I was a single mum-of-6 with £4 to my name – I turned my kitchen side hustle into an £8m business, here’s how
A SINGLE mum of six has revealed how she went from only having £4 in her bank account, to owning a multi-million dollar business.
Mignon Francois started her business in 2008 during a recession, during which time she couldn’t afford to turn on the electricity or to bathe her children.
Speaking UpFlip she said: “I was so tired of being sick and tired and I heard the man on the radio say that you could get out of debt by having a bake sale or a garage sale”.
Desperate to make some cash to feed her hungry children, Mignon used her last £4 to buy ingredients to make cake.
She had never baked before but started practicing and handing out cakes to her neighbours.
One day a neighbour asked her to bake cakes for all of her work clients, and said that she would pay Mignon as she baked.
By the end of the week, she had managed to turn her £4 into over £470.
“I’ve been flipping that same money for the last 17 years to the tune of $10 million”, She said.
Mignon’s business, the cupcake collection has now sold over five million cakes.
She said: “We’ve done that with no debt, no experience, no loans.
“I believe that all you have is all you need to get you from where you are to wear you want to be”.
At first, she ran the business out of her home, and then as the Cupcake Collection became more fruitful, she was able to buy a shop to sell her cakes from.
She was then able to hire a whole host of staff, to help her with all aspects of the business.
Mignon, from Nashville, Tennessee said that a “game changer” in her business journey was to sell her cupcakes out and about in a cupcake bus.
The bus was the first of it’s kind in her area, and helped her to stand out from other business.
Sharing advice to people who are thinking of starting their own business, but don’t have cash to spend on marketing, she said that word of mouth is “worth it’s weight in gold”.
How to start your own business
Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis revealed his tips for budding entrepreneurs:
- One of the biggest barriers aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners face is a lack of confidence. You must believe in your idea — even more than that, be the one boring your friends to death about it.
- Never be afraid to make decisions. Once you have an idea, it’s the confidence to make decisions that is crucial to starting and maintaining a business.
- If you don’t take calculated risks, you’re standing still. If a decision turns out to be wrong, identify it quickly and deal with it if you can. Failing that, find someone else who can.
- It’s OK not to get it right the first time. My experience of making bad decisions is what helped develop my confidence, making me who I am today.
- Never underestimate the power of social media, and remember the internet has levelled the playing field for small businesses.
- Don’t forget to dream. A machine can’t do that!
She said that when she first started her business, she would walk up to complete strangers and ask them to try her cakes, and then spread the word to her friends and family.
Mignon, who is a former journalist has now written a memoir, titled Made From Scratch, to share her story and to inspire others to start their own businesses.
“When people see what my business has turned into, from a girl who didn’t know how to bake, I hope that encourages somebody to know they can do it to”.
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