Chan Kai Yang
Chan Kai Yang took the helm of CakeInspiration alongside his wife Jia Yi, carrying on the legacy of the bakery her parents originally founded. Despite an engineering background, Chan pivoted fully into F&B after recognising the potential for institutional and corporate revenue streams, growing the business to over SGD 850,000 in annual revenue. Together they built CakeInspiration into one of Singapore's most-recognised bespoke custom-cake brands, with celebrity and hospital clientele.
Starting from zero?
Pick one cake good enough to photograph and pitch it to a single corporate or institutional buyer this week — repeat orders from offices and hospitals, not one-off birthdays, are what make a custom-cake business scale.
Chan’s journey
The full story. The pivots. The lessons. One path among many.
What Chan started with
Chan Kai Yang trained and worked in engineering and spent 2022 doing business development for startups in Vietnam before stepping into CakeInspiration, the custom-cake business his wife Jia Yi's parents had already founded. In 2023 he took over an existing brand with a customer base, rather than starting a bakery from scratch.
Every founder starts from a different place. Use this to calibrate — not to compare.
Engineering and Vietnam
2022
Trained in engineering and spent 2022 on business development for startups in Vietnam, networking with business veterans.
Battle stories
The hard moments that shaped Chan.
Into F&B
Commits fully from engineering to the family bakery business.
Advice from Chan
Find the repeat order
Chase customers who reorder — corporate and institutional accounts beat one-off celebrations for a custom business.
Outsider's advantage
A background from outside the industry can be a strength if you treat operations as a system to improve.
Honour the legacy
When you inherit a brand, modernise it without losing the emotional connection customers already trust.
Build personal trust
Credibility and personal branding win bespoke clients more reliably than advertising does.
Ask Chan a question
We review questions and bring the best ones to Chan in an upcoming interview.
Most asked
- How did you get your first 100 customers?
- What was your biggest financial mistake?
- How much did you really start with?
Founders with a similar path
People who started small and built something big.
