“A ship in a harbour is secure however that isn’t what ships are constructed for.”
Largely attributed to the American creator and businessman, John A. Shedd, this can be a quote that Jinyen Yap holds dearly. And it was one of many primary pushes that stopped her from becoming a member of one other tech firm after working for the likes of Seize and Bytedance.
As a substitute, she selected to develop Ye Traditions, her household’s then-new rice wine enterprise that’s backed by conventional Chinese language medication (TCM).
Now I do know what you’re pondering, why would she try this? Tech corporations are identified for his or her fats pay cheques and, nicely, cash’s not a foul factor to have within the present financial local weather. However monetary achieve itself wasn’t sufficient.
Throughout her stint at Seize and Bytedance, Jinyen would construct merchandise for tens of millions of customers. The continual suggestions and enchancment course of made these fulfilling careers. Then she went into the crypto business and realised that this fashionable job wasn’t slicing it.
The crypto business remains to be area of interest and he or she missed seeing the product of her work being utilized by mainstream customers. It was simply happenstance that she had already arrange Ye Traditions together with her mum, Joo Eng Yap, not way back.
So she determined to go all in and switch the rice wine enterprise into her day job.
A heritage recipe in trendy instances
Ye Traditions took root throughout the pandemic and was launched in essentially the most unlikely place—Carousell.
When you’ve not explored the web a lot, Carousell is greatest generally known as an ecommerce platform for secondhand objects. This might be sneakers, garments, cupboards, and even collectible collectible figurines. Something you’ll be able to consider, somebody’s in all probability promoting it.
However perishable items like rice wine aren’t precisely stuff you search for there, which could have helped the model stand out.
Talking frankly, Jinyen shared that the mother-daughter duo simply needed to check out product-market match. “Carousell is a simple, free, accessible means the place we will attain an area engaged viewers shortly with out important funding.”
“We didn’t actually count on something to come back out of it,” she confided. Nevertheless, this turned out to be a profitable experiment as shoppers started buying their rice wine. At one level, they’d continually be offered out.
A big cause for this was because of the product itself. Whereas Jinyen and Joo Eng didn’t have any entrepreneurial expertise beforehand, they weren’t newbies within the rice wine scene.
“Brewing rice wine has all the time been a household occasion for our consumption, and we drink rice wine throughout celebratory festivals,” Jinyen defined. Their household’s recipe may even be traced all the way in which again to 5 generations.
Brewing is each an artwork and a science
That mentioned, it nonetheless took Jinyen and her mum six months of R&D to create Ye Traditions’ first viable product. They took the time to experiment with completely different strategies to make sure consistency and high quality.
The mother-daughter duo produce the rice wine themselves to take care of the standard means of constructing them. Doing so provides one other layer to the model’s providing since they’ve a extra hands-on strategy in comparison with these made in factories.
Jinyen defined that mass produced rice wine manufacturers sometimes have added salt and sugar as a way to meet the necessities set by the Singapore Customs.
Nevertheless, Ye Traditions prefers to maintain theirs 100% naturally fermented with out preservatives and components. So that they stopped promoting for 4 months at one level to determine one of the simplest ways to get licensed with out compromising on the well being advantages.
The 31-year-old shared that their rice wines are being offered as culinary wines and the model is licensed by the Singapore Food Authority.
“Fermenting rice wine is as a lot an artwork as a science. Even when every little thing is managed, generally the top product can differ. And if it doesn’t meet our exacting requirements, we are going to throw the complete batch away,” she mentioned.
Every batch produces about 400 bottles of rice wine which suggests there’s an enormous loss if the top end result goes south.
To be a staple in each family
Thus far, the model sells round 500 bottles of rice wine each month.
Their hottest product stays the signature rice wines that are available a wide range of flavours like Hakka yellow rice wine, Bentong ginger rice wine, and fermented glutinous rice wine. The worth varies relying on flavour and begins from S$12.
The demand has additionally been growing because the enterprise’s catalogue grows. Only a few weeks in the past, Ye Traditions opened the doorways to its first bodily retailer at Ang Mo Kio Avenue.
Growth wasn’t actually of their preliminary plans, however they saved having a backlog in orders. A house-based enterprise wasn’t capable of deal with that form of quantity. It additionally helped that alongside the way in which, Enterprise Singapore invested north of 5 figures which accelerated the model’s development.
Having a full-fledged retailer has helped the enterprise attain a wider viewers, aided by the truth that prospects can style first earlier than buying. However greater than that, it’s supplied the household an area to foster a neighborhood round Ye Traditions.
“What I cherished the previous few months for the reason that store opened was assembly a few of our very first prospects in particular person,” Jinyen gushed.
“We’re so grateful that they’ve supported us from the very starting and really purchased from us on Carousell after we didn’t also have a model label. It makes us need to work even tougher to create extra TCM-backed heritage merchandise for them.”
The mother-daughter duo have a daring purpose of turning their model right into a staple present in each Asian family. To realize this, they’ve set their eyes on solidifying their presence within the native market.
- Be taught extra about Ye Traditions here.
- Learn different articles we’ve written about startups here.
Featured Picture Credit score: Ye Traditions