When it comes to cookies, one finds it hard to say ‘no’, but if it’s Neha’s cookies we are talking about, one can never have enough of them!
Neha Arya Sethi, a cookiepreneur from India, has started her journey from the back seat of a Tata Nano car. An investment banker turned cookiepreneur, Neha Arya Sethi used to bake cookies as a hobby until a family member suggested that she should market her skill. Ever since, there was no turning back for Neha as her cookies proved to be the absolute favorite for many residents of Mumbai. Neha Arya Sethi started Sweetish House Mafia (SHM) as a fresh start after realizing that banking wasn’t her thing.
“As an analyst, I was sleep-deprived and couldn’t handle the stress,” she says.
Until recently, she went by the name Sweetish House Mafia (SHM) – the renegade baker who went around Mumbai delivering a scrumptious range of cookies to eager customers, all the while keeping her identity a secret. Her brother-in-law, Aakash Sethi came up with the catchy label and it added allure to the existing ‘anonymous’ concept of Neha. In fact, she now believes that what worked in her business’s favor was that very concept!
Sethi says, “Since there is no other name or image associated, the logo and the name of SHM gained prominence.”
On being asked about her motive behind selling cookies, Neha said, “I wanted to do something more than the run-of-the-mill patisserie. If you really think about it, there aren’t many good cookie-places in Mumbai,” says the 29-year old, based in Samudra Mahal, Haji Ali.
Her cookies which were confined to certain parts of Mumbai were slowly becoming the talk of the town thanks to Neha’s cheeky tweets on Twitter. As Neha’s popularity grew, people would wait for her updates. She recalls, “This one time, I tweeted and sent out the cookies. Soon after the van went out for the delivery, I got a call from the staff panicking about hundreds who had lined up to buy them. They were near tears. That day I sold out the fastest. We were sold out before many could get their turn.”
Soon, the cookie business took off in a way that left Sethi batter-ed!
“After a point, people were demanding so much from me. I realized that while I was making some people happy, I was leaving some customers dissatisfied as I couldn’t reach them and that is never a good feeling,” she muses. Owing to this very reason, Sethi has unveiled her mask. Recently, SHM has opened its first store in Todi Mills.
“I thought a store would help solve some problems and I wanted to take credit for my hard work as well,” she says. Neha believes that the biggest lesson she learned in her career is to keep pace with customer demands in terms of flavors and tastes and currently she has plans to expand SHM to different parts of Mumbai city.
Whether you are having a great day or a bad day, a delicious cookie can always bring a smile onto your lips. So if you happen to be in or around Mumbai, make sure you bite into Neha’s yummy cookies!
