Tell us about The Bubble Tea Club.
Bubble Tea Club is an e-commerce brand starting off by selling DIY bubble tea kits during the midst of the Pandemic, April 2020. After only 4 days from inception, it has over $1,000 in sales in the first day and grew rapidly every day after, making over $2mill in it’s first year with over 20,000 followers on their Instagram. To keep up with it’s growth, the team raised over $1.5mill from their 1,300 investors via crowd-funding which has help grow the internal team and expand to NZ, Canada and the US.
What inspired you to start The Bubble Tea Club?
Being stood down from my job during the pandemic was the perfect storm for me to start something of my own. My husband, Justin, who has always been a serial entrepreneur has always been one of my biggest inspirations and I knew I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. We saw that one of my favourite childhood drinks, bubble tea was the number one selling item on Uber Eats. Justin gathered some of the founders together and before we knew it, my life has never been the same.
Tell us about your career and background.
My career started off linearly as like many typical asians growing up in Australia and raised by immigrants. I focused on studies, went to uni to work in a science field. I had my Masters of Optometry, and worked as a full time optometrist from the age of 21. I thought was it.. and then I started Bubble Tea Club with my husband, brother in law and two other founders. Now, I’m proud to say that I’ve developed so many other skills, typically around the managerial roles in business.
Describe a typical work day for you.
I find a good morning routine sets the tone for the rest of the day, which includes going for a morning run, doing a cold shower and listing my priorities for the day in my diary. I am in the office 5x a week as I believe it’s important to be working with my staff members and maintain great culture.
As a business owner, my day can vary a lot however it generally requires me in front of the computer, knowing the company’s priorities and shooting out tasks as quickly and efficiently as we can.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
An idea is just an idea if you don’t act on it. Coming from someone who naturally like details and information before committing to something, the best advice I can give someone who is thinking of starting a business and has nothing about it is to know that nothing is guaranteed, so stop overthinking and just do it. Mistakes will come in due course and you will learn from it and fix it along the way.
What’s next for you, and The Bubble Tea Club?
My focus is on my investors and my desires to make Bubble Tea Club successful to show my gratitude to them. I know it’s long and tough journey through the current economy, so we are excited to see successes around new revenue streams such as expanding into wholesale.