She initially specialised in baking mouth-watering bespoke cupcakes to order but Pia has now grown the business and employs part time staff to help with the increasing demand. The Vanilla Pod Bakery also currently offers celebration cakes as well a number of other tasty bakery treats. To date The Vanilla Pod has sold over 10,000 cupcakes! 19 months, an award nomination and feature in Vogue later, I caught up with the young entrepreneur to find out the methodology behind her success.

What inspired you to start up your own business?
Originally, I studied in Cheltenham and I discovered that there was a distinct lack of tea shops in the area – this was about three years ago. I thought, “I’d love to have a place of my own one day” and be a bit different by just serving cupcakes. I entered a business planning competition [in 2008] at my University using my tea room idea and amazingly I won! The prize money enabled me to start my business from home, set up a website and buy a lot of equipment.

So you didn’t realize how big cupcakes would be?
Back then I’m not quite sure where the idea came from? I had no idea how big cupcakes would get but now they’re absolutely everywhere so I think I got in at the right time. Through my research for the business plan I went into quite a lot of detail and discovered that the trend was already increasing in the United States. But now there are so many cupcake bakeries opening up. There’s hundreds!

How have you found the journey so far?
It’s been difficult. There’ve been lots of ups and downs. I started from home and didn’t move into a kitchen unit until a few months ago which I was quite happy about because doing it from home was quite stressful.

What have been the highest and lowest points?
The highest point was probably moving into the new kitchen and knowing that this is actually my proper career and thinking “there’s no looking back now, I have to make it work, I don’t want to fail.” Also, we got nominated for a Women In Glousterchire ‘New Business of The Year’ award. I didn’t win but I was a finalist so I was really flattered.

Being nominated is quite an achievement in itself.
Yes, especially because I had no idea about it. I didn’t nominate myself, someone else did so it was just…wow…a really good moment. And the lowest point was when I’d moved house and my oven would only cook one tray of cupcakes at a time! So, when you’re trying to cook hundreds of cupcakes and you can only cook twelve in twenty minutes it was awful. I had to bake all hours of the day just to get a hundred cupcakes done.

In just nineteen months you’ve experienced phenomenal success. Did you think The Vanilla Pod Bakery would take off as quickly as it did?
No, not at all. I don’t think I’ve realized how much I’ve achieved because to me, I’m doing it everyday and don’t get that much of an opportunity to step back and think “oh I’ve come quite far in nineteen months.” Because it’s my everyday life I don’t think of it as a mammoth achievement. Also, I’m not originally from Cheltenham so I’ve had to make my own stamp here. I’m originally from Kent so I’ve had to sort of carve out my own little niche and build up my client base myself, not really getting much help from anyone, but that’s what people have warmed to. It’s purely down to me so that was quite difficult and has been quite challenging.

Was it difficult taking on staff to help with something you’d started alone as the business expanded?
Yes. The first staff member I took on that helped me bake, I was very apprehensive about and it was quite a scary process but if I want to grow it’s one of those things I’m going to have to do. I didn’t want to just be doing it from home for the rest of my life. I would like this to turn into a really viable substantial business so taking on staff is one of those things. Obviously you’ve got all the staffing issues which I’ve been experiencing, but I’ve now got some fabulous girls helping me. I’m really 100% happy with what they’re doing so it doesn’t feel like I’ve given away part of my business, it feels like I’ve gained.

Will you be getting your own retail premises any time soon?
Well I’ve always got my eye out on premises around Cheltenham and there are a few but at the moment I need funding. I need someone to invest and then I could have a tea room. But I don’t want to jump into it if it’s not right. Because I’ve never owned my own shop before, it’s one thing running a small business but another thing running an actual tea room so I just want to take it slowly. Obviously I like a challenge but I’ll wait for the right opportunity to arise.

Finally, do you have any advice for other young female entrepreneurs?
I’d say just go for it. I know that I was quite fortunate that I’d just finished Uni and launched straight into my business whereas if you’re working full time and then you think you have to take a pay cut or “what if it doesn’t work?” But first thing to do is research loads and start off the business in your spare time and then just take the plunge and go for it. If it fails it fails, it’s a learning curve. Just pick yourself up again and go on to the next thing.

You can check out The Vanilla Pod Bakery at www.vanillapodbakery.com

After graduating with an LLB (hons) degree and working in a Solicitor’s firm, Assumpta – the self confessed ‘optimistic realist’, turned down her training contract to pursue her passion for all things poetry and prose and study Creative and Professional Writing (MA). She now works as a freelance writer.