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Ssekabembe makes her mark in baking celebration cakes
Ssekabembe decorates a cake. On an ordinary day, she bakes about 40 cakes and on peak days which are usually weekends, she bakes 80 cakes. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa.
What you need to know:
Brenda Ssekabembe borrowed Shs25,000 to start baking cakes and her hard work has paid off. Soon after scooping a job with an international agency, she weighed it against operating her own cake-making enterprise. Now her business has a gross income of Shs400 million a year, before other expenses are deducted.
Brenda Ssekabembe’s start was not accidental, considering that she started baking cakes while hunting for a job after university. Her company—Bake for Me Ltd—bakes cakes for birthday parties, weddings, introduction, Christmas and Easter ceremonies.
The business she started in 2003, now earns her a gross income of Shs400 million income in a year, before other expenses are deducted.
“As I waited to graduate, I felt embarrassed to ask my parents for money for daily up-keep during the first week.”
“While searching for jobs, I met a relative working at Greenland Towers, who requested me to bake him a cake and offered to pay me Shs10, 000.”
With this money, she bought the ingredients and baked. On delivering the cake, she got other orders.
“I borrowed Shs25,000 from my father and that is how I started,” she recalls.
More people who tasted her cakes also ordered and the pay was inspiring.
Aidah Muwonge started buying Ssekabembe’s cakes two years ago after she tasted it from a friend’s party.
“I like Brenda’s cakes because of their freshness and she gives you variety in tastes which is not so monotonous. If it’s marble, chocolate or coconut flavoured cakes, there is always a consistency in the taste which makes you yearn for more”.
Muwonge adds that Ssekabembe’s cakes are worth the money paid.
“She (SSsekabembe) is an easy person to deal with even on short notice, Brenda will sort you out and she will always get back to you for feedback,” Ms Muwonge adds.
After a month of waiting, SSsekabembe got a job at Sauce King Factory as a food scientist, but this did not stop her from baking.
She shares: “I did this because my job was poorly paying; I was getting Shs150,000 per month. In order to make ends meet, I literally begged people to order for cakes to meet my expenses.’
Initially, she was making plain cakes but one day, a customer ordered for an iced-cake. Since she lacked the skills to ice, she read books on how to ice cakes. Although her first iced-cake was amateurish, she was happy.
Referrals marketed her business
By word of mouth, her business was marketed. Whatever money she made was reinvested into the business.
Eventually, she bought a small mixer that bakes small cakes. But it crashed. With her savings, she bought a bigger mixer from Game Stores in Kampala.
As time went on, more people about her cakes but she did not stop job-searching.
She later moved to Chemiphar (U) Ltd, which was paying her more than Shs350,000. She would utilise her nights to bake cakes and deliver them to her clients.
From Chemiphar, she got another better paying job with the USAID-IRI (International Republican Institute) project. As things continued looking up, her mode of transport changed.
“I was earning more than Shs1 million, before joining USAID,” Ssekabembe recalls.
The car helped her make trips back home at lunch time to bake and ice a few cakes and later deliver them until she hired a driver to do the distribution.
In 2004, she registered the business and employed some people from Jimmy Ssekasi Institute of Catering. “I borrowed from Barclays Bank and bought bigger ovens and mixers.”
Her total investment has grown to the current Shs100 million and it is in the machines, cars and other assets which she uses. She is also among the lucky few who work at home.
Losing a job was her turning point
In 2006, she lost her job at USAID-IRI. That was a turning point. This propelled her to enroll for a Master’s Degree in Public Health in South Africa. The business kept running under the supervision of her mother and the few employees she had hired.
Achievements
She has bought house in Bunga, an up-market residential area and has started building another one.
She now owns four cars. She has grown her business from one cake to 120-cakes full capacity per day. She has surpassed her business plan faster than the five-year plan.
She has also opened up an outlet in Kololo where people can make orders and pick-ups for those who can access it.
Ssekabembe’s story is a testimony to the fact that a business can start small and grow.
In case one wants to venture into the cake business, what matters is turning an idea into a beautiful centre-piece. This is what has kept Ssekabembe’s customers growing over the years.
Baking cakes paid her more money
While in South Africa, Ssekabembe worked part-time for a bakery called the Dutch oven which supplied Pretoria. This, plus some lessons from another woman who was the best decorator, helped her learn a lot and she applied the skills back home.
After completing her Masters, she wanted to practise what she had learnt in order to recoup the money spent (more than Shs52 million) on the masters.
Quitting the job to bake full-time
She then got a job at Mulago, which like the previous jobs, was not paying her well yet she had to travel up-country and at the same time manage her business.
“What I earned from these jobs, I would make it in a week through my baking,” Ssekabembe remembers.
Eventually, she let go of that job. “I got up and resigned 2009,” she shares.
In 2009, just two weeks after quitting her job at Mulago, she was invited for a research job in South Africa at the University of Pretoria.
“Most of the work I would do by correspondence. This job paid very well. Half of the money I got enabled me buy a house after topping up with the savings from baking,” Ssekabembe said.
After completing the South African job for a year, she opted out, taking on full-time bakery in 2010.
Day starts
She is usually awake by 6am to prepare her daughter for school. By then, the workers have already started baking the day’s orders following the list.
By 10am, the first orders are delivered to the clients. In a day, they make about three trips of delivery because they deliver door-to-door.
Tips for future entrepreneurs
Start business when they still have support. She says in case one is sure of a salary at the end of the month, he or she should try business.
“This is not my first business. I sold sausages and meat products. At first, I thought it was profitable until we got this power outage and all the stock in the freezer went bad and I had to write it off but did not give up,” she recalls.
Never give up. Ssekabembe adds that people should never fail to keep trying. She says: “When you try this, it fails and then finally you will settle for something which will work out. Once you have studied it and feel it can sustain itself, then resign your salaried job.”
