Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Yumna Jamal. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Yumna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success isn’t simply a destination, it’s a journey.

When it comes to success, there are a number of ways to define and achieve it, whether that be an increasing revenue or a growing popularity. However, being a business owner has taught me that success is actually something beyond that. It’s everything we learn throughout the process, the skills we acquire, and the failures we experience that enable us to TRULY be successful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had an affinity for baking and seeing how such simple ingredients come together to form a beautiful outcome. Following the advent of Covid-19, and with multiple small businesses opening up, I remember thinking to myself that maybe, one day, I will also have a business of my own. With the support of my sisters, A and N, AYN Delights was eventually born.

Since the majority of dessert businesses within Austin offered various baked goods, I wanted to offer a product that was unlike any other dessert on the market. With that in mind, I came up with the idea of merging the concept of dessert and fashion to create specialty dessert cups. Just as Dior carefully constructs each one of its pieces, every single one of our dessert cups is handcrafted to make a statement. From the crust to the decorating, each step is done by hand to create a delicate, yet delicious, delight. This concept is also demonstrated through our packaging and photography, with each box being hand ribboned and each shoot styled to complement our desserts.

As the founder of AYN, seeing how far we’ve come and how much we have grown is definitely what I am most proud of. Not only business-wise but also personally, AYN has allowed me to understand what I am capable of and what it means to be successful.

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

We all possess an innate quality of resilience, but I believe being a small business owner has definitely put this quality to the test. One scenario that most clearly depicts resilience is when we were looking to introduce a new dessert cup flavor-I mean how difficult could that possibly be? But believe me, after failing several times and witnessing curdled batters, I thought everything was over and just wanted to give up. Despite that urge, I forced myself to keep on going and viola, we finally came up with a recipe that is now one of our bestselling flavors.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Since we were just starting off a business without many connections, one aspect that I found crucial to building an audience was content. Based on what the audience preferred and engaged with, we continued to post more of that particular content. Along with that, remaining consistent with posting, even at times when interaction with your posts is low, is vital to improving your presence on social media. After all, consistency is key.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ayndelights.atx
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Nusaiba Jamal