Leaders

Celebrations are incomplete without cakes! One such company that fulfills your special days and cravings by delivering the ‘king of desserts; with a twist’ at your doorstep is, the Chennai-based ‘Mug Cakes’. The company is led by Swetha Kishore, a zealous entrepreneur in the niche of delivering exotic cakes in mugs.

Swetha’s life took a shift from a corporate employee to a businesswoman when she began her quest for what she loves. Baking cupcakes started as a playful, pocket-money making business and became more serious when she planned to quit her IT job and entered into business full-time. Her entrepreneurial journey started when her homemade cupcakes went viral across the city and she closed nearly 100 cupcake orders per day. Cupcakes slowly evolved into Mug Cakes when the city's newspapers started featuring her for her unique dessert innovations. As an epitome of creativity and novelty, she pioneered Cakes baked in a Pure-Ceramic Coffee Mug in the country.

All the fame didn’t come overnight. Consistent hard work, innovative recipes, several discouragements, hateful comments, knocking the apartment doors to sell the product! The journey was never easy. Slowing gearing up, today, her brand is listed as one of the top woman-founded startups. To celebrate her journey and know more about Mug Cakes, Women Entrepreneur India engaged an exclusive interview with Swetha, and here is the short excerpt of the conversation.

What Incited You To Start Mug Cakes? How Did The Journey Begin?

I loved baking for my family, it gradually turned into a passionate hobby of mine. To make some pocket-money, I started selling cupcakes in the college canteen, I went to my neighbouring apartment and tried to sell them but it didn’t work very well. Their responses were quite demotivating. After graduating engineering and getting into a corporate job, as a side hustle, I started selling cupcakes to my friends without frosting for 30 rupees a box. They were impressed with the tasty cakes for such a low price and I got hundreds of orders per day. With this, things began to take shape for my business career in the niche.

“Swetha kishore has been working on opening a branch in Coimbatore, which in process and will be executed in a few months”

One fine day, I wanted to use the leftover batter. Just experimenting with somethings, I poured the batter into a ceramic mug and baked it, which surprisingly came out really well. I found that this is a great idea and a very new concept in Chennai. That’s how Mug Cakes was conceptualized. It then evolved from my grandmother's renovated kitchen space to my own café in Kilpauk, Chennai where I bake a wide range of birthday cakes and desserts and caters to customers online and offline.

What’s Special About Mug Cakes?

We give the customers the freedom to choose your own cake base and choose your favourite Frosting. We are Conceptual Café, an expert in providing unique cake designs, dine-in experiences, party halls, online ordering, and home delivery. We believe there is no cure for curiosity in desserts and cake making! Our designs are innovative and no other brands could replicate our unique designs to 100 percent. The best part about Mug Cakes is you get to keep your coffee mug as a souvenir. Creativity and design is what people say that they come back to us apart from the quality and taste.

How Do You Ensure Quality In Everything You Deliver?

We maintain quality by limiting the number of orders we take per day. Though it’s a hindrance to our business, we believe in perfection and not in numbers. Another thing is that, we never change the ingredients to any other brand. During the pandemic, it was difficult to source ingredients but we went hunting around the city to find the ingredients of the particular brand use for our cakes. We never compromise on the ingredients to maintain quality and our uniqueness.

How Did You Mitigate The Troubles During The Lockdown & Covid-19?

We didn’t face the issues of shutting down as we were into delivering the bakery products since the beginning. We used to deliver cake by arranging cabs from our site. People were able to comfortably collect the products at their doorstep. We also had a delivery team helping us to deliver mug cakes because cabs services were halted and we had to provide services on bikes.

Also, the unavailability of public transport was a big problem. To mitigate this, I used to travel 50 to 100 kilometres every day and bring the staff to the bakery. Offering pickup and drop services, supported the business and also helped the staff to earn. With all the efforts, our customers were happy & satisfied, and we could do great in terms of sales.

Brief On Your Strategies For Propagating The Business To Your Target Audience.

90 percent of our business happens through social media. That's how I initially started and felt that social media is much better than any other marketing strategy. Social media and referrals are two factors for my business visibility. Collaborations with influencers, actors, and other brands are also helping us to reach more audiences.

Date Of Establiment: 1 SEPT 2019

Highlights

• While offering mugs as souvenir, the company gives free rewards on collecting certain number of mugs or retuning them

• Staffs of Mug Cakes are dedicated women who are the ultimate bread- winners of their family, losing their men to accidents and other unfortunate events

• Home Delivery is the number one focus for Mug Cakes as customers get to order cakes online through Instagram or WhatsApp, later getting it directly delivered to their homes

Growth Graph

• Beginning the journey by selling 1 mugcake per day and INR 10,000 revenue per month, today, the company has grown into a business of over INR 15,000 per day

• The brand also expanded the wings to have workshops and classes for people who are willing to learn baking

Roadmap

• Open franchises in other cities