Elizabeth Solaru is the founder of multi award winning Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium, one of the best wedding cake companies in the world. Her company creates innovative, opulent and beautifully handcrafted cakes using the most carefully sourced ingredients.
A pioneer in the wedding industry, her creations have been featured in numerous national and international blogs and publications and have graced the best homes and palaces in the world. Clients include British, European and Middle Eastern Royalty, A list celebrities and ultra high net worth individuals.
Elizabeth has appeared on BBC1, the Good Food Channel, Channel 4, BBC Radio and Sky Living as a luxury expert. A regular on Sky TV, she is the only three times winner of The Great Cake Bake, a show which featured the best wedding cake makers in the country.
A renowned and engaging international speaker and wedding industry judge, she travels the globe speaking to fellow cake makers, women in business, wedding industry professionals and other entrepreneurial groups.
She has spoken in over 10 countries at companies such as JP Morgan, Ernst and Young, Guarantee Trust Bank, WEDx Italia and her work has also taken her to Number 10 Downing Street. She presents on a number of topics ranging from her own inspirational creative journey from Microbiologist and Headhunter to luxury cake maker to the most affluent.
Before you read, Click here to read the part one of this interview with the co-founder of Trueflutter dating app. Watch the interview here.
Your cakes have been featured in movies and have created some of the most prestigious homes worldwide. So how do you stay innovative and continuously push the boundary of cake design?
If you don’t innovate and die as a business. And if you don’t keep up with the times or keep up with the trends, you will fall by the wayside. For me, the way I see things is completely different. I’m able to see patterns in things. So things that don’t even look like they’re related. I have a way of making things kind of relate to each other. For me, my clients tend to inspire my creativity.
One thing that is very rampant in my industry, the cake industry, is that people copy so much. If one thing is trending, everybody wants to create that thing. And to be fair, when I started out, I’m not going to lie, I had the people I copied as well, these big American cake makers who created these things, I’ll be so excited, I’ll try and recreate it and that’s how you initially learn art.
You learn art by copying. And then after that, you develop your own distinct style. So a bit of innovation, a bit of experimentation, because I have a scientific background where we did a lot of experiments. Because people think science is science and art is art. But I tell people there’s a lot of creativity in science, because in science, you have to have a theory. You formulate a theory or a hypothesis.
So you have a hypothesis to know if water is good for you. How do I prove that theory? I will get 10 people to drink 10 bottles of water. Maybe three will drink five. You experiment, right? And in that experimentation comes a bit of creativity along the way you begin to notice that if they drink 10, they might die from too much water intake. My point is that creativity and art is everywhere, but you just need to know where to look for it.
I’m always thinking of doing something a bit different or not out of the box thinking. And that comes to some people naturally. Some people it takes some time, but the most important thing is that it’s all valid. I don’t care what your process is. Some people’s process is easy, some is difficult. Sometimes you can get an external person or just ask the child. I do that sometimes. I remember asking a child once, when you look at this photo, what do you see?
And the child mentioned some random things. And I was like, okay, that’s interesting. Why do you say that? This means that creativity is everywhere. It doesn’t even have to be your creativity. It can be somebody else’s. But for me there’s more to life than just copying, copying.
I also do something that I call pattern interrupt. For example, my book only has five chapters. Ideally, it should have about 12, 13, 20 chapters. But I deliberately use 5 chapters because the number five is one of my favourite numbers. My other favourite number is 14. So I thought why I don’t make my book to have five chapters and people are like that’s interesting. So again just do things slightly differently and it means a bit of risk but there are risks that can be calculated but don’t risk unnecessarily. Take calculated risks, very small risks but take them and see what happens.
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Presently in Nigeria people are scared of taking risks because of our economy
That’s a very valid point you’ve made. Because it’s easy for me to say take risks. But you need to keep your environment as well. So if the environment is not conducive, that’s why I said take calculated risks. Don’t just take risks unnecessarily. Take calculated risks. Now is the time to look for collaborations because there is strength in numbers.
So if I were in Nigeria, for example, I would take a different type of risk and that is collaborating. I may go to the flour manufacturer, the sugar manufacturer, and the egg factory. I will reach out to people like guys you know the economy is bad. We’re not selling. What can we do together? That is a kind of risk that I would take. If that makes sense. So right now is the time to collaborate because we hear stories about the economy.
You have achieved global recognition. How did you build Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium into one of the best luxury cake brands in the world?
I told you about the whole start, the blogging, the shoots, and the collaborating with other people. And trust me, I know the pain of collaborating and people letting me down, even at this level, people will still let you down. Trust me. It never ends. Your character is either good or whatever. But I think the one thing I know I’ve done is the one thing I know I do really well is reaching out to people.
I don’t mind reaching out to people. I don’t mind rejection because if you are not afraid of rejection the sky’s the limit for you. And I always say to people, don’t take rejection personally. If you need to work with 10 people then you need to reach out to a hundred people. It’s also about helping people because the reason I get those opportunities is because I’m the kind of person that connects maybe 10 or 12 people with each other every week. You meet you and I stay out of it.
I’m like, I think you can help here you are. Where I think they can genuinely add value to each other. There was somebody I was chatting with yesterday. I see why she wants to take her business. And there’s somebody I know that can help her. But I said to her, if I introduce you where you are now, that person is not going to treat you well, but you’re not there yet. And I gave her things she can do to build up herself first. So I said to her give it another three, four months, six months, or a year. When you build yourself to that level, then come back to me I will do the introduction.
Sometimes you need to be aware of where you are. Because there are people I approached 10 years ago, they didn’t respond to my email. But now I approached them and they responded. Sometimes when you’re building, you need to bide your time, take your business as a house. The first thing you build is your solid foundation. The frustrating thing about a foundation is that nobody can see it, except the builders. I have never seen anyone go to a skyscraper and say what a lovely foundation.
I can assure you that the foundation of that skyscraper is three times deeper than the skyscraper itself. The point is that when you’re building it’s about people that have said no to you and then you leave them for a while. Then you go back after two, three years when you’re making progress. Sometimes before people help you, they want to see you make progress because they don’t want to waste their help.
Because if they introduce you to someone and you’re unable to deliver because you’re not there yet, it’s disappointing for you and it’s disappointing for them. So sometimes we need to sit back and think about what I’m trying to build. What is the best way to build what I’m trying to build? But I also believe that the people that will help you will appear at every stage of your building and your levelling up.
The people that truly want to help you will overlook certain things. When I’m helping people, I think that there are certain things that are fixable. For me, it’s about character. If you say you want to do something at a certain time and you do it at a certain time, other things are fixable. But integrity and having values are what matters most. And also, you know,
To build my brand to this level it wasn’t plain staining. Some people will hate you, some people will love you. And the people that hate you will go out of their way to make sure to destroy you. Let’s do an Instagram Live and blast this person to death. And I say people, when people are blasting you on Instagram Live are you going to an Instagram Live in response. Or are you going to ignore it and continue building? Because if you decide to respond to every person that barks at you. You will never get to your destination.
So you need your eyes to be fixed to your destination. Understand that some people will be upset. If they’re, then you need to ask yourself, is it valid? Because to some people it’s valid. Maybe you’ve done something to them and you’re unaware, or maybe you’ve done something that they didn’t like. If you can apologize, apologize. If you don’t want to apologize, then let everybody move on. But my point is, you need to really focus on what you’re building. Also, along the way you need to make sure you’re helping people.
How did you build systems and processes for the smooth running of your business?
What you need to do when you set up your business is to look at every area of your business. You have marketing, risk management, strategy, and finance. You need to write them out on paper or on the floor. Make it visual. And then you need to be honest with yourself here. I am very good in this area. I’m not so good in that area.
Now, if you’re a solopreneur where you’re doing everything by yourself, you may not be able to hire people that are very good at doing certain things. This is another area where you can collaborate as well. If somebody else is in business, you can share an accountant, marketing and social media person, or share an operations person with the person.
So there are ways in which you can collaborate to ensure your business is running okay. This is a model that I use. I look at every area of my business. Sometimes the only time we think about the money as an artisan is when I look at my bank account and find it almost empty. That tells me that I’ve not been running the other areas of my business well. This will make me go back to the drawing board to know what I didn’t do. Do I have enough clients coming through the pipeline? If I don’t have enough clients that means I have to get out there and network.
How do you balance running the business while being a global speaker and an industry judge?
I know they’re separate but I think they’re all the same as well. Because I look at it as a circle, if I have my business model is very cyclical. That’s because when I speak, that gives me exposure. To some people credibility, authority, and you’re seen as an authority. And that brings attention, it brings me clients. When I judge, I’m seen as somebody with wisdom and again that brings me clients. Then when I do the cake design, it shows my clients that she’s still artistic, she’s still running the business.
Obviously time management is very important. I’m very strict with my time. I know what to do on certain days they’re all planned out. I know what I have to do at certain times. If I have to wake up at five in the morning and get all my emails out of the way. I do what I need to do. Most importantly, I make sure I build in time to rest. There’s one day a week, you cannot get me out of bed because without that rest my brain will be too fatigued because I think a lot.
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What are your future plans for Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium?
The ideal life for me would be to continue on the same path, do my speaking, write my books, and do the odd cake. Because I don’t do volume cakes anyway. I only make a few cakes. So I just want to be able to pick and choose the cake I want to make. I continue on the path of making innovative and fantastic cakes, and still do my speaking and still write my books.
Right now what I’m discovering is that there is a lot more to be said in the luxury industry. We need a bit more diversity. Africa is really rich in diversity. Africa is rich in artisans and so many people can do amazing things. But like you said, they are constrained by the economy, by the lack of opportunity. So for me, it’s about how we can find a way to create those opportunities. It would be lovely to have in a business school, a course or a lecture on creating a luxury brand because our culture is so rich.
We are used to luxury, to us luxury is not really a big deal because even our culture is rich. The outfits we wear, the food we eat, our accessories are already rich. So to us wearing designer sunglasses or having a designer handbag, it just complements the outfit. It’s something we’re used to but unfortunately because of the state of our economy, people had this idea that Africa is poor. And I’m like who told you Africa is poor, Africa is not poor, it’s over exploited.
Africa is over-exploited or Africa is not ruled well, the governance is poor. Because the governance is poor doesn’t mean the people are poor. The poor people you see in Africa are the result of mismanagement and over exploitation by everybody because we can not sit down and blame African rulers. But guess what? Corruption is everywhere. America and the UK are battling massive corruption right now.
So nobody can look me in the eye and say Africa is corrupt. Says who? Corruption is the result of human failing. But the only unfortunate thing is that the effects of it are shown more with African people. I want to see some amazing luxury brands. And there are a few already. But I want more luxury brands to come out of Africa. That’s my dream.
What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs who are just starting their journey?
If I were a young entrepreneur in Africa right now, starting my journey, I would run, not walk. I would run to TikTok. I would spend my data learning. I’ll go on YouTube, watch free videos and learn whatever it is I want to do. This can be handbags, shoes, writing, whatever it is I want to do. I would beg people not to give me money, just send me data.
Then the second thing I would do while I’m young and have the energy is that I would create as many videos as possible on TikTok. I know TikTok doesn’t monetize African content makers, apparently. Even if I have to switch my VPN to show that I’m based in monetized countries, I don’t care, I will do it. While I’m on TikTok, I’ll start reaching out to certain brands. TikTok may not pay you from the creative fund but if you grow your audience and reach out to brands, you can get sponsorship.
You can use a TikTok video in many places. You can even put it on YouTube and can pay you for advertising. So if you can get that model right with TikTok, you can then move to YouTube and Instagram, and then try and get as many brand deals as possible. Once you start doing that, then you can start reaching out to even better brands. If you are currently in the place that’s not giving you what you want, but you have a very tiny chance of reaching out. Please do so.
The younger generation understands technology in a way that I never will, therefore use it to your advantage. Don’t just buy data to know the latest gist in town or the hottest gossip. There’s money to be made and family to be looked after. So use your data to learn, go on YouTube, learn, put some of it into practice and learn again. Also, you need to really promote your business every day. And if people don’t like how you’re promoting your business that’s their problem.
Contact Founder of Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium:
- Elizabeth Solaru
- Luxury Business Emporium website
- Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium website
- Elizabeth Solaru on LinkedIn
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