A 19-YEAR-OLD has revealed how he turned a cake baking side hustle into an £80,000 a year job.
Justin Ellen, has always had a sweet tooth and loved to bake cakes with his mum and his grandma in the school holidays.
“We would bake everything from pies to cookies to breads”, he told CNBC’s Make It.
Justin became really passionate after watching lots of cake baking videos on YouTube and began practicing and practicing in his kitchen.
“They actually came out really good, and I enjoyed it too”, he said.
After Justin, from New Jersey USA finished school, he decided that university wasn’t for him, and decided to pursue his cake baking dream instead.
He set up his business, Everything Just Baked, in 2021 and now sells custom-made cakes, for weddings and birthdays.
He has also hired his family members to help him out with the business.
His mum helps with shopping, food deliveries and baking, his dad does lots of the deliveries, his younger sister does his social media, and his older sister does the graphic design for the website.
Justin’s smallest cakes, which feed 10 to 12 people cost £125 and the most expensive cake he has ever sold cost £2700.
The entrepreneur said that people travel for hours for his cakes and he has even appeared on the Netflix show Is It Cake? where contestants make lifelike replicas of objects out of cake.
Justin bakes his cakes in a warehouse that he rents out for around £1500 a month.
He said the most expensive costs for running his business are buying ingredients and the energy costs of using the commercial kitchen.
The baker, who made £80,000 from his business in 2021 said he gets most of his clients from social media, and from word of mouth.
He added: “I have managed to create a loyal fanbase, so I have a lot of loyal customers”.
Justin said he works “pretty much every day” and tries take off Mondays to give himself a break.
“Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are usually my busiest days”, he said.
The cake making pro usually makes around six cakes a week and revealed that on his busiest week, he made 19 cakes.
“I died that weekend”, he said.
Justin often gets inspiration for his cakes in the shower and said his favourite part of the job is being able to be “part of people’s memories”.
He said: “People usually send me a text saying they loved my cake or I made their wedding more memorable and it’s really touching”.
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