We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Pinky Lam a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Pinky thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?
I feel like one thing that I will restart over again will be not stop my business after I graduate from school and started my full time job. I feel like the one year and a half gap did make a difference.
After I restarted my business it took quite awhile to gain my customers back and its really difficult to earn the reputation and awareness from the beginning again.
I think if I didn’t stop and still try to continue things will be much better and get to where I am now faster.
Pinky, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a home baker of pinkysimplybakes. I started baking since 6th grade, which was inspired by my mum. She always bakes my favourity japanese chocolate cake and it always the best chocolate cake I could ever asked for. I wanted to make something for my mum in return and thats how my baking journey started.
I came to the states and I started exploring different flavors and sweet goodies among my friends. I baked for such a long time and my friends and classmates will wait for every other week for me to bring my goodies to class and distribute to them.
Moreover, we are striking for more healthy lifestyle with less sweet but still fulfiling our sweet tooth, I have created my very own tea flavors goodies with tackling all different people needs. Thats how pinkysimplybakes started.
Its all handmade, it could be imperfect but it is imperfectly perfect!
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think the flavors thats I have and the products that I created are very rare at the market.
I produced my own mochi and nowadays tea flavors are like the hype. My products are mainly with different tea goods and how you could enjoy tea with a different format.
I handmade most of my stuff and thats how I kept them consistent to sell to my customers and kept my reputation within the market.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I am still in the process of figuring out the whole plan. My thought will be hoping to have a place that allow everyone to enjoy my goodies the same time have a place to leisure. My place will be providing tea drinks and then same time providing in house dessert so customers will have a place to sit and eat, instead of waiting for me to sell my stuff at the market.
Also, I am hoping to mass produce my tea jelly, so they could be sold by themselves and more people can enjoy them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://forms.gle/FkRi56mrRsp6phDL7
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinkysimplybakes?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565294161494&mibextid=LQQJ4d&mibextid=LQQJ4d
Image Credits
Tiffany Wong
Amy Kuo
William Wang