Breaking stereotypes, baking cakes

Sukriti Tankha

Now, here’s a bakery whose foundation was laid on October 3, 2019 by two partners who, to the very least, have an age difference of 30 years. Before they started this business, one was pursuing a career in fashion designing and English Honours while the other was running an electronics and mobile store for over 25 years. It was the passion and love for baking of the elder one of the two partners that resulted in them starting a bakery business with the name, Mr Moustache’s Cakes. Meet the father-daughter duo of Arun and Khushboo Chaudhary who started this venture.

Tell us the story behind this unique venture.
Dad has always been passionate about baking, healthy baking to be precise. He used to bake healthy and delicious cakes for my grandparents and us at home. As for me, I always wanted to run a business. So, I thought why not take the concept of healthy baking to others too. I saw my dad’s passion to bake and converted it into a business. Therefore, we fulfilled both our dreams and launched Mr Moustache’s Cakes!

Why such an unusual name?
That’s a funny story. My dad has a moustache and like every other Indian dad, it is a matter of pride for him. As he was going to look after all the baking activities, we decided to name our brand as Mr Moustache’s Cakes.

How much investment went into the venture? Is it a bootstrapped one or there are some investors?
We started off with an investment of Rs 1 lakh and slowly it caught pace. It has been smooth from the beginning and we have made a good profit in monetary terms as well as customer satisfaction. At present, it is a bootstrap venture but we are actively looking for investors as well.

Father moves into the kitchen while daughter markets. Why this role reversal?
It is a turnaround because this was more about following our passions. So, my father immersed himself in baking and I started handling business-related things. My father has had no professional experience in baking and he is a self-taught baker. And this is not a forced decision. Normally, fathers are hesitant to let their daughters start a business from scratch because they are unsure. However, my dad let me open the gate to a lot of opportunities to utilise my potential to the fullest. It is also about breaking stereotypes.

What role does your mom play in the business?
Well, she is a good critique. So she gives us honest feedback and is our ardent follower on social media. She is also our support system, in good and bad times.

How is it working together? Are there any skirmishes or arguments between the two of  you?
Working together has been fun because we learn something valuable from each other every day. Our personalities are opposite. He is a calm, sweet, and supportive whereas I am straightforward, energetic, and enthusiastic. As any father-daughter, we have differences in opinions but at the end of the day, we end up resolving all the arguments because we both know that we are learning something new every day.

Where all do you serve? Any plans to expand your work area?
We are currently and mainly catering in Delhi-NCR and Gurugram. We plan to expand our business more and make. During the lockdown period, we used wait for an order to arrive and now we don’t have time to even think. Either we are making an order, delivering it or packing it. Dad’s hands would mostly have flour or chocolate on them and mine would be sticking tape to the boxes. I wish this continues in future and we keep growing. We hope to collaborate with a lot of cafes and have presence throughout Delhi-NCR, both offline as well as online, for which we are going to work harder and come up with more innovative ideas every time we present our product.

What are the challenges that you face, short-term or long-term?
There are a lot of challenges you face while running a small business, the biggest one being competing against the big companies. If we talk about the challenges that we faced during this pandemic, because it has brought a lot of change in our lives. Positives include that people tried homemade brands more and started supporting small business owners which fetched us a lot of new consumers. While talking about negatives, the biggest of all is that we can’t do exhibitions and food stalls. For us, offline selling is best suitable as it makes us instant money, we can build a direct connect with the customers and they can give us instant feedbacks. We can also have live interactions where they can try our products and buy them. All in all, the pandemic didn’t really affect our business.