Cupcakes anyone?! - Canadians in need of need love

Hello fellow expats!

We have recently moved from Canada to Spain, and everyone keeps asking us "why", as if we moved to some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland crawling with zombies. But let's not get into that right now. Our plan is to start a cupcake shop, like a bar where you can pick and choose your own flavours, combine your all time favourites and experiment with new ones. Also we will offer a treat-of-the-week from the typical North American cuisine, plus coffee & tea so that you can sit down, and enjoy your sweet day properly.

As you can imagine, starting a business in Spain is not as easy as in Canada (where you can literally do it overnight). While we are jumping thru hoops and cutting red tape, (with a large doze of optimism and a healthy sense of humour), we are also looking for a suitable location. The shop will be in the Costa Blanca area, south of Torrevieja. There is a large base of expats here, with a mix of all nationalities.

At this point we need your LOVE and support. Some of the professional baking equipment can be insanely expensive, and there is no substitute for quality. Banks are not to be trusted, so we have set up a crowd funding site, and if you feel generous today, please go ahead and check it out. You can back the project at any level, and there are some great perks associated with each level (mostly cupcakes for YOU!) If this is not an ideal time for a small push, that's fine too, you can still help out simply by forwarding/reposting this link to your friends/family. Please go to the website sponsume and under project search cupcake to find us.

Thank you advance, and looking forward to meeting you in person at our cupcake bar!

Arthur and Shawn

Hi Arthurandshawn..............I wish you the best of luck......................cupcakes are rife in the area you mention! I supply several shops and there are other shops who sell them.

Competition is always good but  be very aware of your area and your clientele!

Have a good look around before you decide where to settle!

love xxx

Your cupcakes will be in great demand-as long as they are reasonably  priced! In p de Mazarron we were charged 9.50 euros for 2 pieces of cake and 2 coffees-won't be going there again!

 Wish you guys the best of luck!! Good to see entrepreneurs in Spain. As mentioned, watch your pricing and keep the quality up and you'll be fine. I'm curious to see how your crowd financing will work in Spain for a local project, it is a very new concept here in Spain and I hope you are successful. I think it is a great way of financing startups and would love to see it work here!!

Thank you all for the kind words, it is very encouraging to us. especially being new around here, everything is so different, and it seems harder than it actually is. Eventually we will find a good location and will make sure everyone knows about it. As long as we get thru the initial stages before the opening. Crowd funding is indeed new here, apparently so new that it doesn't really work.

And yes, good point about the pricing, sweets have to be fun, and not a luxury.

Have a delicious day :)

But, as someone who has been involved in the sale of handmade things - including cupcakes in the past (in the UK), I would have to say that you will have to charge quite a lot per cupcake in order to make a profit.   And even then, if you add in all of your time properly you may find IF you are lucky you are working for something like the minimum wage.   You need to  be realistic with your pricing.  People will pay for quality so don't underprice.   On the plus side, there is a fantastic cupcake 'cafe' in the centre of Madrid, run by a Spanish woman and her son - and they seem to do ok in spite of a lot of competition from more traditional pastelerias AND of course the churroreas around.  

Good luck - love cupcakes myself.

Without being too blunt, youre asking for investors for cash into a new start up without a track record or turnover. Forget the hard economic times because i believe quality will always sell therefore if you have outstanding products priced right then customers will come. I just dont know how many cupcakes you need to sell to pay rent, staff, electricity,water etc etc etc. This sounds more a hobby business, remember the area you are looking at is not Barcelona or Madrid with  millions of people from all backgrounds as your target market. I know if it were me doing this, first i would build a reputaion in the region, bake them off site and sell to trade, markets, deliveries and then later on maybe consider a shop.

 I agree - that is good advice.  Try selling them to local businesses first.   How many cupcakes would you have to sell to cover costs?  A hell of a lot.

 Guys, if i were you, read the article in the website below. This woman has set up a successful cupcake business in London and she discusses how she did it. Obviously there are big advantages in being in London compared to the Costa Blanca but she has some very good advice.

http://www.nationalcupcakeweek.co.uk/page/business_start_up_-_part_1.html

 One more question to the original posters........i actually picked this from the website above but its really important, can you answer.......Do you want to make and decorate cakes for a living?      Look forward to your answer.

At the end of the day we are baking cupcakes from scratch, and when the bar launches everyone can drop in and choose their favourite flavours for cake, filling, frosting and topping. We have the alternative to start at the local market as suggested by some of you. In the article you linked I like the question "Do you want to run a cake company or do you want to be a baker?". Long story short, we are a duo team, one of us loves baking and wishes to focus on the diversity and quality of the product, while the other one loves enterprising, so will take care of the logistics, etc. Of course this is a tight collaboration, and we bounce ideas off each other, while we take on board your input, as our clients are theones we want to make happy. Thanks for your feedback!

 I have no recent first-hand experience of these things, but surely you can get a coffee machine from one of the coffee supply companies for nothing? All you have to do is sell their coffee - usually they'll even provide your crockery and branded sugar sachets etc. I'm fairly sure that's how it works - just as none of the bars have to buy a beer pump - they are provided by the brewery in exchange for selling their beer. Just a thought.

Good luck guys. Some good, if sobering advice on this thread. The only thing I would add is that I MISS NICE CAKE and I can't be the only one, so I'm sure there'll be a market for your stuff.

I guess it's all about what you grew up with, and I love Spanish food in general, but I have to say that their cake/pudding situation is profoundly depressing to this Brit. Sadly I'm in Seville so I'll just have to wait for your mail-order service!

@Roberto: Good thinking, we are going to investigate the coffee industry as well. Thanks for the suggestion!

@ the Newfies: we lived in Toronto, then moved to BC. Shawn has relatives in NL.

@Finisterre: Agreed, they have here totally different ideas re desserts. Although it's hard to reproduce one's memories, we will do our best! You would be surprised how many factors play a role, starting with the obvious ones (ingredients) all the way to the levels of humidity in the air, etc. Baking is chemistry :)

Arthur and Shawn.  I hope you'll have electric ovens.  In the UK I much prefer gas, but the gas ones in Spain (with bombonas) are a complete nightmare for cakes.  Have you tried baking with gas in Spain yet?  The bottoms of the cakes burn before the cakes are cooked if you're not careful - there are all kinds of tricks, like putting a brick in the oven.  I think the problem with gas ovens may be part of the reason why the Spanish bake cakes far less frequently than we do, and buy them instead.  Another tip is to buy the plain flour and then use 'levadura' as it's loads cheaper then buying self raising flour, in my area at any rate.   Spanish people I know can be quite conservative in their tastes and not that willing to try new things, so that is another challenge.  It took a few years before my friends' children would eat my cakes (things like carrot cake, chocolate banana cake etc.), as they were used to those tasteless, fluffy, creamy, expensive ones for birthday celebrations.  In time, they have got to prefer the home-made ones and the mothers have also started to experiment baking them too.  Obviously, the Spanish view of cakes is going to be crucial for your business as it needs to appeal to the native population as well as expats who already know the pleasures of a tasty cupcake.  I agree with those suggesting you should start out in a small way first, like with a stall, so that you can gauge the market before pouring a load of money into a more permanent business.  All the best.

As well as cupcakes, we would like to see fresh cream cakes, doughnuts, meringues etc. Spanish cakes are filled with a horrible artificial cream, and are often heavy sickly things. Can you open a branch on Camposol, near Mazarron , Murcia, once your initial venture is successful, which I'm sure it will be!