It was not hard to find the building. I just followed through the directions heading towards the Basketball court at Golfutar and, there it was- the chitters and chatters of children (51 of them to be exact) coming from a building, painted in yellowish orange, that had inside, the factory of Bakes and Cakes housing seven year olds who were excited for Little Baker’s Weekend.

 The insides of the building had a smell that the best of bakeries do and the sound never stopped as we strolled into the building. In front of our sight were stories and stories of trays filled with freshly baked tarts which being elevated to the top floor where the little bakers were waiting for pizzas, brownies and cookies that they made, to arrive. The students of Sanskriti school, who came for an extra-curricular session designed to complement food studies of their school syllabus, were divided into four groups, and each group learned a different recipe for their make, bake and sell project.

 “As teachers, we teach them many things. But, they have to be involved in activities like this to learn some valuable lessons in life and understand no work is big or small while realizing the importance of work,” shared one of the enthused teacher in the compound. It was not hard to see, the seven year olds excited about their make and bake had more than just the pizzas, tarts, cookies and brownies to take home.

The Idea

Little Bakers’ Weekend offers baking classes to students and individuals willing to learn the art and science of baking. Many schools and parents have contacted since baking classes rolled out near end of February this years. The idea originally designed as a half-day baking class for children in school has now gone into adding skill-sets to students looking to go abroad. Shristi Joshi and Avinash Pradhan, the husband-wife duo are bringing in their skills, networks and resources to develop the market driven idea into a business in itself.

 The idea, according to Joshi, came on a fluke, when her eight year old niece visited her back in February. “I was tired of watching movies and cartoons to accompany her, so i asked my niece if she wanted to try something new and something fun,” says Joshi. After the child agreed, Joshi convinced Pradhan to put his skills in place. They took a video of their niece learning how to bake and shared it with their friends on Viber, which made their friends want to send their children over too.   

Responding to Market

Looking at how the market responded, Joshi and Pradhan decided to put together Little Bakers’ Weekend with simple intentions to get children into baking. They designed half-day classes entitled ‘Make, Bake and Take’ for children, created a facebook page and promoted it among their peers and network. Slowly, schools started contacting them to design co-curricular for their students. And they did it.

Finally, few people following them on facebook recognized baking skill as a valuable added skill. If you want to go abroad for studies, just contact them. The initial weekend fun is now turning into customized training courses for people willing to enhance their cooking and baking skills. People come in groups and contact the team for the recipe they want to learn, Joshi plans and schedules classes and Pradhan turns into the coach and teaches the interested students. Anyone interested to join the program can schedule their classes for the weekdays as well.

Going Entrepreneurial

Any foundational course on entrepreneurship introduces an entrepreneur as someone who makes use of available skills, networks and resources to create something of value for others. In this case, Joshi and Pradhan using the skillsets and resources at their disposal are doing exactly that- adding value to market as well as Bakes and Cakes. Currently, Little Bakers’ Weekend is simply an extension to already established Bakes and Cakes slowly finding their feet in the market- trying to make baking and cooking fun for everyone. But, both the responsible people, though, are looking to start a different venture of their own in due time.  

I always thought entrepreneurship was all about aiming high, taking huge risks and going far enough to get your resources in place. But, after seeing what Joshi and Pradhan did with whatever they already had I realised you don’t always have to do so. Sometimes, all you need is a little icing on the resources you already have.