Starting a home bakery in Pakistan: your first 20 customers

Start with a short menu

Pick three to five things you already make well and can make the same way every time. A chocolate fudge cake that is always good beats a menu of twenty items that are sometimes good.

A short menu also keeps your shopping simple, your costs predictable and your photos consistent.

Price it properly

Add up everything that goes into one order:

• ingredients, including the small things like butter paper and food colour
• the box, the board and the ribbon
• gas or electricity for baking
• delivery, if you pay for it
• your time

Then add a profit. Many home bakers start too cheap to win their first orders, and find it hard to raise prices later. A fair price from day one, with good quality, is easier to keep.

Get the basics right

• Clean kitchen and hair tied back. Customers will ask, and some will judge from your photos.
• Tell customers what is inside, especially nuts, eggs and anything else people are often allergic to.
• Check the rules where you live. Food businesses can need registration with your provincial food authority, and the rules differ by province. Ask before you grow.

Photos that sell

• Use daylight from a window, not a yellow bulb at night.
• Take photos of your own cakes, never pictures from Pinterest or another page.
• Keep the same plain background so your page looks like one business.
• Add short videos: cutting the first slice, piping the cream, packing the box.

Where your first 20 customers come from

1. Family and friends, paying full price. Their orders are practice runs, and their honest reviews are your first proof.
2. Neighbours and your building or society group, where selling is allowed. A tasting box for a few neighbours can start the word of mouth.
3. Colleagues of family members. Office birthdays need cakes every month.
4. Your city's food and home baker groups on Facebook, following each group's rules about posting.
5. Instagram, with regular posts of your own work and a clear way to order on WhatsApp.

Most first orders come from the first two. That is normal. What matters is what happens after each order.

Turn every order into the next one

• Ask every customer for a review the same evening. Here is how to ask on WhatsApp, with messages you can copy.
• Put a small card in the box with your page link or a QR code that opens your review form.
• Share reviews as stories on WhatsApp Status and Instagram, so your customers' friends see them.
• Decide your advance rule before the first custom order. Advance or cash on delivery explains how to ask without losing the order.

Keep one link for everything

New customers who don't know you will want to check you before ordering. Give them one link with every review in one place. A free Reviewdou page gives you that link, a QR code to print for your boxes and story pictures of each review to share.