This Valentine’s Day, we thought of featuring a sweet shop that’s perfect for all sweet lovers out there. Mariam Sadeq opened Malt.bh as a passion and it has now evolved into a business. Read on and be inspired! Or tempted to order cakes and brownies 🙂 

Please tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and what inspired you to open Malt.bh?  

My name is Mariam. I was born and raised on this beautiful island. I always loved baking and watching my mum make delicious cakes so I think making sweets came naturally to me as I watched it being done at such a young age. Also, my father has a massive sweet tooth, and growing up, I’d always bake him a cake on Fridays (family day) and I still do.

I remember though, studying in the UK I’d always want to surprise my friends with a customized cake on their special occasions which would be a more personal gesture,  instead of buying a simple store-bought cake, so I would often do that. I also love art and wanted to merge my passion for both together,  to be able to create custom birthday cakes/desserts and designs and hoped to turn it into a business one day but it wasn’t until a friend of mine made me realize how good I was at it and helped me set up my page online – that’s when things got rolling and I decided to pursue baking as an online business, bearing in mind that my prices would always be reasonable enough so that anyone could afford special (personalized) cakes and desserts.

You come from a family of entrepreneurs and business people, what was the most important lesson that you learned from your family?

My father is my role model and also a man of high morals. The most important lessons instilled in me are, to pursue your goal with passion, hard work, honesty, integrity;  ethically and respectfully, with the aim to achieve positive results. I learned to separate my business ambitions from my personal life, and not allow setbacks to affect me emotionally and to tackle difficult situations/ work with resilience.

What is the vision for Malt.bh?

To provide the best products and personalized service to happy customers. Any business requires satisfied customers to keep returning for more of the good stuff.

Can you give us an insight into the operations side of your business and do you plan to scale?

Malt operates pretty much like any other online business where we receive queries or requests on our social media platform on Instagram (usually a day or two in advance for customized orders) and we work according to our customer’s requests, of course practicing good safety and hygiene standards. I personally like to note down all my delivery dates/baking tasks when we receive orders so I can minimize the chance of forgetting a responsibility and then starts the preparation.  Everything from receiving the orders to execution is given a personalized touch – the end result is achieving a happy and repeat customer.

There’s a lot of competition in the home baking business market which has grown in popularity over the last few years, but actually, they’ve been around for a while and of course, we aspire to scale our business to cater to a wider audience and increase our potential customer base. Ultimately, we want to have a physical shop or cafe where we can interact with our valued customer(s) in person but presently a lot of that depends on how life progresses under the COVID-19 pandemic 😷 and its restrictions.

What advice can you give to budding startups and entrepreneurs, especially post-Covid, who want to set up their own businesses?

You might be a long aspiring business/entrepreneur who has hustled hard to open your own business and that takes courage and determination during the current testing times so congratulations!

Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a global pandemic where launching any new business comes with a great deal of uncertainty especially given the current scenario. It may seem daunting at best and foolish at worst. However, you would need to quickly adapt to the new realities of the post-COVID business world and prepare for the challenges that would come with it and because the pandemic is ongoing, it’s difficult to say given the current situation – how things will evolve.

A digital strategy will be the key for any budding business in the near future. Explore the use of technology and digitalization for improved services and better reach for your business. Be flexible, innovative, and more resilient when it comes to making changes and identify opportunities to protect your business. These are challenging times, testing business all over the world, so by preparing now for when operations pick back up, you can help your business remain resilient and viable.

Follow them on Instagram: malt.bh