{"id":1621,"date":"2011-07-15T08:55:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/79.170.44.80\/livingwithkids.co.uk\/fairy-cakes-mania\/"},"modified":"2014-06-02T11:36:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T11:36:26","slug":"fairy-cakes-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidstart.co.uk\/blog\/fairy-cakes-mania\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairy cakes mania and starting up a business"},"content":{"rendered":"The summer holidays are within sight, it\u2019s the time for plotting and dreaming, and baking. Last night, along with half the street, my daughter and I were baking cakes for Somalia. Our youngest two children\u2019s primary school has been raising money for its brass band for most of this year, but with 28 children from Somalia attending the school the drought in East Africa seems very close to home.\r\n\r\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 0pt none; margin: 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.livingwithkids.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/7\/cupcakes.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"254\" height=\"187\" \/>\r\nImage Courtesy Cake Snobs\r\n\r\nOur last whole school fundraising tea raised \u00a3650, so we have high hopes of this one, and it\u2019s always amazed me how quick and effective a mass call to the kitchen can be. The fairy cake may seem like the most trivial thing to be creating in the midst of a recession, not to mention the worst drought in Africa for 60 years, but never underestimate its power.\r\nAfter all, Antonia Kime, the Queen of Cupcakes, managed to bake her way out of repossession simply by baking beautiful fairy cakes and selling them, but that ship has sailed. That particur market may be saturated and, if you need evidence, take a stroll down any street festival this summer. I noticed last weekend that instead of a couple of cheap and cheerful cake stalls selling butterfly buns for 50p there were at least six yummy mummy stalls selling vastly over-elaborately iced creations, complete with glittery butterflies and cones of twirls that would shame Mr Whippy, for \u00a32.50 a pop. By the end of the day they were all still there, largely unsold. Why do these women do it? They are breaking the first fundamental rule of business &#8211; test the market before you set up your stall and don\u2019t expect other people to subsidise your hobby. A moment\u2019s thought would have warned them. No-one, especially in a recession, and certainly just out for the afternoon with the kids is going to spend \u00a32.50 on one fairy cake, unless it\u2019s for a very good cause, or they have spent considerable time in the beer tent.\r\n\r\nA quick glance opposite at the Caribbean food stall and its neighbour the stall selling veggie curry and samosas was a visual lesson in the art of entrepreneurship. Lured in by the prospect of a samosa for \u00a31 and a just-long-enough queue, few people were walking away without parting with at least a fiver.\u00a0 Food sells, self indulgent art rarely does. But don\u2019t let that stop you chasing your dream. If you want to start your own business now is the perfect time to test the market, hire a stall, blag a spot in someone else\u2019s shop, set up your own website and see where it takes you. But first of all do your homework. Make sure you that what you are creating or selling is something that other people need or want. Just because you love finding it or creating does not mean other people will shell out hard cash for it. And start small, you may dream of owning your own hat shop, but there may be a reason there are so few about these days&#8230; So before you start planning to rent that quaint little boarded up shop round the corner, do some market research, write a business plan.\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hsbcsme.reedbusiness.co.uk\/welcome\/foundations\/write-a-business-plan\" target=\"_blank\">Reed and HSBC<\/a> can help\u00a0get you started) and see where it takes you. Good luck, and keep me posted. Now, it\u2019s time to ice my fairy cakes (no glittery butterflies allowed).\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #3399ff;\">Amanda<\/span>\r\n<\/strong><\/span>\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Scary statistic of the say:<\/span>\r\nDiamonds may be a girl\u2019s\u00a0 best friend, but gold and silver will keep the wolf from the door. According to research by Lloyds TSB the price of silver has risen by 708% in the last ten years, gold by 457% and platinum by 209%.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Deal of the day:\r\n<\/span>Stock up on holiday reads with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kidstart.co.uk\/partner\/TheBookPeople.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">The Book People <\/a>and save up to 75% on the price of your books as well as popping 3.5% into your Kiddybank if you shop through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kidstart.co.uk\/\">KidStart<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Start a business can be a tricky thing in a recession led, saturated market &#8211; Amanda has some good tips in today&#8217;s post","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3500,3348],"tags":[2249,432,471,2221,69,2250,2251],"class_list":["post-1621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tasty-family-food-and-recipes","category-lifestyle-tips-for-families","tag-bake","tag-cake","tag-cupcakes","tag-eat","tag-money-2","tag-small-business","tag-start-up"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - 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