With a passion to create a platform bonding people with food, Nazurah Ishak decided to start her own business through her baking hobbies.
Bonded By is run by the 22-year old entrepreneur who started turning her favourite pastime of making dessert donuts into a business in September 2021.
The entrepreneur’s journey began as a casual online food business and has since grown into a business specialising in doughnuts.
“I think doughnuts are universally loved by everyone regardless of age or gender and our range of flavours aim to please everyone. The older generation tends to gravitate towards niche flavours such as caster sugar, the children like chocolate with lots of sprinkles, and as for the Gen Z and millennials, they love their original glaze and matcha,” she said.
Nazurah, who works many jobs, including as an insurance agent, created the online business because she wanted to earn extra income and also to start something for herself.
“I decided to do a doughnuts business because one day I was making doughnuts and they turned out to be good and this is apparently the only thing I can cook well. My family members loved them to the point they were encouraging me to start selling them,” said Nazurah.
The business features eight toppings to the doughnuts including Original Glaze, Cinnamon, Icing Sugar, Chocolate, Coconut Lime, Caster Sugar and premium flavours, Matcha and Caramel and their best-selling flavour is the Original Glazed doughnuts.
Coconut Lime is one of the toppings that is unique that is sold by the entrepreneur as it is an uncommon flavour and the entrepreneur has shared that the flavour is only offered locally by them and in the future they would like to make more unique flavours like this.
“Currently I’m only offering doughnuts but I do sell madeleines. They’re on hold due to logistics, but hopefully, I can get back to selling them soon. I wanted to sell things that are not commonly sold here like madeleines to bring something new to the table,” said the youthpreneur.
The doughnuts are priced from $8 per box for 6 pieces for the small size and $9 per box for 6 pieces for the big size and as for the premium flavours, they are an additional $0.40.
Bonded By is currently only selling through Instagram. According to Nazurah, social media is the easiest way to reach her market audience. She sees that Bruneians love to shop online and are willing to try any businesses that are available on social media as long as it catches their eye.
The entrepreneur is also planning on joining a physical pop-up shop soon at The Box and it will be in collaboration with a dear friend of theirs, the founder of Daripada Lulu.
Nazurah also shared that during National Day, they worked with her friend’s business, Chocolat Noir where she made Biscoff-filled doughnuts and thinking of adding them to the menu.
Going into entrepreneurship, the youth did not have much knowledge on business or the food and beverage industry but she persevered and went with the flow to get the business name out there and she is happy that it has grown and gained recognition.
Through her experience, Nazurah sees how important it is for small businesses to support one another.
With Bonded By, it is also finding their place in the community and trying to offer the consumers what they want but at the same time, staying true to what they are good at.
“As someone who’s overly self-critical I used to think that when you do something, you should do it perfectly or don’t do it at all. However, I learned that actually finishing them and improving from experience is more important. My donuts taste so much different compared to when I first started selling from trial and error. It’s a healthier mindset for me,” said the entrepreneur.
Looking forward to the next couple of months, the 22-year-old is planning to relaunch their Bonded By Madeleines. A business that specialises in the French version of our local ‘bahulu’.
Other than that, Bonded By is looking for other opportunities to take on and thinking of the endless possibilities that can happen.
Have a taste of Bonded By’s donuts by heading over to their Instagram @bondedby_bn.
This article was first published on 26 March 2022 in our Weekly Epaper issue 186 |
THE BRUNEIAN | BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
