We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Morenike Akintoba. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Morenike below.

Morenike, appreciate you joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

For the past year and a half, I’ve had a full time job while running my cake business, and I would say that I’m happier as a business owner. There’s a level of security and structure that comes along with a regular job, but there’s no freedom or flexibility. My business allows me to be creative, I can dictate my own schedule and run it my way. I absolutely love decorating cakes and getting to be a part of milestones and memories, but it’s not without its ups and downs, and I’m doing it by myself. Being a one woman show means answering emails,  purchasing groceries and supplies, baking and decorating, cleaning, scheduling pickups and deliveries, taking and editing pictures, and managing socials and finances. Everything is my responsibility to deal with and take care of, it doesn’t fall on anyone else.

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?

For me, baking has always been my way of showing and expressing love to the people I love and care about. I initially started baking in 2016 as a hobby for family events, and then a couple years into my undergrad, I would bake and decorate cakes for my friends’ birthdays. My sisters and friends encouraged me to make an Instagram and start a business, but I was reluctant at first just because I had no idea how to run one and didn’t think my cakes were good enough for people to pay for. When the pandemic hit during my senior year of undergrad, I had more time to focus on baking, so I would watch videos on Youtube and Instagram, research different techniques and recipes, and practice my decorating skills. I finally felt confident enough to start my business in June 2020, creating custom buttercream cakes for a variety of occasions, from small birthdays to larger scale weddings.

I really pride myself on and want every cake that leaves my hands to convery how much care and attention to detail that I pour into them. No matter what the occasion, I strive to bring cake visions to life that express my customer and their occasion. I would say I’m most proud of how much my creativity and decorating skills have grown since starting my business. I never could have imagined that I would be skilled enough to be making square tiered wedding cakes a year into my business or designing a cake from scratch when a customer gives me creative freedom. What I love about creative work is there’s no shortage of new techniques to try so I’m constantly learning and always looking for ways to improve.

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

Instagram and and word of mouth are probably my best sources of new clients. With Instagram, I’ve been able to gain a lot of traction and reacher larger audiences with photo posts and story tags. I do have my friends to thank especially for word of mouth referrals. A lot of them will let me know that they’ve referred my business to their own friends and family, or order a cake from me and give out my information at their event, both of which I am beyond grateful for.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think resilience is such an important and necessary quality to have when you are running your a business because it asks so much of you on a regular basis. Running my business has shown me what I can handle and what I am made of. To a lot of people it’s just a cake, but they don’t realize just how time consuming they are and how much detail goes into them.  I’m such a perfectionist and super detail oriented so I would never hand over a cake that isn’t reflective of that. If the cake isn’t up to my standards, I will keep working at it until it is, which sometimes means staying up until 3 in the morning to get it right. I do this while working a full time job and trying to maintain a personal life. It’s challenging to find that balance, and overwhelming at times, but my love for what I do and the support I get from family, and sisters especially, friends and customers is what keeps me going and makes the late nights and long hours on my feet worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: cakesmadebym.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cakesmadebym/