My first Magazine The Dream Box_E-Magazine_January 2018 | Page 9

INTERVIEW
Hello Seema, We extend our welcome to you from
The Dream Box. Let’s begin the session by asking you
something about yourself.
Hi, I am Seema Punjabi and I am an MBA in finance
from Christ University, Bengaluru. I love to bake and
am a foodie.
Tell us about how your journey to the world of baking
began.
Following my graduation, I associated myself with
Thomson Reuters for 2 years. I fared pretty well in
my job but then I always felt that I belong somewhere
else and then food being my fascination, I took up
the Home Bakers’ course for baking. Let me tell you,
the first attempt was a disaster. Then after getting
a feel of the things, it got easier. I received my first
order from my manager to bake for a birthday and
that’s when I thought, this is what I love to do and
thus, made a conscious decision to end close the
corporate chapter of my life and begin the full fledged
journey with my passion of baking.
Did your family stand by your decision to become an
entrepreneur?
Yes, I found a lot of support from my family, specially
my dad both morally and financially and I also had my
personal savings to begin with.
Starting fresh, how did you find your way to establish
yourself as a brand?
Initially, a lot of advertisement was required and in
my case it was more of word-of-mouth to reach out
to people mostly friends from my school, college and
dance classes. Once they were aware of my venture
with baking a lot of them did support me for the cause.
My primary focus was more on gaining people’s
attention about what I was doing. So, I participated
in lot of events in schools and colleges to promote
the brand and get people onboard. Apart from that,
Social media as in Facebook and Instagram played a
major role to help me grow.
How did you strategize to attain following in the
social media?
See, gaining attention on social media is a bit
difficult. Unless you have something unique to offer,
it’s a bit tough. I began by conducting contests with
giveaways where people would be asked to guess
the flavor of the cupcake or they would be asked
THE DREAM BOX
to give insights for a new flavor or I would post my
work in different groups. Basically, I wanted it to
be interactive and insightful which helped me grow
across the social media platforms. Apart from that,
since I specialize in eggless baking, this made my
baked items a preferred choice for a lot of people
who opted for eggless items.
Did you go through any course or training specific to
baking?
I started by doing a lot of crash courses specially the
ones by the Home Bakers as it was comparatively
easier to learn from them and I could relate a lot to
them. Then I had the opportunity last year in Dubai to
do baking and pastry art course International Centre
for Culinary Arts (ICCA) where I honed my skills a tad
more.
Where do you see yourself in next 10 years?
Well, I want to see Sugar Fairy grow into an outlet,
a cute café where I can stage my passion. Apart
from that I try to learn a lot from Pooja Dhingra from
Mumbai who is an inspiration to me.
Before we bid adieu, any message for The Dream
Box?
The Dream Box is doing an excellent job by picking
entrepreneurs from general walks of life and
projecting their stories to the larger audience. I am
sure somewhere, somebody is going to be inspired
reading these stories and tell themselves, ‘Oh wow!
Even I could do it.’
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