Singapore is not short of Female Entrepreneurs. Here are some notable ones our little island is blessed with.
Cynthia Chua
The founder and CEO of beauty, lifestyle and F&B conglomerate The Spa Esprit Group. She owns Strip, Skinny Pizza, Bochiche, 40 Hands, Tiong Bahru bakery and many more!
What she once said “When I wanted to open Strip in 2002, my dad said, ‘you’re crazy’; now he says I’m a genius. It was the same with Browhaus.
A testament that parents are not always wiser.
Gillian Tan
Gilliam is the founder of Munkysuperstar Pictures and clicknetwork.TV
What she once said: “I started small – with $10,000, an old Mac and a camcorder in my mother’s office. You can fail but it must always teach you something. Be resourceful and have the drive, you can start a business too.”
Shows us that even if you need to piggy back on your mom’s office lol or use a crummy old mac – it ain’t gonna stop you! Do what it takes :)
Janice Wong,
Janice award-winning dessert chef extraordinaire
Dissatisfied with how desserts were never the highlight of meals, Janice, an economics grad, set up2am:dessert bar – but not before she honed her dessert-making skills in restaurants around the world. She has since launched 2am:lab and an eponymous sweets boutique. The latter is her way of introducing edible art to the masses.
She’s my personal favourite dessert chef. I mean why did anyone not think of it earlier – chocolate and gummy paint. Poprocks in your candy. Savoury chocolate? Gosh ! she is genius …im so glad she took that detour and went to le cordon bleu.
What she once said “I was in Goa the last time where I stayed in homes in the villages in Goa, sleeping and eating on the floor, so that I could get inspired, think different and challenge myself. Adaptation is the key word when it comes to my edible art”
Shows us that even when you’re sleeping on floors – it doesn’t mean your down and out – ok jokes aside – it really means to know yourself – find your inspiration.
Gwendolyn Regina Tan
One out of the team of 3 that founded SGEntrepreneurs (SGE), which got acquired by TechInAsia. Tan helped build SGE to become one of the top blogs that covered tech and entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia.
She once said “ fear is normal…nothing to be ashamed off” telling us how we need to embrace a fall be it in entreprenurship or in life…..
Shows us to appreciate the possibility of failure, while trying to remain optimistic in business.
Goh Yi Ping
Yi Ping runs All Deals Asia, one of the top daily deals aggregator in Singapore. Yi Ping recently expanded All Deals Asia to Indonesia.
Entrepreneurship is a journey where you keep learning and keep going, says Yiping. “There’s no such thing as a failure; you will only get better – if you learn quickly.”
“An entrepreneur starts from a blank canvas and everything he or she does makes a huge difference,” Yiping explains. ” This is what I enjoy, the journey of making a difference and contributing to our world in every little way.” She adds that entrepreneurship is a great way to – at least for some people – dramatically accelerate their self-awareness and can propel them to exponential personal and professional growth.
“It is one of those paths where you are allowed a rare access to view the world from very different perspectives.”
“I’m happy and honored to do what I’m doing; I cannot imagine a life any different.”
Krystal Choo
As quoted via e27.co.
This time last year, Wander Founder Krystal Choo lost the CTO of her previous bootstrapped two-year-old startup which then crashed and burned, went through a relationship breakup, needed medical care for a 3.7 cm ovarian cyst, and lost a friend to suicide.
“As an entrepreneur, I’m asked this question a lot: Where did you get the courage to strike out on your own? I find this question quite hard to answer, because honestly starting a company doesn’t really take guts at all,” Choo told a packed audience at Fullerton Hotel, Singapore.
“It takes S$300 (US$220), then you go to Bizfile.gov.sg, and register a company. That’s it. You’re a startup, you have a company. I really feel like starting up doesn’t take guts. It actually takes grit,” she added.
Show us:
A combination of perseverance, hardiness, resilience and ambition is all we need. And that’s the formula for success.
Gina Romero
Gina runs Athena Network Singapore, a business community for female executives and entrepreneurs.
She once said “My biggest regret this year was not following my gut instinct which resulted in a disastrous partnership. The lesson learned? No matter what opportunities are on the table, if the partnership is a bad cultural fit and their values are not aligned, it will never work. One good thing is I realised how loyal my customers are and how much support I have in the community, so it was all worth while in the end. I’ll definitely be more diligent in selecting partners to work with in 2015!”
Shows us to choose your partners wisely.
Elim Chew
Ms Elim Chew writes regularly in Singapore top newspaper, Straits Times and is often quoted telling people that an entrepreneurship journey is like “Getting a PhD”. Here it is by Ms Elim Chew:
You need Passion, Hunger, Drive or what I call PHD.
She instills the importance of having an entrepreneurial mindset, regardless of your background and how old or young you are. Elim quotes “10,000 hours of practice,” a concept adopted from “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. 10,000 hours of practice of doing what you LOVE is required for mastery of the skill.
Shows us: Why not start now?
Nanz Chong
Nanz Chong-Komo, founder of Nanz Inc.com and author of best-seller, ‘One Business 99 Lessons’. You’ll know her better as the founder of the ONE.99shop. It was a huge success in Singapore, with over 15 stores across the island and she was named, ‘Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2000’.
Then along came SARS and ONE.99 shop had to wind up.
When the ONE.99shop closed, Nanz Chong was pregnant. Today Nanz is a moticational speaker, author and business coach.
What she has to say about failure
“ On a macro view, FAILURE IS OK ! It is not as tough as its reputation! I have learnt that with every obstacle, new opportunity is born. I became an author, a motivational speaker and a business coach.
On the ONE.99shop experience, it’s tough to say it all in a word. After all, there are 99 lessons! (laughs) Do your best in every aspect of the business, plan till the last detail, expect the unexpected and always take risk! Remember the saying, ‘all glory comes from daring to begin!’”
Tjin Lee
An entrepreneur for 15 years, a wife for seven years and a mother for two years. Tjin started Mercury Marketing & Communications, when she was 28. She has cofounded several other businesses one of which is babystyleicon with blogger queen Xiaxue.
Once said that she started out “ bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and thinking I could take on the world! Boy, did the world teach me some lessons!
Entrepreneurship is incredibly challenging, and for years it dominated my life and I struggled as I was trying to run the business without the all-round skills needed for a successful business. I was terrible at maths, finances, business planning, logistics, and outsourced too many things, which led to very high overheads and no cost controls. I learned many painful lessons, but in 2009 I met the right partners to take my businesses forward. Things then progressed in quantum leaps once I had the right team and network of support behind me.”
For her she has this to say “ I realised it was better to have partners, and to be a smaller part of something very big, than a big part of something small. Today, I have founded or co-founded nine companies, am a wife and mother to 2-year-old Tyler, and have one more baby boy on the way!”
Also said “My parents sponsored my university education in Canada and gave me an allowance. I paid my housemates there to do housework like cleaning the toilet and washing dishes. I don’t think most of my friends had done a day of housework. I lived with five Canadian housemates, and some of them had to work two jobs just to pay their school tuition fees. That was my first business transaction. I learnt to outsource at a very early age! With this arrangement, the house is clean and my housemates get extra income.” LOL.
Yes they do start young.
And if you think entrepreneurs have no pitfalls nor regrets – read this.