We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mariana Ibarra a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mariana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

The pandemic was great fully a great moment for our business. During the first weeks we where trying to figure out how to stay afloat, it was in that moment when we started selling different flavors of cookie dough ready for our customers to bake with our baking instructions.
We offered delivery and also curb side pick up at our shop.

They became very popular and we had more than 60 orders per week which helped our brand gane popularity on Instagram and so did our cookies, personalized cakes and treats.

This helped us come up with many more options to offer our customers and create better content for our social media.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am currently fourth generation baker. My grandparents opened there first bakery more then 60 years ago and they ended up having more than 10 bakery stores in Tijuana.

Since I can remember I grew up hanging around employees and with my grandparents and mother visiting all the bakery stores and buying raw materials every week. Since I grew up, I imagined myself managing their business.

Due to generational differences this was a bit complicated so that’s when I decided to create my own brand and start a business with quite a meaningful name “Malú”. Malú is a combination of both me and my mothers first and second name, Lourdes Mariana and Maria de Lourdes. I did also include my grandparent’s, my mothers and the current employee’s expertise and knowledge to start the business and to date, make it grow.

In Malu I have always wanted to share the great quality in products and the amazing taste we have to offer. Out extended menu in cake flavors and all of our options for desserts is what sets us apart from others.

I am very proud of my family and our business, This is my greatest motivation and I am very happy that I have the opportunity to continue with there legacy. I have a very supportive circle of friends and family and also many loyal customers

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Without a doubt, word of mouth.

Social media is a great way of reaching potential clients but word of mouth is a tried and true method for us to convert potential to actual clients, and longstanding ones.

Knowing this, that people talk to each other about everything specially what they like and dislike I have found this as a great opportunity to also make sure I have people talking great stuff about our business and our products.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

At first my family, especially my Dad helped out a lot. Which I am very great full for and always will be. I also took out a small bank loan and bought what I could using credit cards.

I always knew it would take a while, maybe several years for the business to actually take off and have revenue. I’ve alway been good at managing money so I knew what to expect. It is very important to make good decisions about the money that comes in and what it is utilized for.

Since I opened I have made sure there is always money destined for payments, finishing off the most important bank loans and credit cards. I must say, I still owe my dad some of the money he lended me at the beginning and some amount on credit cards. For using credit cards my hack is to benefit off of new credit card offers when they are interest fee. I transfer the balance and gain a few more months to pay it off. Do not let interest payments consume you and if possible, reach out to friends and family for small loans or investments, they are usually a bit more flexible with payments.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malucookiesandsweets?igsh=MWE3MHI4ZHVud3N6dA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/malucookiesandsweets?mibextid=LQQJ4d