Halima Adeniji: Entrepreneur who turned passion into baking

Halima Adeniji is the chief executive officer of ‘Cakes on Point’, a start-up that offers outdoor and indoor baking services in Lagos and its environs.

The success of her mother, who is also a baker, inspired Halima to set up this business in 2015. Halima learnt baking when she was 13. Apart from her mother being a baker, Halima was inspired to establish this business owing to her passion for baking which prompted her to pick up a job at a cake company immediately after her tertiary education.

She was able to raise her initial start-up capital from personal savings she made while working in a cake company.

“I got my inspiration from my mum because she knows how to bake and also sells baking items. When I was young, each time I went to her shop, all I wanted to do was to look at cake catalogues and imagine how the cake would be,” she explained.

“I started my business really small. I worked for a cake company before I decided to start my own business. Every month, after I collected my salary, I saved half of it, buy one or more baking equipment. Gradually, I was able to start my owing baking business,” she said.

The Computer Science graduate told Start-Up Digest that her business has grown since starting and has continued to remain in business owing to the excellent services she renders to her clients who in turn recommend others for her.

“I ensure that I satisfy my customers so that they can always come back and also refer me to others,” the baker said.

The young entrepreneur said that she sourceds her raw materials from local markets across the country. This, according to her, is the way to go in Nigeria where manufacturers source the majority of their raw materials from abroad.

When asked about the challenges confronting her business, Halima told Start-up Digest that lack of finance is the greatest challenge her business sufferes from. According to her, lack of funding forced her to set up this business early enough, as she was unable to secure enough funds for business registration as well as financing the business proper.

She urged the federal government to provide adequate grants and loan opportunities to youths with entrepreneurship minds, stating that a lot of young people with wonderful business ideas are yet to go commercial owing to inadequate funds to finance their businesses.

Apart from finance, Halima said that high cost of food items and inadequate power supply are key challenges confronting her business now. She stated that adequate power supply is the backbone of any economy, calling the government to ensure adequate supply of power for start-ups and businesses to survive.

She said that it will be impossible for start-ups and MSMEs to realise their potential in the absence of power.

When asked what her advice is to other entrepreneurs, Halima said, “There are going to be hard times but never give up, dream big, aim high ,pray very hard, work hard and success is yours.”

Josephine Okojie