IPOH: Ask a “successful” person for advice on how they achieved that success and one common answer will always be “you got to have patience” — the same goes for Nur Iylia Shahriman, the owner of “My Ultimate Bakes”.
It took her three years to be able to raise enough capital to start her own business. The patience paid off well for the die-hard coffee lover when she was able to open her own pastry and coffee shop in early 2020.
Nur Iylia, 32, said she was able to raise about RM100,000 to open the cafe, which is located at the Manhattan Business Centre on Jalan Pengkalan Putra near here.
The woman, who hails from Batu Gajah said it had been her wish since her student days at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, to own a cafe.
Nur Iylia, who is the third child of four siblings and holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) Seri Iskandar, said she started saving to raise funds to open her dream cafe by selling her home-baked cakes and coffee.
“The first thing I did was to learn to bake cakes, which I did through YouTube. I started my cake business on a small scale from home in Batu Gajah.
“It started with just making cakes, but with the increase in demand, I needed more space and occupied a corner at my father’s office for use to sell cakes, biscuits, brownies and coffee,” she said when met by Bernama here.
Nur Iylia said she used social media such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to promote her business.
“There are about 50 types of pastries, cakes and coffee sold at my cafe. The pastries and cakes are baked daily to ensure their freshness.
“ My cafe also accepts orders to make wedding and birthday cakes,” said Nur Iylia, who is now assisted by eight employees to run her cafe which opens from 11 am until 6.30 pm daily.
On her future plans, Nur Iylia said she hoped to expand her cafe business by having branches. She also sells brownies and biscuits online.
“Although there is stiff competition among entrepreneurs, we, the bakers, have our own recipe to make our products stand out from others.
“My Ultimate Bakes uses high-quality premium ingredients to meet customer satisfaction and I accept feedback from customers, whether positive or negative, because the information can help me to improve,” she added. — BERNAMA
