Cupcakes bring sweet success to Dagupan entrepreneur

Colorful cupcakes baked for the day by Crystal Matias.

DAGUPAN CITY—Two years ago, then 22-year-old Crystal Matias quit her job in a family-run business and started selling cheesecakes.

She texted friends, posted photos on Facebook and tagged everyone so she could market her product, a blueberry cheesecake she herself baked.

She delivered the cheesecakes, packed in a 250-milliliter lidded round plastic container, and sold them for P150 each to her customers.

The product easily captured the discriminating taste of her buyers that she got more orders. Every time they would see her in the days that followed, they encouraged her to put up a shop.

In April last year, Matias gave in to the clamor of her friends and opened Cups & Cakes by Tal, the first and the only store of its kind in Dagupan, near a busy intersection of the city.

“It’s been actually very tough for me. There were times when I wanted to give up because I get tired, especially because I’m the only one doing all the work,” says Matias, the fifth and the only girl in a brood of six.

But she says her mother, businesswoman Araceli Arcinue-Matias, would always tell her to get used to the pressure because engaging in business is not a walk in the park.

“And so I moved on and continued to accept orders,” Matias says.

She has to wake up at 4 a.m. daily to start baking in the family kitchen in Barangay (village) Bonuan Boquig here.

Cups & Cakes by Tal facade near a busy intersection in Dagupan City.

She does all the work: from kneading, mixing, baking and decorating her products of different sizes into colorful pieces of art. Before 10 a.m. she is off, delivering the freshly baked products to her shop, where she and a store assistant stay until 7 p.m.

On the average, Matias produces 100 cupcakes a day, 10 pieces for each of the different flavors she had created: smores, vanilla bean, tiramisu, red velvet, blue velvet, ube, brazo de mercedes, espresso, carrot and the bestseller, blueberry.

But she says there are times when one or two cupcake flavors would immediately run out and she had to rush back home to bake more.

“Most of my customers are young professionals and students. They usually order the cakes as gifts to somebody celebrating a birthday or some occasion,” Matias says.

What sets her apart from cake and pastry stores here is that her products are homemade and personalized.

“Customers tell me what design they want and I just execute it. Many of them bring photos of what they want me do,” she says.

Her most sought-after creation is the cupcake tower, which is often the centerpiece of wedding, birthday and baptismal parties.

“So far, not one customer has rejected my work. They are even telling me that they have recommended me to their friends,” Matias says.

Matias, who comes from a family of businessmen in the city, says going into food business is something she did not dream of.

“I wanted to go into a tourism-related business. But Mama said I should instead study culinary arts so that when I raise my own family, I would be able to cook for them,” she says.

After finishing Bachelor of Science in Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management, major in culinary arts, from the De La Salle College of St. Benilde in Manila, Matias worked in her brother’s company, which distributes soft drinks. She also had a short stint as supervisor in a family-owned motel.

Cups & Cakes by Tal interiors

“My brother (former Dagupan City Councilor Robert Matias) would always tease me whenever he saw me then. He’d tell me that I’ll just be stuck in his company and nothing much will happen to me,” Matias says.

She says her mother gifted her with a start-up capital and told her to enrol in short courses on making pastries to widen her skills. “Mama just said, ‘Make it grow,’” she says.

Matias says that within the year, she intends to add more space to her shop. “I will also go into pasta, roll cakes and commercial bread that are all homemade,” she says.

Today, Matias says, her brother often drops by her shop, happy at how far his little sister has gone.

And if there’s anything she learned from her business experience, she says, it’s hard work, patience, perseverance and the value of what she had worked hard for.

PHOTOS BY WILLIE LOMIBAO/CONTRIBUTOR