Prepare to focus and make sacrifices for a while

"I had to sacrifice a lot, I didn’t buy clothes, have a holiday or much of a social life for a year. You have to be prepared to make sacrifices. I didn’t even care what I looked like, I was just so focussed on getting it all done. You can’t afford to treat yourself when you’re starting a new business, but it's worth it in the end. When I was given a book deal in 2011 and just six weeks to write it, was when I started hiring extra people to help out and from there I could manage my own time more."

But also value your own time - it's the most precious thing

"I definitely underpriced the cakes at first – especially for bespoke ones. But you learn that you have to be paid for your time. And that’s factoring in all the other costs of the business – electricity, rent for your building, booking couriers – it all takes time and costs money, and you need to value that you’ve done that to make a profit. You’re not doing someone a favour. For bespoke cakes for instance, however long you think it will take needs doubling and that should be factored into how much they're worth."

Recognise the little successes

"It was around a year before I started getting decent sized orders but one of my favourite stories is that I made some cupcakes for a newspaper’s birthday party. They asked me to send in some samples, and then phoned and said they’d tried samples from five different bakers including some big names, but they liked mine most. It was then that I felt like something of a success. I’d only been in business for two a couple of months and thought ‘yes, I can do this.' Since then I've made cakes for names like Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan and Fearne Cotton so people must like something!"

How to set up your own bakery - advice from Maria Goodman from Molly Bakes