May Ee Fong 5:15
So I first graduated with a degree in accounting. I knew nothing about the bakery business, except that I enjoyed baking from home. So I first started saying, hey, you know, actually, it’d be nice to own my own bakery. Right. But let’s start with coming up the recipe first. So I just like any other homemaker, I just Googled for recipes online, you don’t try to do it. And then they thought I didn’t like the result. And I started to put on a scientific lens to it, where I say, okay, so how would adding additional X or adding additional flour, changing the type of flour, change the overall recipe? And after, like a very difficult journey, I came up with what I thought was the perfect chocolate cake recipe. Yeah, and I started to sell it over Facebook and Instagram. And that was how I started. Oh, yes.
Odette D’Aniello 6:07
Nice. Okay.
May Ee Fong 6:12
So, in Singapore rental is very, very expensive. I never ever thought that I would open a shop, or let alone a central kitchen. Yes, I always thought I’ll just keep it within my home, and I’d big with my own home oven and sell it from home. And so that was how I just chanced upon this model of you selling online and delivering it to people’s houses.
Odette D’Aniello 6:37
So you used to bake yourself and then would deliver it?
May Ee Fong 6:41
Yes, I would do everything myself, and of course, with the help of my family members. So, I still remember the times when I deliver cake, and I’m very fearful of dogs and cats. So I had to overcome my fear of dogs and cats so that I wouldn’t drop the cake when I deliver to people’s houses in case the only one you know.
Odette D’Aniello 7:03
Wow, how did you? How did you get the name Bob the Baker Boy. Yeah,
May Ee Fong 7:09
So, I’m someone that loves to laugh a lot. And stand up comedy is just some of my favorite things. So I remember that time when I just started my bakery. I was just watching this comedian. His name is called Bob. Yeah, I was just laughing at all these videos and my family to see you know, if you like Bob so much, why don’t you just name your bakery Bob. And it rhymes right? Bob the baker, Bob the baker. And so I say, okay, just name my bakery Bob the Baker and a boy behind behind because it sounds cute. Right? And so Bob the Baker Boy was born. Now the story is I want to make people happy just like how Bob made me happy.
Odette D’Aniello 7:48
Oh, I love that. So are they surprised that you’re this amazing Asian woman? And they’re like, where’s Bob?
May Ee Fong 7:56
So a lot of people thought that a Bob was really the baker behind the brand until they see it’s a young woman. Oh, my God. Usually surprised.
Odette D’Aniello 8:10
I was surprised. I was like Bob the Baker Boy, you would think you’d be made cakes or something. So how did you transition from being a home baker to going into a commercial kitchen? Hmm.
May Ee Fong 8:26
So I think um, okay, so now if I were to look back today, I feel like the home baking days were actually the hardest days. Yeah, so those were the days that I worked like 16 hours a week and then I picked to my hand to a blue and and so home bakers can definitely resonate with this problem. Where after you bake for 16 hours, you go back to your phone and you see inquiry saying hey, why aren’t you replying me? You know, but you’re doing everything yourself. Right? So I think I got really tired and I told myself I really needed more help. But in order to hire, I needed to have a shop space, I cannot hire. I cannot hire and continue to stay at home. Right? And after doing some calculation and I said okay, I think I’m gonna rent a space because only if I rent a space can I hire bakers to offload that duty? Yeah, and do things that are a bit more strategic for the brand. Right.
Odette D’Aniello 9:25
And then so you you, how did you get your first space?
May Ee Fong 9:28
Okay, so Singapore rent are super expensive. I love to open the mall in the town. But actually the truth is I just picked up somewhere that’s really near my house. So I picked this space for very, very practical reasons not because it has high walk ins or traffic but it’s primarily because it’s near my house so that I can you know shuttle to and from in case I needed anything as soon as possible. And that the per square feet was a decent price. Yes. How did you find was all in the consideration? So I saved everything that I earned from my home baking days. And I poured and reinvested everything into this shop. And my first few hires,
Odette D’Aniello 10:14
yes. Oh, that’s amazing. So you were at home, you just started, and then you just kept growing and you saved your money, and got your face? Did you ever? Are you still in that space? Or did you go bigger? Yes. So
May Ee Fong 10:29
that was my first space. So to briefly walk you through the journey, it was a 300 area square feet space. And in a year, we decided that, hey, we actually need a separate baking unit, we grew to a 600 ish square foot space. Then we moved on to 1500 square feet space. And now we are in a central kitchen of about 4030 square feet.
Odette D’Aniello 10:54
That’s amazing. Yeah, I would definitely love to come again. And I would love to visit your your, your store. We talked about that. When we were in Manila. That would be amazing.
May Ee Fong 11:05
Yes. Likewise.
Odette D’Aniello 11:08
I know, I know that you have done like, you have gone viral in so many different ways. You have like these the money cake. You know, like when you pull money out? Like that’s huge and popular. So tell us about like, how did you go viral? Like it? How did you how did you become like the go to for all these famous? You know, stars in Asia?
May Ee Fong 11:34
Okay, so, okay, let me answer the questions part by part. So I wouldn’t say for the money pulling cake, we went viral. But more like we became popular because of that. We were not the people who created this concept. We were just very close followers of this trend. Because it was saying,
Odette D’Aniello 11:57
Sorry to interrupt you explain to our listeners what the money cake is.
May Ee Fong 12:04
Okay, so wait, sorry, is this is this trend? Is this trend something that is also available in in the US?
Odette D’Aniello 12:18
I don’t see that it’s a trend. And it’s at the bakery. We’ve done it at the bakery maybe just a few times. But I’ve seen it a lot in the Philippines. You know the money thing? Yes. And more in Asia than the US I have not seen it a lot in the US now.
May Ee Fong 12:40
So yeah, so in Asia, people always say come see, Pattaya means wish you when you get rich, right. In, in the Chinese culture, which is in Asia. Wishing people to get rich is a very auspicious greeting during their birthdays. And so I think this concept came up from the Philippines, and then we just followed it. So what happens, what happens here is we will put money into a plastic sheet, transparent plastic sheet, we will roll them in a toilet paper roll concept, hide it in a cake, attach it to a topper. And then on birthdays, the birthday celebrates, we’ll just pull out the top of vertically, and money will roll out. So a lot of people think that it’s a very fun concept the bride, on their birthday. Yeah, that was how that came about. And why not many bakeries do that is because it’s really very troublesome, we get a lot of cash. We use 10s of 1000s of cash every week for this cake. So we need to prepare that left that amount of cash, we need to go to the bank every every every other week. So it’s it’s not something that is the most time efficient.
Odette D’Aniello 14:10
What’s the current exchange when you say 10s of 1000s of Singapore dollars. That’s about us. So you would be pulling cash out from your bank to fund this cake, these cakes, but your customers are paying it?
May Ee Fong 14:27
Yes, yes, correct. Correct. So we have a money pulling account. So every time someone buys a money pulling cake, they will put the amount that they want in the cake and the deposit into this holding account. And this holding accounts we will deposit everything out from the bank every week in the denominations that we want. So like $2 $10 $50 So I see you shaking your head. I’m also shaking my head inside. Yeah, it’s a it’s it’s not a very efficient process. But it’s something that delights in I think we are here to make people feel very special loved and cherished on their birthdays. And that’s that extra mile that we go to make them feel this way.
Odette D’Aniello 15:15
That’s incredible. That’s amazing. I know. But then you have that. So then from there, did it go from there to the custom designed cakes, etc?
May Ee Fong 15:34
Okay, so no, we started custom designed case first before the money pulling cake or money pulling cake was just a trend that we rode on that people feel like feel today. How we went viral for other reasons. We’re number one was content on our Instagram to continue to come up with content that we think will interest the audience. So remember, we had one content that talked about how to mix colors? How do you make a pale yellow buttercream look more white-ish? You know, and that had like millions of views. So that was the first time we hit virality. We just put in titanium? No, we just put purple coloring. Purple coloring. Yes. Just a little bit of purple coloring into pale yellow, but a green and yellow look a little bit whiter. Color cancellation? Yeah.
Odette D’Aniello 16:33
That sounds like Oh, titanium dioxide. No, okay. It’s purple color. If that makes a lot of sense, actually.
May Ee Fong 16:42
Yes, it does. Yeah. So so that’s what we did. Yeah.
Odette D’Aniello 16:48
So you started teaching? Basically, it’s online, like it basically became your content became more of a teaching moment for the people that were like that were following you.
May Ee Fong 17:02
I think for us that that the constant challenge is, how can we engage the people who are following us? By not just spamming them with pictures of cakes and promotion? By about how can we create value in that space? How can they today, when they follow our account, they can learn something from us, or we can establish ourselves as an authority in the cakery space, cake design.
Odette D’Aniello 17:29
Oh, I love that. That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. So it’s not just product. So you’re you’re basically just it’s more of like your service, you know, your, your, your teaching, it’s educational.
May Ee Fong 17:45
But we also mindful to keep that nice balance between because we are actually, after all, still a product company. And I would say all the little tips and tricks here and there the how tos they are the icing on the cake. Pun intended.
Odette D’Aniello 18:00
Exactly. So now your place do you do? Is it a walk in? Do you have a retail? Or do you? Is it more of a delivery service still?
May Ee Fong 18:10
So so they it is still more of a delivery service? We have no intentions to go to retail for now. Because I still think that in Singapore retail is a very, very expensive model. And yeah, so we primarily market online, people order online, and then we deliver. So it’s more like a tall kitchen concept where we have a central kitchen where we bake and decorate. And then we deliver.
Odette D’Aniello 18:35
What about do you have a delivery service? Or you have your own drivers?
May Ee Fong 18:39
Yeah, so we have half of them that are in house and the other half that will help us to backup or seasonal orders.
Odette D’Aniello 18:52
Oh, do you ever hope to wholesale?
May Ee Fong 18:56
Wholesale? Okay, so yeah, that’s an interesting question, right? Because now we are actually starting to explore doing corporate orders. So in the sense where today if you are a business owner, and you want to delight your teammates, or your clients, and every year we have so much gifting to do, but so little time. So we do kind of like the birthday subscription service, or festival in subscription service. Yeah, where we calculate by per drop. And we have a fixed number of designs. All you need to do is to give us the name, the contact number, the address, and we’ll deliver in your stipulated date. Everything is planned in advance and it’s so possibly how’s that going?
Odette D’Aniello 19:41
How’s that going? The service?
May Ee Fong 19:45
Good . We just started about six months ago. And we find that there are increasingly people who want to delight their clients and their teammates that are coming on board this program. And how did you market that So we have people to always work to find a key opinion leaders in these spaces to share how all of these will benefit. The team culture as a whole.
Odette D’Aniello 20:14
You said key, what is that?
May Ee Fong 20:16
The opinion leaders? Key opinion leaders? Yeah. How did you?
Odette D’Aniello 20:23
How did you find key opinion leaders,
May Ee Fong 20:25
Mandisa friends within our circle? HR influencers? Yeah. Business leaders?
Odette D’Aniello 20:36
That’s amazing. What about? What about like, Do you do any kind of wholesale? Other than that? Do you do groceries? Or do you do restaurants? Food Service?
May Ee Fong 20:49
No, no, we do not have intentions to go to that space for now. Being?
Odette D’Aniello 20:55
Yeah, it’s hard to scale. Right? The whole food service bit?
May Ee Fong 21:02
I would say because our, our kitchen is not designed for that, because and I’m sure anybody, you can resonate with those problems very much more, in a sense, where you need to slice the cakes, and then the texture, the design of the cake, how long? How long before the cake dries out all of these methods, when we think about supplying to restaurants and cafes. Right? So yeah, and I feel our our product was not designed for that for now. Totally understand. So
Odette D’Aniello 21:44
I wanted to just ask you really quick, I know you have a family, you have you have what? Tell me about your family life and how you balance it with running a business?
May Ee Fong 21:57
Ah, let me think about how I can answer this question. So I belong to a very tight knit family. I started my business with my family beside me all the time. So they were the ones who supported me in everything that I wanted to do. And even though they invested so much in my education, you know, all the way to 21 years old when I said, Hey, actually, I don’t want to work outside, I want to start my own bakery business. And they just say yes, without a doubt. And they were just there to support me throughout. Yeah, so at the start, my mum and dad, they were the ones who really went out and helped to deliver the cakes, but I could just focus on doing the cakes at home. Um, yeah, and you’ll be surprised to know that it is like that all the way till now. Just that my mom’s job got upgraded. Soon, she became the Delivery Manager. And she manages the deliveries, the route the problems, the delivery drivers. My dad is really just the sideline. He’s retired, happily retired, taking care of like two of my two of his cute grandson and granddaughter. And the reason why we are still giving him some cakes along at the side is to promote active aging. Yeah, so that he doesn’t just stay at home. Right? Yeah, but yes, to promote active aging. And I’m a strong believer that anyone that retires, you still continue to do a little bit of work. Yeah, you know, so. So you keep your mind working like, oh, okay, I need to follow the GPS. I need to go up and down. You know, I need to work a little bit. You fit in a little bit of exercise to me, I feel that it’s good. Last time, I used to think that, you know, a my day so Oh, I still make him work. But I have a very different perspective now. So my mom, yeah, I think she loves her job.
Odette D’Aniello 24:02
How is it working with your mom?
May Ee Fong 24:05
Good. What other than we are talking about what almost non stop every day. But even my sister is in the business. And I think it’s I think we have a very good working relationship where they respect that I make the final decision. But at the same time, they are there to support and share their perspectives. So I feel that as a family we really complement each other one another. Yeah.
Odette D’Aniello 24:34
That’s amazing. So you have this team and you have your your trusted group of people who help you run the bakery. So you have many eyes within the Yes. within the organization.
May Ee Fong 24:47
Yes, and I will say that okay, so when I first started I shared that I wanted to hire and until now my first three hires, they are still with me. And yeah, and they are also the paths that go to people in the organization. They trust me, I trust them. And I really liked that dynamic.
Odette D’Aniello 25:10
So what is so your role in the business? Are you just what’s your role in the business right now?
May Ee Fong 25:17
So now, my parent, my mom, my sister, the management team, they take care of operations. And I take on a slightly more strategic role.
Odette D’Aniello 25:30
So you’re this, you’re the CEO, and you’re doing VR. Right? Right. So what as you say, or do you use EOS entrepreneur operating system?
May Ee Fong 25:40
Oh, I use a Rockefeller habits: Scaling Up. Oh, okay. Oh, because, yeah, you’re in accelerator. Yeah, I used to be an accelerator. About three, four years ago, I spent one year in accelerator. Yeah. And Scaling Up at that time was very complicated. But subsequently, I think in the last year, we got a Scaling Up coach to come in to implement some of the, I would say the business recipe. And it was a lot clearer. And he really trained the management team to think like a business owner.
Odette D’Aniello 26:15
Oh, that’s amazing. So you are now the CEO. You’re the visionary. You have a good management team. Where are you heading? What are you looking forward to? in your, in your company in your life? Like, what do you do? What’s your next steps?
May Ee Fong 26:35
Okay, so if you talk about size, and revenue wise, we hope to 3x our business. Now, if you talk about impact, I think one thing that really resonated with me and keeps me going every day, is the feeling of making people feel special, loved and cherished on their birthday. Day one is very meaningful for me. And I have a story behind that. I have a very good friend, this very dear to me. And she always tells me on her birthday, she doesn’t want to celebrate birthdays. Right. But on her birthday, I just still decided to celebrate her birthday in front like, in front of like a bunch of people like 40 people. So I’m the worst kind of friend you have. Yeah, so what I did was, um, I took I made a very simple cake for her round cake. And then I printed a photo a sexy photo of her that I took of her in Santa Rosa in the shower in where Sentosa Island. Yes. In the shower. Right. A sexy photo of her in the shower. In the shower. Okay. Yes. Correct. And then I presented a kick to her on her birthday, you know, and she was laughing like, a hit on law. Right? And after the celebration, you know, she came to me and she said, You know what? I say you know, we’ve been friends for a long time. I always knew that you run a bakery, but I never understood the impact of the cake on on the celebrant. And today I finally understand it is to make someone feel so loved so special and so cherished to you and it reminds us of our friendship together our memories together. And that’s something that I hope to achieve or to the case is to remember people are the memories the friendships and the love this watch together. And that special moment is something that is that one remember for life.
Odette D’Aniello 28:38
I totally resonate with that. So who makes your cake when it’s your birthday? How do you feel?
May Ee Fong 28:46
Hey, okay, so very ironically, right? If see on my birthday, I saw a corner.
Odette D’Aniello 28:54
Corner. Wait, that is ironic. Ironic, right. But yeah, better to be honest. Oh, I understand that. I just realized last year I went to the Korean Spa by myself. My birthday you know get scrubbed. You know you eat the you eat like the tofu soup in a row. That’s what I did. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? Sometimes I’m sure you have what was your most favorite cake that was made for you?
May Ee Fong 29:34
My most favorite cake would be our chocolate cake. Because that’s how I first started. Yeah, that was the flavor that I really wanted to perfect. And now I that’s my favorite cake. We don’t use any sugar. And we bake it soft and moist, it’s fudgy. It’s everything that I want in a chocolate cake.
Odette D’Aniello 29:59
How do you see return it.
May Ee Fong 30:02
Um, there is. So we used to present dark chocolate couvertures Yeah. And the sugar comes from that. Just the courveture the chocolate. Yes. Yeah. Oh, I
Odette D’Aniello 30:13
I love that.
May Ee Fong 30:15
You must try it one day when you
Odette D’Aniello 30:17
I will. When I go to Singapore. Now I have a question for you. So, what was the impact of the if you had any for COVID? Like in terms of supply chain? Where you shut down? You know, was there? Like, was there impact in like weather getting ingredients? Etcetera? Hmm.
May Ee Fong 30:37
Okay, so supply chain did not hit us. You know, hit us very deeply. But if we talk about shutting down, yes, we will shut down for about one or two months. There were a lot of problems regarding the fun, you know, the back and forth with customers. But on hindsight, all these were small issues. There was more issues that we could ride over water a bit harder. But that’s fine. No, operationally, we always firefight from time to time during that period, especially. I think COVID the boot for the entire suite business. People couldn’t travel. And the next thing that they could self care and pepper for themselves to buy sweets. So they buy cat packs, they bought seats. And I think it really accelerated the entire industry on enough on a whole. So happened in Singapore. And I think it happened to a lot of our neighboring countries as well. So I’m not sure about, you know, in the US, was it the same?
Odette D’Aniello 31:38
Oh, it was the same with us. Right, right. Yeah, it shifted the business from a more retail to wholesale, because people started shopping and groceries in the US. They shut down a lot of the small businesses. Not every state, but it’s all different. Right? Every state was different. Some some states, Washington is one of them, not too stringent. I’m not going to complain. A lot of the small businesses were closed, like a lot of restaurants, not us, we are considered essential. So our our business shifted to a more wholesale kind of model. Because, you know, people were not having parties because there’s you know, the venue’s were shut down. They were not there were limitations on gatherings, etc. But there was some limits, there were some impact of supply chain. Right. So because, you know, shipments couldn’t come in from Europe, we get our chocolates from Belgium, you know, those kinds of things. There were some, or, you know, some ingredients that had to be switched out. So that’s what we had with that’s what we experienced. But overall, yeah, we weathered the storm pretty well. Yeah, yeah. So I agree.
May Ee Fong 32:51
I once had a friend who shared that with me, if you have sales, 50% of your problems are solved. And yeah, I agree. So during COVID, 50% of our problems are solved. Now that 50% are operational problems that we had to deal with. And that’s okay.
Odette D’Aniello 33:07
Yeah, I was just mostly worried about my, my team, right, the health of my team. And yes, making sure that everybody was healthy, their families were healthy, then my family, my kids, that weighed a lot more than sales. For me, I just wanted to make sure everybody was good. I worried a lot about whether or not people were going to get sick or whatever. So I did everything I could, to as much as I could to just mitigate the risk of people getting ill. But we didn’t know what we didn’t know, you know, so whatever, we kind of just rolled with the storm. And every decision was, is my staff gonna be safe? You know, that’s what it was so. And overall, it was an experience. And it’s like any other so yeah.
May Ee Fong 34:01
100% agree with whatever you share.
Odette D’Aniello 34:04
Yeah. Well, as we come to a close, I learned a lot. Thank you so much about posting the educational app. And yeah, I’ve learned so much. I wanted to just ask a couple more questions like if, like, who were your key mentors as you moved on in your business? And what was the greatest piece of advice that you were given that you could share with others?
May Ee Fong 34:35
Wow, greatest piece of advice. Okay, so let me also, again, answer the question in parts. I have had a lot of mentors through this journey. And I think I will continue to have a lot more and there’s just time built right. Where I feel like if people have already walked the journey, then don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Get help, especially for things that you We get. So at the start my first mentors, they were, they, they, their background were in digital marketing, they taught me how to do digital marketing. And then later Subsequently, I have met many, many wise mentors who taught me how to run a business and become and become a better person. So these were very, very valuable lessons that I’ve gathered over the last five to eight years of entrepreneurship. I don’t have the best advice I get I was given, but I think one very memorable thing that someone told me recently is his definition of the best leader. So there are many, many definitions of great leaders, right. But your sharing of his definition of the best leader is someone who is a visionary, that is able to do three things, three things, right. The first one, he’s a visionary, and he’s able to predict what’s coming. Number two, is he’s able to delegate the work on hand. And number three, is to repeat step one, and two and repeat and repeat and repeat. I think it could not have been more beautifully said, right? Because ultimately, entrepreneurship is about a great idea put into action, and execute it well.
Odette D’Aniello 36:24
With the right people Right? Absolutely. I love that. I agree with that. Yeah, my superpower is being psychic. So like, I can tell, like, Alright, this is gonna be a bad one, or it’s gonna be fine. Like I could. No, but um, if you were to what my last question, if you were to speak to your younger self, like, what would you tell her?
May Ee Fong 37:00
Well, this is hard. I think I always had a problem with delegating. I always had a problem with doing everything myself. So that I can I mean, from from two aspects, right? Number one is, because I’m so used to doing everything myself during the home baking days. And number two is because I constantly want to help other people. And because I’m always working at that lightning speed. When I was at home, then, you know, when I see your foster Ross, and he needs help or rush over to help me I’m always jumping into problem. But now if I were to tell my younger self, I would tell her to work smart, not work hard, and delegate more people are multipliers. And if you let people be empowered and take ownership of their role, magic will happen.
Odette D’Aniello 37:55
I love it. You’re the third third podcast guest who has said that? You are. But it doesn’t have to be this hard. You don’t have to make life so hard. Yes, that’s a great night. And as you know, and as women, you know, we we over function, because that’s our role, right? We take care of people, and we over function when people can take care of themselves. And be oh, you know
May Ee Fong 38:31
Well, now you inspire me? Yeah, it’s true. Because as females are any function is really nurturing, taking care of people. But realizing that actually, as a leader, you don’t have to jump into everything. Right. When you let people take care of themselves, it can be very empowering, and magic will happen. Yeah,
Odette D’Aniello 38:53
Yeah. They’ll find their own way. I learned that from mothering, from mothering my two children who are now young adults.
May Ee Fong 39:00
So it looks like I need to get a child.
Odette D’Aniello 39:05
You don’t need to get a child. But you could learn from me as you met my son in Manila. Right, right. The handsome one with the curly hair. So May, thank you so much for being on my podcast. I so appreciate it. I hope to see you. Where are we going to see each other next? Tokyo?
May Ee Fong 39:29
Yes, yes. I’ll be going to Tokyo. Okay. Yeah. Then I’ll see you then. I’ll see you then. Thank you for doing this with me at 11pm.
Odette D’Aniello 39:40
Yes, you’re very welcome. Thank you so much for being on my podcast and being my first international podcast guests. My pleasure. In Singapore, and hopefully out you visit me and Tacoma and I will go visit you Maybe we’ll do a tour video of your bakery.
May Ee Fong 40:04
Let’s do that. Okay,
Odette D’Aniello 40:05
Thank you, my friend.
May Ee Fong 40:07
Yeah Sweet dreams. Do you
Odette D’Aniello 40:10
Have a good high tea, which is lunch if you haven’t heard by you buy
Outro 40:24
Thanks for listening to the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.