12/06/2016
I am so excited and yet heartbroken to announce that The Purple Baker will be coming to a pause. It is time for me to pursue another little desire of mine! As much as I had initially planned and would LOVE to continue baking alongside this new journey, after much thought, I have decided it is best to put it on a hiatus.
Thank you to all my lovely followers who have showered me with so much support and encouragement from day one. The handful of you who pushed me to ‘just make an IG page at least’, you know who you are! You have been with me through my initial ‘faceless’ professional days until my current crazy long snapchat rant days. My snapchat family (I know you all are here anyways!), you guys gave me the confidence to be ‘me’ in front of virtual strangers and I hope my weird sense of humour gave you some laughter on difficult days.
I apologize if I have ever come across as rude, insensitive or have offended you in any way either via my snapchat spiels or in our conversations regarding orders. Thank you for your patience with me while I was learning on my feet, everything from baking to running a business - and all the social media, financial and artistic aspects of it.
It has been a little over a year in this journey and I just wanted to offer my two cents of what I have learnt from this experience. I did not start The Purple Baker expecting it to grow as it did or even expecting myself to grow as I did – both as a person and more specifically, in my skills. When friends encouraged me to open up a page, I had ENORMOUS doubts. First of all, there are about 10, 000 other baking accounts doing the exact same thing and a large portion of that is serving the same geographical area as me. The only thing that I felt I had going for me, was the eggless and vegetarian niche that was yet to be effectively catered to. So I started the page and I learnt both my initial doubts were wrong. There may be 10,000 other baking accounts but they are most definitely NOT doing the same thing. I forgot that the most important ingredient in what I was doing, was ME. My essence was infused in everything that I created and that was what made it different from other accounts, just as every other account had the raw essence of their owners. The second doubt regarding competition was also shattered when I realized we have a pretty supportive and encouraging network of bakers, party planners and overall artists here in Toronto. The accounts of my fellow Torontonian bakers have inspired me and I hope to have inspired them in return. I also forget the important fact that, there is no such thing as too much cake ;)
My violin master used to tell us that our skill level was 25% raw inborn talent, 50% practice and 25% luck/grace/blessing (whatever you want to call it). I think what I have learnt from this experience is that it’s actually more of a 50/50 between the last two. Trust me when I say I had 0 experience with this type of baking and running a business. I have never taken a class and I started off with only the most basic of tools, which I could find at home or the dollar store. Slowly, I started trying out new things, mainly trial and error and the occasional youtube videos. People began trusting me and asking for designs they had never before seen on my page, so this forced me to learn new techniques as I needed them. Similarly, I slowly starting building on my ‘toolkit’ as I needed for every new design and my kitchen continued to expand. I learnt how to design and run my own website, how to deal with difficult conversations and how to value my work and myself. I truly believe that if had chosen ANYTHING, jewelry making or scarf knitting for all it matters, instead of baking, I still would have come out successful and having learnt this much. It really isn’t about ‘what’ you’re doing. We spend SO much time running after this grandiose ‘passion’ and forget to find passion in what we have. I had a hand mixer, flour and a birthday party – and so I made my first cake. Then you sort of just grow from that first experience, regardless of what the task is. At the end of the day, we do have things that we absolutely hate, which is fine. For me, I learnt my satisfaction came from watching something beautiful come together and so anything that filled my need for that was something I could grow passionate about. And even in these tasks, you will find aspects you don’t like – the important thing is to not let it grow. Take a break when you need, move away from any negativity. If some aspect of your business is giving you more pain than you have room for, change it. It is your business, you can change it and adapt it as how you see fit. Don’t let your initial ideas of how you envisioned it to inhibit you from allowing your craft to evolve - let it change as you and your desires change. This is something I’m constantly telling myself, even today as I decided to address you all about this HUGE change in my business. What I’m trying to say is, don’t stop yourself from pursuing an idea because you think you have no experience, no talent or skill. All these things are collectible along the way, and I am absolutely confident in your ability to collect them on your journey. All you have to do is take the first leap (because I get it, sometimes it feels like more of a leap than a step).
People ask me now that it’s been a year, how much have I ‘made’ from this business. Well this is my answer to that. I can’t put a $ value on this experience. In moments of weakness I look at my tools and wonder whether I should re-sell it. Then I remember all the memories of the gradual growth of my kit and all the late nights, background TV binging and complete excitement that brought it to fruition and I cannot bear to separate myself from it.
Besides, this is a pause, I don’t want to limit it by saying it’s goodbye because your guess is as good as mine with regards to what’s next in store. This page will be up, it may possibly turn into a review page, a personal baking page or a page for my next adventure…WHO KNOWS! The options are endless!
Thank you again for the confidence you all have given me. I only wish the absolute best for each and every one of you and I hope you decide to take a chance on yourself.
Love,
Saraniya
