At simply 31, Savina Chow has already constructed—and rebuilt—her entrepreneurial journey 3 times over.
Whereas she’s established a popularity as a style insider—her creatively curated Instagram feed (@savinachow) showcases stylish outfits and collaborations with luxurious manufacturers like Fendi and Louis Vuitton—past the curated posts lies a narrative of relentless hustle and resilience.
She’s a founder who has navigated the highs and lows of three very totally different companies, from style to magnificence to FMCG, studying laborious classes at each step.
We spoke to her about her entrepreneurial journey and what saved her going by way of the challenges.
She started working at 14
Savina has been working since she was 14. “I took on a number of part-time jobs… I even labored as a telemarketer and made sandwiches at Subway,” she mentioned.
The drive got here partly from necessity—she wasn’t academically inclined, and rising up with out monetary consolation meant she needed to discover different methods to get forward. Working taught her mushy abilities that faculty didn’t.
That mentioned, she all the time knew the place her coronary heart was. Trend was her “first and largest” love, and since younger, she’d discovered artistic methods to immerse herself in that world.
In secondary college, she ran “on-line sprees”—primarily, early buying concierge companies the place she helped prospects order objects from the US, including a 20% markup to compensate for her time. Later, she took on retail jobs to realize hands-on expertise and get a really feel for what it was wish to work on the store ground.
After finishing her Trend Diploma at Temasek Polytechnic, Savina dreamt of pursuing the humanities additional, however personal college was out of attain financially. “So as an alternative of going to school,” she mentioned, “I merely set myself on a unique path to constructing my first enterprise.”
She saved S$10,000 to launch her first enterprise
At 20 years previous, Savina launched her first enterprise: Eight Slate, a style label she hoped would stand out in Singapore’s burgeoning e-commerce scene.
“The web style and e-commerce business was peaking, and I knew I needed to be a part of it,” she shared. “My restricted and biased analysis on the time instructed me that the choices obtainable had been largely clothes and workplace necessities, so I wished to throw my concepts and energy into a spread that was extra tailor-made and positively distinctive.”
With simply S$10,000 of her financial savings, she funded her first assortment: six black-and-white designs in three sizes. She dealt with every little thing herself, from design and manufacturing to pictures and web site creation. Easy items had been made domestically in Singapore, whereas extra complicated designs had been produced in China.
Regardless of her youth and restricted assets, Eight Slate shortly gained traction. Retailers in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the US picked up the model, and he or she even hosted pop-up occasions at Robinsons Singapore.
However the early success got here with challenges. “The one largest hurdle was funding,” she admitted.
“I had no money buffer, and spent every little thing in manufacturing instantly upon launch—after all, there was by no means sufficient money to maneuver to the following stage, whether or not it was producing extra clothes items or growing higher gross sales campaigns.”
After three years of working Eight Slate solo, Savina introduced on a strategic companion to assist develop the model—a choice that will finish in authorized disputes, although she most popular not to enter element. Navigating the lawsuit alone grew to become a crash course in resilience and resourcefulness.
“I didn’t have the cash to rent a lawyer,” she recalled. “One in every of my husband’s pals took the case professional bono. The large takeaway for me from this was that there are actually unhealthy and actually good folks, and I wanted to study to identify that distinction in real-time.”
Although Eight Slate in the end closed, the enterprise laid the groundwork for Savina’s entrepreneurial mindset. She had realized learn how to design, produce, and promote a product from scratch, in addition to learn how to navigate the highs and lows of enterprise—classes she would carry into her subsequent ventures.
Her multi-label e-commerce retailer was acquired in 2023
Three years after Eight Slate’s closure, Savina launched into her subsequent enterprise: Beaubit, a magnificence platform that started as a digital journal and shortly advanced right into a multi-label e-commerce retailer.
In the course of the interim, she had hung out on content material creation, which allowed her to remain linked to the style and wonder world whereas reflecting on “the errors from the failure of Eight Slate.”
Beaubit featured almost 100 manufacturers, together with worldwide ones like Aesop, Tamburins, Dr. Barbara Sturm, Sunnies Face, and Grown Alchemist, alongside up-and-coming Asian magnificence labels. However reaching that milestone wasn’t straightforward—within the first two years, Savina targeted on securing partnerships with these manufacturers, constructing credibility and establishing Beaubit as a trusted platform.
Finance shortly grew to become a hurdle as soon as once more. “I’ve needed to study the laborious means that magnificence retail is a capital-intensive enterprise,” she mentioned, particularly as sustaining an enormous portfolio of manufacturers required substantial upfront funding in stock.
Fundraising was equally tough—post-COVID, Savina shared that buyers “had been now not as within the aesthetics section.” Although Beaubit was worthwhile, progress with out exterior funding was robust, she recalled.
To maintain the enterprise, Savina was pursuing her content material creation work full-time. “I should have spoken to not less than 100 buyers, lots of whom have questioned my selection of being an lively founder and an lively content material creator with out realising why I needed to do what I did.”
However her persistence paid off. In 2023, Beaubit was acquired by a strategic companion, although Savina didn’t share additional particulars. In the meantime, she had already been engaged on her personal model, Blunies, a deodorant line coming into the FMCG market.
Launching her personal deodorant model
Deodorant could appear to be a easy class, however Savina noticed a chance to carry one thing new to the market. In 2020, she launched Blunies, a model specializing in light formulations and interesting scents.
She spend months growing the deodorants, working with chemists to steadiness efficacy with skin-friendly elements like AHAs, collagen, and probiotics. Perfume was a selected focus: “We work with a worldwide agency to develop my scent concepts into precise fragrances,” shared Savina. “Our course of is intensive and takes roughly a 12 months to get to manufacturing pattern.”
The primary batch of 5,000 items bought out within the first month, confirming preliminary client curiosity. However scaling manufacturing with out exterior funding was a continuing problem. Each resolution, from formulation to packaging, needed to be rigorously managed to maximise restricted assets.
After two years of bootstrapped progress, the stress of sustaining the enterprise took its toll—Savina took a one-year break to give attention to her well being. The plan, as soon as she returned, was initially to promote out remaining stock and slowly part out the model, as all financing choices had been exhausted.
However one morning, she determined to provide it one final shot. She reached out personally to each retailer in Singapore, asking if they’d take into account stocking Blunies. “I had no expectations and accepted {that a} non–response was in all probability an indication from God to let this enterprise go,” she recalled.
Simply seven days later, the primary constructive reply got here: well being and wonder retailer Guardian invited her for an in-person assembly, and inside per week, a commerce settlement was signed.
“On the day we signed our commerce settlement, I utilized for a [small] financial institution mortgage to maintain our stock required for offline retail,” she shared. “We launched in 60 shops for the primary three months, and shortly after, we secured full distribution in all Guardian shops.”
Right this moment, Blunies continues to develop steadily—it’s at the moment stocked in over 130 shops in Singapore, with plans to increase its retail presence and product strains.
An ongoing journey
Via all three ventures—Eight Slate, Beaubit, and Blunies—Savina has realized that persistence, adaptability, and creativity are key to navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
She’s confronted monetary constraints, investor rejections, and the pressures of bootstrapping, but has constantly discovered methods to show challenges into alternatives.
“What you lack in financial assets, you can also make up for with human capital and sheer grit,” she says. Restricted assets drive creativity, and the power to pivot when needed retains a enterprise adaptable.
For Savina, the journey continues to be ongoing. She intends to maintain shifting ahead, carrying the teachings from her very first enterprise and refusing to look again, letting expertise information her subsequent steps.
The reality is, I not often obtained caught on any selections for lengthy in any respect, it was all the time simply go, go, go. Trying again, there’s a sure braveness that comes with ignorance, or perhaps name it the fearlessness that comes with youth—I really like that feeling.
- Learn different articles we’ve written on Singaporean companies here.
