On-demand cake delivery is such a sensible idea that we’re surprised there aren’t more of them out there.
Eat Cake Today, a startup which saw acceleration from 1337 Ventures, is one that made waves with their on-demand cake delivery platform.
Cake Together has a similar offering, and a particular focus on home bakers for their cakes.
Brent, the co-founder of Cake Together came into the business with a zeal to help small time cake sellers make deliveries.
“I think this is one of the values we hold dearly to Cake Together. When I first started, I knew a few friends who baked from home and they had a burning passion for baking but did not have the time to handle the business portion of it or the lack of resources to do handle it.”
“So starting Cake Together allowed these home bakers to focus on what they did best—baking—while we handle the rest.”
It’s not like they’re refusing service to commercial bakeries though. They just want to aid home bakers who lack the resources to work on the business side.
Brent jumped in with little experience in the field—the closest he’s got to an actual F&B experience is his stint as a barista.
But he believes that their current focus can help them stand out.
“We are all about the human touch.”
– Brent
“What we try to do here is to find a suitable balance between these two worlds. We can rely on technology for efficiency in operation, then on the team to strive for the human-centric approach we are fighting to preserve.”
The team operates solely in Klang Valley for now, offering free delivery.
Brent told us that their last-minute cakes (which can be delivered within 4 hours) are their most popular service. Of course, options for urgent cakes on Cake Together are limited compared to their full menu.
They’ve also only recently made their 1,000th order, after running for half a year.
As part of his personalised approach, Brent tries to be as hands-on as possible.
“The home bakers I work with ensure quality so the cakes that go out for delivery are made within 24 hours. Of course, I always make sure my customers are satisfied so I tend to each complaint personally.”
“At the end of the day, we want to be as human-centric as possible as a business because what is maintained throughout the process is joy—the joy of baking and the joy of eating cake.”
The whole business was hand-baked from scratch—even website design.
Brent revealed to us that, “Our month-to-month profit has gradually grown because we consistently learn from our mistakes. We are gaining more awareness and impressions every month; things are looking up.”
He had to learn how to set up a whole new website without any prior knowledge about website HTML, and also do it well enough that customers can navigate through the website with minimal difficulties.
The strain of the lean team does show.
In our own attempt to order a last-minute birthday cake, the mobile version of the website did have some display issues, though we eventually managed to work through with it.
To this, Brent said, “Without any proper coding knowledge, I’m slowly learning and making modifications to the website to optimise it for mobile. It’s part of the intense learning curve of starting a business.”
“As of right now, most of our orders come from web users but I completely understand how big of a role user experience is for e-commerce and I’m taking all the steps to make sure mobile users don’t lose out”.
Despite those difficulties, their catalogue of bakers on the platform increased more than expected. The team practices a rotation system on the website to give each baker time in the spotlight.
Following in the likes of Dinez-In, they’re giving a chance for home bakers to sell delicious food, even if they have some learning to do in terms of operational know-how.
Besides that, the team has actually leveraged off partnerships to get their name out there.
“When we started off we ran a lot of on-ground marketing through exhibitions and fairs. We also collaborated with other startups as well, like 50Gram, Michelle Flowery, Sunday Florist and The Awesome Brew,” said Brent.
“Right now we are focusing more on social media and we have a bunch of things to come in the near future!”