The First Sale Changes How You Think
What selling cakes, furniture and Kerala food taught me about customers, competition and finding my place in a crowded market.
I spent almost nothing marketing my cakes. Customers kept coming.
Then I spent money on a professional website, SEO specialists and advertising for another business. Getting customers was still a struggle.
Same person. Two businesses. Completely different results.
For a long time, I thought the difference was marketing. Looking back, I'd missed something much more obvious.
One business gave customers a reason to choose us. The other was competing with dozens of businesses selling much the same thing.
It took a third business, CoChilli, for that lesson to properly sink in.
The cakes were different
Before CoChilli, I had a small cake business that I ran from home alongside my regular job as a chef.
There were plenty of bakeries selling eggless cakes, but I noticed something missing. Proper customisation was limited, and finding unusual flavour combinations or multi-tier fresh cream cakes, particularly eggless ones, wasn't easy.
I enjoyed experimenting with flavours and designs. If a customer wanted something different, I liked the challenge of working out how to make it.
My marketing consisted of a Facebook page with photographs of my cakes. Most orders came through word of mouth. Someone ordered a cake, somebody else saw it, and another enquiry followed.
I wasn't trying to build a large bakery. There was only so much I could produce from home, so attracting hundreds of customers would have created more problems than opportunities.
The business did well within those limits. Even years later, some customers were still asking whether I made cakes.
At the time, I didn't think much about why it worked. I was simply making something people wanted but couldn't easily find elsewhere.
Then I entered a crowded market
When my friend Rajesh and I started Lucent Decors, an online furniture and home-products business, things were very different.
We entered a market full of sellers offering the same or similar products. Customers had plenty of options, and there wasn't always an obvious reason for them to choose us.
We invested in a professional website, hired developers and paid for SEO and marketing support. We thought these were the things a serious online business needed.
Some were necessary. Others, looking back, probably weren't.
The bigger mistake was paying for services we didn't properly understand.
When someone explained why we needed another technical service, we weren't always in a position to question it. That's not a particularly comfortable place to be when you're the one paying the invoice.
Eventually, we started learning Shopify, digital advertising and website management ourselves. We began understanding what brought visitors to the site, what converted into sales and where our money was going.
We eventually sold Lucent Decors for a small profit.
The money was useful, but the knowledge stayed with me. So did a lesson that had very little to do with technology.
You can spend money getting people to notice your business, but that doesn't necessarily give them a reason to buy from you.
CoChilli brought me back to familiar ground
When we started CoChilli, the catering industry was hardly short of competition either.
But I could see an opportunity among customers looking for authentic Kerala and South Indian food. Not simply another general catering menu, but the flavours, dishes and experience they recognised.
We didn't need to appeal to everybody. We needed to serve that group of customers properly.
Chef Febin's knowledge of Kerala cuisine became central to the food we offered, while my professional kitchen experience and the lessons from earlier businesses helped us develop the operation.
CoChilli Eats, our WhatsApp-based food club, became a particularly useful way to understand customers.
We could introduce dishes, see what people ordered, listen to their feedback and adjust the next menu.
Sometimes our expectations were right. Other times, customers surprised us.
I found that far more useful than sitting around discussing what we thought people might want.
They were already telling us, often through what they were willing to pay for.
What the first sale actually teaches you
Before someone buys from you, most of what you believe about your business is still an assumption.
You think the product is good, the price is reasonable and customers will understand what you're offering.
Then someone buys it.
For the first time, you have something more useful than your own opinion.
But one sale doesn't mean you've built a successful business. It tells you that one person was willing to pay.
What matters is what happens next.
Why did they choose you? Did they get what they expected? Would they buy again? Did you actually make enough money to justify the work?
A returning customer tells you more than an encouraging comment from a friend. Recommendations tell you something too.
Looking back, my cake business found customers because I offered something different. Lucent Decors taught me how difficult it can be to compete when others are selling much the same products. CoChilli showed me that even in an established market, there can still be room for something more specific.
I haven't stopped making mistakes, and marketing still matters. People need to know you exist.
But if I were starting another business tomorrow, I'd ask one question before spending too much money on websites, branding or advertising.
Why should somebody choose me over the alternatives?
You don't always need to invent something new. Sometimes the opportunity is simply noticing what people aren't getting and becoming good at providing it.
About the author
Chef Sinoj Sadanandan is a Kerala-born chef with 25+ years of experience across UK hotel, school and event kitchens. He founded CoChilli Events & Caterers and is now developing CoChilli Pro to help chefs deliver consistent South Indian dishes at scale, using solutions shaped by real kitchen experience.