Entrepreneurial mothers: Not having it all, but making the most of what they have

Jasmin Tay, founder and CEO, Perky Lash

JASMIN Tay is blessed and she knows it.

The mother of an eight-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy runs her four-outlet business providing eyelash services (mostly) without having to fret over domestic affairs because she’s got great support at home.

Her in-laws, whom she lives with, help to pick the kids up from school and her father-in-law, a retired polytechnic lecturer, oversees her daughter’s schoolwork. Not that the child needs it, being the disciplined type who gets her homework done before play.

Still, the 38-year-old is keenly aware of the need to “understand what your priorities are”, she says. “If you want to craft your own career, run your own business, there are bound to be sacrifices.”

For instance, she accepts the fact that she cannot always be there for her kids. And even on a daily basis, she’s often working at home when the kids want to spend time with her.

“I would always say, ‘mommy’s working, give me a while’, so much so that they would mimic me while role-playing,” she recalls. “I felt very guilty. That’s when I knew I had to draw a line.”

This means that when she’s home and spending time with the kids, she puts her phone down and tries to be there “100 per cent”.

She makes an effort to be home for dinner every night and puts her children to bed herself. Her husband, who runs his own distribution business, is a rock for her. They start each day by having breakfast together after sending the kids to school, and end it by sharing about their day and their reflections.

“It’s so important to have support from someone who shares the same values as you. My husband is the best person to speak to about solving problems, coming up with new ideas, new things to launch, new initiatives and even how to manage manpower issues.”

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To de-stress, she goes for pampering services such as facials and massages, as well as strolls in the park.

Her advice to mumpreneur wannabes?

“Draw the line between your personal life and your work. It’s never easy because there are 1,001 things to do, right? But it’s important to know when to put your work down and be a mum and a wife.”

This also means delegating work to the right people.

“You have limited resources, so you do what you’re best at. As for the rest, leave it to somebody you trust to handle. Then you’ll have more time for yourself and can work more effectively. That’s what I feel every entrepreneur should be doing and not just those who are moms.”

Tay on her own mother:

“We’re a family of four girls. My dad was an entrepreneur himself and my mum supported his business and looked after us. When I asked her how she managed, she said ‘I also don’t know how you all grew up, you just did!’. We share the multi-tasking trait – that’s the quality of a mother, I feel!”

Amanda Ong, founder and CEO, Aunty SG

“Being grateful,” says Amanda Ong, when asked what advice she would give to mumpreneur wannabes. “I know it sounds so cliche, but that’s what’s kept me going.”

And that, in a nutshell, is how this 31-year-old founder of a babysitting app copes with running her own business and raising two young children.

After all, if anyone knows how things can go wrong, it’s Ong. When her second child was born earlier than expected in February 2021, her confinement nanny was unavailable. She had to let her helper go due to some problems, while her parents and in-laws were also unable to help.

She was stressed to the max, taking care of her newborn daughter, her sick toddler son and trying to run the household. That became the catalyst for the headhunter to quit her job and start Aunty SG, a babysitting app, in October 2021.

Today, the platform has close to 500 verified babysitters, 9,000 app downloads and over 12,000 hours of babysitting services rendered. Sitters set their own rate which averages S$20 to S$25 per hour.

In the process, women ranging from stay-at-home mothers, teachers and nurses to university students can earn income through child-minding, while parents – who can leave reviews – get the help they need. These include parents facing emergencies, mothers battling postpartum depression and those with special-needs children.

Ong’s days start early, at 5.30 am, when she preps the kids for school. After dropping her kids and husband off, she works from 8.30 am till around 5.30 pm, before picking up the family again and they have dinner together. Her “no phone” policy kicks in from 5.30 pm to 8 pm, which is when she spends time with the children before putting them to bed.

She then continues working till around 10.30 pm, unwinding with some reading before hitting the sack at close to midnight. “I don’t get a lot of sleep,” she admits sheepishly. “I actually set an alarm to remind myself when to stop work!”

Her husband, a finance professional, used to wonder what happened to his wife, who would go on about the kids and her business. So Ong has learnt to set boundaries around work and family, and being “super intentional” about it.

Still, she drops the ball sometimes. Once, despite several reminders from their son, the couple neglected to prepare a cardboard vehicle costume for his school kiddy race. So the night before, they worked frantically, cutting, pasting and painting a box to turn it into a police car.

“We managed to salvage that situation at the very last minute,” she laughs. “At least, he was part of the activity and he was proud of it.”

Ong says being an entrepreneur is a very lonely journey, so she taps the wisdom of friends who are also entrepreneurs.

It goes back to her philosophy of having an appreciative mindset.

“I don’t take for granted that I’ve built this community of sitters and parent users. I stay positive by appreciating what I’ve done and being super thankful for whatever help I’ve received. That helps me balance out the problems that come up and all the negative stuff.”

Likewise with parenting, there are really tough days, she admits. “But I am so thankful for the good days I get to enjoy with my kids, so I’ll take the tough days any time.”

Ong on her own mother:

“I always see her buried in her work (IT programming in a healthcare company). She works really hard and I think I got that from her. I think she’s proud of me although she doesn’t say it often. She’s a quiet supporter.”

Jolene Tan, founder and CEO, Wonderbewbz

For a few weeks after delivering her baby, Jolene Tan found herself suddenly suffering from sleep apnea. She would wake up after 10 minutes of sleep, gasping for air. She was also trying to recover from her Caesarean section, and struggling to breastfeed her newborn son.

Fatigued to the extreme, one day, she decided she had had enough and made up her mind to just sleep. Amazingly, that night, she managed to sleep for two hours straight, a first for her since giving birth. And soon, the sleep apnea disappeared.

That mental strength is also what gets her through her busy life as a one-woman small business owner and mother of a one-year-old boy.

It was her struggles with breastfeeding that led Tan, 33, to leave her digital marketing job and start Wonderbewbz, a business she launched last month that freeze-dries breast milk. Mothers pay for the service to turn their breast milk into powder form, which has a much longer shelf life and can be conveniently used, just like formula milk. 

Located in Woodlands, Tan’s cleanroom facility has commercial-grade freezers to store breast milk, as well as five machines imported from the US to turn the milk from liquid into powder form.

Tan, who is also pursuing a lactation consultant certification, currently does everything herself, from collecting and dropping off clients’ breast milk to processing them and maintaining the cleanliness of her 1,200 square foot facility.

After sending her son to daycare, Tan heads straight to work, spending a large part of her time cleaning her facility. She usually leaves Woodlands at around 5.30 pm to pick up her son from school. After dinner, she puts him to bed at about 8.30 pm and rests for around an hour before clearing e-mails and dealing with enquiries.

For Tan, getting the right headspace is very important, so she focuses on starting each day on a positive note and facing it with the right attitude.

“For me, I start off with music and a good cup of tea. I listen to K-pop because I need the energy to get through the day. It is also what I de-stress with, because music clears my mind.”

Another thing she does to de-stress is to vent.

“I am the type who needs to get it out of my system, so I usually have to rant to my husband, mother, sister or close friend,” says Tan. “But once that’s done, my mind is very clear and I know what to do next.”

When things go wrong, it’s very easy to go into a downward spiral, so it takes a lot of self-awareness and consciousness to snap out of it, Tan says. “Before I had a child, I used to take hot showers and play loud music. But now, I have my son, who is my happy pill. He’s very goofy, very fun and I will take a pause and play with him. If he’s not around, I’ll look at his pictures and videos.”

And things have gone badly wrong before. The first place she leased for her facility turned out to be a disaster. And even when she managed to switch to the current location at Woodlands, the plumber accidentally drilled into a water pipe and flooded the whole place.

“Setting up a business is never easy but with all these things adding up, you feel very dejected and wonder whether you can get through it. So I always go back to seeing my son and reminding myself that he is my motivation. I hope he knows that!”

Tan says there will never be a good time to do anything, so if there is something one really wants to pursue, just go for it. “Make the best of what you can, knowing that you’ve tried and have no regrets,” she advises. “Life is too short to just ponder about it.”

Tan on her own mother:

“She’s still working, doing accounts and administration. Our temperament is similar, we’re both pretty short-fused. In my early years, she was quite the Tiger Mum, but when she saw that I could handle things on my own, she let go. She’s very supportive of me, whether in my relationship or career choices. Like a typical Chinese family, we’re not the type to say ‘I love you’, but I think she knows I need more emotional support after struggling through the postpartum period. So she’s very funny, the way she shows it is to say, ‘okay lah, I sayang you’.”