Richa Grover and Cake-a-Licious by Richa

                           

Richa started Cake-a-Licious by Richa in 2015. Her son was two years old at that time. Richa is a special educator by education, with a Masters in Child Psychology and she was working in NGOs with differently abled- children before and after her marriage. After her son was born, Richa could not go back to work properly. It got difficult for her to leave her son at home. She also developed a lot of back problems, due to which she eventually had to leave her work. Richa’s husband knew that she would only be happy doing something, rather than sitting home, idling away her time.

Baking had always been a passion for Richa and she loved to bake and try out new recipes for friends and family. It helped that both sides of her family have a major sweet tooth! Lots of experimenting on birthdays and anniversaries helped Richa hone her baking skills, and she finally decided to venture out and start her home bakery business.

Richa always knew that she wanted to work, but she never imagined starting something of her own, doing everything single-handedly, managing a baby alongside her baking orders. It was exciting and at the same time, quite scary too. But Richa feels this was something that was meant to be because it was her son who spurred her to become a mompreneur.

Referrals from friends and family helped initially to get orders, but it was tough to keep going. There were weeks when Richa would be totally free, with no work at all. Networking was a challenge. Seeing it was a new business, a lot of people took advantage too, in that they would expect freebies from her, and huge discounts on her products. Richa was still in the initial setting-up phase, and to gain clients, she ended up obliging a lot of people. Looking back, she cannot believe she was working at almost no profit at all for the first few orders. She believed that the clients would market her products through word of mouth which turned out to be an illusion, to say the least! As soon as the orders were fulfilled, she had to run after them for balance payments, for days, sometimes.

At other times, she would accept orders without taking an advance, and to her disappointment, clients would not show up to take the order, and would stop taking my calls.

Payments were always the biggest challenge for Richa initially. So was the fear of not getting enough clients and orders. But she persevered and is now seven years into this business. The growth has been slow and not exactly at a pace that Richa would have liked. But she always felt a mom-guilt of not devoting enough time to her son whenever she was required to work for long hours. This resulted in her turning down a lot of orders in the past and sometimes even now.  Though she sometimes feels frustrated at having to have to choose between the two, she is firm in her belief that family comes first. As long as Richa gets regular orders and continues to be recognized for her work, she is happy. For Richa, irrespective of whether it’s a big bulk order or a small one, she fulfills it with the same love and devotion.

The name of her venture does not have a special meaning. Richa liked the way it sounded and so it stuck.

Cake-a-licious, started out of Richa’s hobby of trying new desserts and baked products. At that time, she had joined a Facebook group CHEF AT LARGE, where they would make new dishes, click pretty pictures and share them on the group with other like-minded foodies. Richa was quite an active member of that group, sharing pictures and recipes for almost a year. She even tried making breads at home.

Now, with her business fully established, Richa devotes her free time to learning music (vocals) along with her son, and playing badminton (still learning that too).

She was blessed with a baby girl in 2020 and got back to work as soon as was possible. The demand for home bakers had gone up tremendously during the lockdowns and it somehow helped her get back on track quickly after the baby. Having her husband home during that time helped as well, since he would take care of the kids while Richa would be busy with orders.

Richa misses having someone to help her with the orders. She works alone, handing everything from planning to execution to packing. Richa is contemplating hiring some help, but her orders are not always consistent. Sometimes she’s flooded with orders and other days she has nothing to do!

What Richa enjoys the most is being her own boss. That makes all the challenges worth it.

Follow her on

https://newagemompreneurs.in/member/Richa-Grover

https://www.instagram.com/cakealicious_by_richa/