Many of us dream of being our own boss.
I don't want to live with that what if!
But only a brave few are willing to take the plunge, especially during a pandemic.
Even when you have money in the bank account, you’re worried that what if something happens
and then you have to make like a big-ticket purchase or you have to pay a high upfront
cost to fix something.
So that keeps me up at night.
So who’d do it? And why now?
I’m in Singapore speaking to one entrepreneur who quit her day job and took her side hustle
full-time to find out.
For Fiona Loh, this is what a typical day looks like.
It’s not your average day at the office, but it’s what gets her out of bed in the morning.
I get up around 7am, we go through like the day-to-day production, we close off the bakery
space at about 6pm, and then I head back and continue the second shift.
28-year-old Fiona swapped computers for cookies last year, when she quit her stable job as
a tech product manager for a bank to run her own bakery business.
Every day, I felt something like nudging within me.
What if, what if, what if?
She is one of a growing number of people leaving behind their 9-to-5 jobs to pursue their passion
after the pandemic disrupted traditional industries and careers.
One study found at least two in five employees were considering leaving their jobs to start
their own business.
For months, self-taught baker Fiona had been operating Whiskdom as a side project on Instagram.
But when Singapore’s circuit breaker lockdown boosted appetite for home-baked goods,
she decided to take it full-time.
I was working back-to-back between my day job and my night hustle.
A good 20 hours a day.
There was this day where I just sat there and I couldn’t think.
My mind was so fatigued.
I had orders to do.
I had my deck to do.
I had a manager to answer to.
So, basically, there’s work to be done everywhere.
Without spending a cent on marketing, word soon spread on social media, and by July,
Fiona had an 18-month waitlist for her molten brownies and levain-style cookies.
We were selling out in like, 3 seconds every week.
To meet surging demand, she moved Whiskdom’s operations from her parents’ public housing
unit to a 620 square foot commercial kitchen in central Singapore in October.
Because we were opening in the midst of Covid, a lot of businesses were closing down.
So we went to get all the second-hand equipment that we could find.
The fridges, the chillers, these are all second-hand.
We managed to get a grant for our ovens.
And then it really got down to rent, the security deposit, working out the numbers to see if
I had enough runway within my existing savings.
While Fiona’s business is thriving, the same cannot be said for all independent businesses,
especially those in sectors battered by the pandemic.
In 2020, business closures actually fell while the number of new companies formed remained
stable as the Singapore government, like many other developed nations, extended loans, grants
and rental waivers to keep them afloat.
Xiu Ru Lim, a lecturer at Singapore Polytechnic, told me more.
Up to 6.8 million payouts was actually given to some 2,700 businesses, right, in the areas
of retail as well as F&B.
Elsewhere, I think, around the globe we can see a lot of new businesses being formed.
And quite a number of those, while the statistics do not actually fully report it, are also
single business establishments.
Meantime, the rapid adoption of technology during this period is likely to spell more
opportunities for new businesses like Fiona’s, said Xiu Ru.
Under the pandemic situation, the competition has leveled out a little bit.
With the government grants and incentives that encourages businesses to go digital,
this has provided opportunities for small business owners to look at starting out from scratch.
While Fiona only received a government grant for her ovens, she had to fork out 50,000
Singapore dollars from her personal savings for the business, putting her home-buying
and wedding plans on hold.
Despite her strong head start, with individual bakes selling for more than 6 Singapore dollars
and boxes of six going for 38 Singapore dollars, Fiona’s earnings are currently nowhere close
to her previous salary.
At the end of the day, if I really wanted the money, I would have stayed in banking.
I basically draw a minimum sum now, enough to pay off my insurance bills, enough to basically
feed myself, and then the rest of it I plan to put it back into investing in the business.
Now that she’s the boss, Fiona has a lot more to worry about, such as expenses, accounts
and her staff.
As Whiskdom has expanded, Fiona has taken on three full-time staff, including her 62-year-old
father, Jackie, a retired service engineer.
The additional manpower allows Whiskdom to produce up to 2,400 baked goods per week,
four times more than what Fiona managed alone at home.
Meanwhile, she has expanded her clientele to include corporate customers and international
markets, such as the U.S. and China.
We try to find new ways to streamline operations, to have more bakers coming on certain days
to do more of the prep work and leaner operations on the other days where we don’t require as many people.
Of course, there are all the other things like making sure we can pay our bills, making
sure we can pay our employees, making sure we have sufficient cashflow to keep the business running.
But more so than that: 'okay, what’s next for us?'
That added responsibility means Fiona must be even more careful about planning her business
for the future.
Estimates suggest that 20% of new businesses fail within their first two years and 45%
within five years, often due to poor market knowledge, scaling too quickly and lack of finances.
Does it concern you that they’re all opening during a pandemic?
Do you think that’s a risky time?
It really depends, right.
If you’re able to manage your business fundamentals well, you’re able to manage your cashflows,
and your eventual rate of expansion, this could actually be an opportunity for a lot of businesses.
But even with the added stress of running her own business, Fiona doesn’t plan on
clocking back into the office anytime soon.
When you go into entrepreneurship, you end up having to be everything and you end up
having to do everything on your own.
It’s very different from being employed.
But I guess, for myself, I really enjoy doing it.
You’re not going back?
Not going back.