Cornering the cupcake market can be a tough game despite the popularity of small sweet cake.
Zura, who migrated from Malaysia, knew that if she wanted to build a successful business she needed help, but she felt socially isolated and didn’t know where to start.
Then she joined our Stepping Stones to Small Business program and decided to combine her passion for making cupcakes with her interest in Asian-inspired cuisine. Stepping Stones is a Victoria-wide microenterprise program offering mentoring, training and support to women from refugee, migrant and asylum seeker backgrounds.
“I decided that my point of difference would be Asian-inspired and seasonal cupcakes,” says Zura. Varieties include pandan, teh tarik, miso caramel, lemon meringue, apple crumble, orange curd and many more. Her cupcake business, Happy Crumbs, was born in mid-2018. Zura is a chef, but she found traditional chef environment to be highly stressful. Stepping Stones to Small Business taught Zura about invoicing, budgeting and quoting.
She wrote up a business plan and learnt to market her business. Without the program, Zura says she would still be sitting at home, on the couch and not working. In 2019, Stepping Stones broadened its reach across Victoria and is also available to older women from regional areas. The program helps women to develop new skills and increase business and community participation.
Stepping Stones to Small Business educates migrant and refugee women about money, and builds women’s understanding of how to start a small business in Australia. It also aims to teach business and government leaders about how micro-businesses help refugee and
migrant women, and why communities need more of these small businesses.
