I won’t even deny it that I am the biggest cookie lover I know (well, next to my brother, Carl).
My obsession with just the perfect cookie started when I saw that Filipino Chips Ahoy commercial with the two kids hiding under the table. Since then I have been obsessed with all kinds of chocolate chip cookies and have stopped trying to resist them when I am trying to lose weight.
So when I found out that my friend Carla Ong started Love, Agnessi with her sister, I was ecstatic. Carla and I met when we were working on a project together when she was still with a advertising agency. But what I admired most about her was when she gave up her sought after advertising job to pursue this business with her sister.
Love, Agnessi is a food business that whips up everything indulgent and scrumptious. Carla and her sister, Agnes, have been baking since they were children and it was their passion and love for baking that inspired them to start the now successful business. For them, it’s more than just a brand or a business, they wanted to make it personable thus the name. Each cookie is wrapped with their love, dedication, and hard work.
For Carla, it was clearly a leap of faith, “I guess you can say that opening a business is a leap of faith especially when you have a good, stable job. There’s no assurance that people will accept your product or like your brand. There is only hope that your passion for it will show through and that would be enough for people to give you a chance.”
Giving up her day job was challenging but for Carla it was worth the risk, “We have been very fortunate in that regard. We started the business even before I gave up my day job and while I enjoyed the challenges of my day job, I just knew it was time to switch gears and explore my other interests in the food industry.”
It was inevitable for questions to follow once she pursued her passion, “When people ask me about this, I simply say that the experience was great but I felt it was time to embark on a new adventure. This is the first time I ever launched a business and I am glad to be sharing this journey with my sister. People around me have always been very supportive and for that, I am lucky.”
For her, being an entrepreneur is exhilarating, “It’s nice to see your efforts lead somewhere sweet. We’ve had some pretty tough challenges throughout the years, especially when it came to mastering our recipes, but we really enjoyed the development process And now, we love that we’ve got cookies that puts a smile on people’s faces. That makes the hard work worth it all.”
Her soft, gooey cookie treats are available anytime but they make it special for Valentine’s Day by providing you with heart shaped cookies (ang sweet!) at really low prices. The other plus factor is that they deliver so you can instantly surprise someone minus the hassle.