
My name is Ololade and I am the CEO of Sweet Cravings, a desert catering company based in Lagos. I have BSc. in Sociology at Unilag and MSc. in International Marketing. I started Sweet Cravings in 2012. I worked for a while before going for my MSc. then; I came back and started the business.
I have always loved cakes and baking , during my MSc. I started baking and people who had my cake loved it. I thought to myself that when I get back to Nigeria and if I was unable to secure a job right away; I was just going to start baking as a business.
Starting days for business including funding?
I started really really small. I started with cupcakes and all I needed at that time were my basic home kitchen equipments like hand mixer and oven.
Can you describe your typical work day?
My busy days are usually Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The bulk of our work is actually done a day before the event . So baking is done on Friday ahead of Saturday’s and Sunday’s events. Basically, planning starts Monday; calling the planners and clients to adequately prepare for the event.
What is your Staff strength?
Right now there are 20 permanent staff but we hire contract staff depending on the job needs
Can you give us the most challenging experiences you have had?
I’ve had numerous challenges but let’s look at this one that has to do with my biggest event at Yola of about 2000 guest. I did the quote and sent to the client and we agreed on payment. 2 weeks to the event we booked a bus and then realized it will take us about 24 hours to get to Yola. So, my team left Lagos on Monday because we couldn’t have taken finished products, we took our equipments from Lagos and the plan was to rent a space to bake out of. It was almost a disaster, we eventually overcame the challenges but it wasn’t an easy experience at all.
What piece of business advice would you give someone starting up?
- Take things one step at a time and don’t skip steps
- There is a lesson to be learned from every experience
- You can’t get it right at all times, when things go wrong don’t beat yourself up over it , just take it as a lesson and do things better next time.
- Don’t be a quitter, just keep going, keep working and keep trying.
Books and Resource Recommendation:
The truth is there is no book that has everything in it.
But I like recipe books by Antonio Bachour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Bachour
Key Point
- Take things one step at a time and do not skip steps
- There is a lesson to be learned from every experience
- You can’t get it right at all times, when things go wrong don’t beat yourself up over it, just take it as a lesson and do things better next time
- Don’t be a quitter, just keep going, keep working and keep trying.
