Personal experience: how I turned my love for eclairs into a business

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

About the main components of a delicious dessert, the fight against burnout and eclairs that conquered the capital.

Alexandra Lamm started baking for pleasure, but over time the hobby grew into a business. She studied in France, learned how to cook delicious eclairs, and now every day she fills the window of her own confectionery in Moscow with them. We talked with Alexandra and figured out how to survive the fall of a three-tiered wedding cake, open a confectionery with a start-up capital of 500,000 rubles and create desserts that guests will love.

Cravings for manual labor and an office in your own kitchen

I studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, but I quickly got tired of working with text after graduation. I decided to take up administrative activities and in 2011 I got a job at Afisha as a personal assistant. I loved it, but I felt like I wanted to work with my hands, so I started making cupcakes, muffins and simple biscuit cakes at night. Baking provides endless possibilities for creativity, and on top of that, it also gathers the whole family around the table. I decided: this is what you need, because I love to create beauty and transform everything I touch.

I am quite a sociable person, so my colleagues were the first customers. In addition, I photographed all desserts and posted them on Instagram. At that moment, a fashion for everything home began to appear. Friends ordered cakes and cupcakes, treated friends, and my popularity grew thanks to word of mouth. In 2013, I realized that I get less and less pleasure from working in the office, but I enjoy baking. So I finally settled in my own kitchen and began to devote almost all of my time to confectionery.

I was a typical artisan entrepreneur who invests all the money in his business or spends it on his own needs. The income, depending on the month, ranged from 70,000 to 200,000 rubles. The most productive time is summer with a huge number of weddings, as well as New Year and spring holidays. There were practically no expenses, because I did not pay rent and did not invest in marketing. The only costs are 6% income tax, product costs and utility bills.

A failed cupcake sale and a fallen wedding cake

There were many satisfied clients, but from time to time there were also failures, from which I learned. All the failures were due to a lack of experience and an insufficiently developed sense of responsibility. One of the brightest is the fallen three-tiered wedding cake. I cooked it, strengthened it, gave it to the driver and started cleaning the kitchen. A few minutes later, the bell rings. I confidently pick up the phone, hoping that the bride wants to thank for the delicious cake, but everything turned out differently. Instead of "thank you" I heard a bunch of mat and screams about a spoiled holiday.

It was difficult for me to understand what was happening, so I phoned the driver.

As a result, we had to borrow another 500,000 rubles from relatives in order to be able to open in test mode on December 23, 2018.

Costs strongly depend on the concept, so you don't have to bother like we do: buy chairs at Ikea, wooden tables at Avito and sell buns. We wanted to make everything more refined, so the costs amounted to 4 million rubles. Of these, about a million is a special hearth oven necessary for the preparation of eclairs. If you make other desserts, costs will be significantly reduced. I believe that 3 million will be enough to open a small 40-square-meter confectionery in Moscow.

Assortment and team

We focus on eclairs, but in parallel with them we sell six types of cupcakes and three types of pastries. This is a fallback and alternative for those who don't know what Lamm's are and just want to have a cup of coffee with something hearty and inexpensive.

The showcase contains nine types of eclairs as standard. The lines change with the season, but the three flavors from the collection always remain the same: vanilla, chocolate and salted caramel. The latter option is especially popular in Russia because it is sweet, satisfying and very understandable. In the fall, we offered our guests six seasonal flavors: lemon, sea buckthorn and white chocolate, blackberry and lavender, tiramisu, roasted hazelnuts and figs. The most popular was the sea buckthorn eclair, it cost 280 rubles. The winter line was launched on December 7.

We have not worked together for a long time. We are assisted by a team that consists of two baristas, two consultants, four pastry chefs and two shop assistants, a weekday and weekend administrator, a designer, a cleaner and an accountant.

Eclairs start at seven in the morning. The girls decorate the blanks, pack them, mark them and send them for delivery from the workshop to the institution. So by 10 in the morning, fresh baked goods are already in the window. Then a list of eclairs is drawn up for the next day and the process of baking the blanks begins, which are filled with filling and glazed. In the evening they are left in the refrigerator, and the next morning they are decorated and taken back to the pastry shop.

The ingredients for a delicious dessert

A quality dessert that people will definitely like must meet three criteria. The first is great ingredients. We use quality butter, good flour, natural Tahitian and Madagascar pod vanilla, 100% French fruit puree and not even Belgian, but Swiss and French chocolate, which is best suited for our desserts. This approach brings prices to the appropriate level, but we are not ready to sacrifice quality.

The second moment, which plays the most important role, is the cooking technology. Unfortunately, many desserts in Russia are not brought to perfection: they are made at random. Sometimes confectioners come to me who, glazing the eclair, allow themselves the phrase: "And so it will do!" This is a big problem, because when you make a product for 280 rubles, no negligence is allowed. It should be perfect.

The third rule is the freshness of the food. The sale period for a custard product should not exceed 18 hours. Anything that is not sold during this time should be written off. This is what we do. Every morning new eclairs arrive at the pastry shop. Even if there is an ordinary cream of butter with condensed milk inside, it will still be tasty, because the best dessert is fresh.

Profit and costs

A good indicator of the profitability of the gastronomic business is 20%. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached this figure. At the very beginning, people flooded to us and the indicators were very worthy, but we were so carried away by sales that we forgot to provide the necessary documents to the tax office. As a result, we had to pay 420,000 rubles - unrealistic figures, because we actually didn’t earn that much. This is just a consequence of our negligence.

As soon as we paid off the debt, we had a cash gap for the first time, and since then we have been living without profit.

There is barely enough money to pay off the loan. In addition, we give 400,000 rubles for the lease of the workshop and confectionery, 500,000 rubles goes to the wages fund, 35,000 rubles - for utility bills and another 550,000 rubles - the cost of raw materials together with packaging. We leave about 20,000 rubles a month for other expenses.

In October, we went into negative territory by 123,000 rubles. However, we really hope that the holidays will correct the situation. Seasonality plays an important role in the confectionery business. In the period from December to March, you can earn enough to last for the rest of the year, so we are optimistic.

Life hacking from Alexandra Lamm

• Start with a concept: you need to be very clear about what, to whom, how, how much and for how much you will sell. The concept should be as dry as possible, without emotional attacks like "cute family bakery". It should capture the essence of your business in a few sentences. In any difficulty, first look at the file with your concept and only then make a decision.
• Evaluate all risks from the very beginning and start from the most pessimistic scenario in terms of finance. Mistakes are best made on paper. Constantly ask the question "What if?" and be ready to answer it. Money is fuel. If you have no sales, you have to close. Such a stubborn fact.
• When hiring employees, pay attention to personal qualities, not just professional ones. Catering has a monstrous turnover, so it is important to monitor the team atmosphere and react with lightning speed. Keep in mind: people will leave anyway. You need to take this fact for granted and part with them with a smile and a calm heart.
• Do not under any circumstances deceive the trust of your guests. Reputation is subtle matter. When difficult times come, I really want to start saving - quality always suffers from this. Think differently: not how to spend less, but how to earn more.
• Remember: the only difference between a good entrepreneur and a bad one is that the good one got up after another fall, and the bad one remained lying. Without love for your work and faith in yourself, it is impossible to cope with the difficulties that fall on the shoulders of those who decided to change the world.