Pearls of eComm Wisdom: The Bubble Tea Club Story

Pamela Yip: I just put the kids down. I just made a cheeky bubble tea or my partner's had a long day. I just made both of us a bubble tea. Like it's a moment of joy. We showed our team and they called us out on too. They're like, what are you doing? This is not you. So nice to see young females. It's really nice to see Asians. I've been on the line about starting a business, but I've started it because of you.

[Voiceover]: Welcome to ADD to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game. And of course, keep your customers adding to Cart.

Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at E commerce talent agency E Suite. Now, many of us have business ideas, but it's relatively rare that we act on them, or at least all of them. Today's guest bucks that trend when Covid hit. Within a week of losing most of her marketing clients, Pamela had conceived and launched a new business with a friend, Jenny Lee. Their idea, DIY bubble tea. It was timely and a huge success. I mean, if people can't go and get bubble tea, then bubble tea must come to the people. Bubble Tea Club has now had over 40,000 customers, or bubblers, their words as they are known. And the company is generating over $2 million of revenue. They've also been voted in the top 20 coolest retailers by Inside Retail, alongside brands like Culture Kings and Country Road. In this chat, Pamela shares what it's like to be a young Asian female entrepreneur, how her and her co founder nailed their crowdfunding campaign video. And she tells us all about edutainment, which is at the heart of her marketing philosophy. Now, a quick reminder before we get into today's chat that there is only two weeks, two weeks left to enroll in E Suite's E commerce accelerator. If you want to upskill in E commerce, or if you want to get your team upskilled in just 10 weeks, head on over to esweettalent.com

Nathan Bush: accelerator to enroll today.

Nathan Bush: All right, let's get into it. Thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our conversation with Pamela Yip, co founder of Bubble Tea Club.

Nathan Bush: Pamela, welcome to ADD to cart.

Pamela Yip: Thank you so much for having me.

Nathan Bush: I've got to kick off with a question that I've had and I've just got to get out of the way. Otherwise it'll sit in the back of my mind. What are the little pearls in the bubble tea? What are they made out of?

Pamela Yip: Okay, so actually tapioca, and they're made from starch, but they're kind of like mochi where they're a bit chewy. It's a very nice texture. But what you have to do and the tip to it is adding brown sugar, which is what you do at the bubble tea shops, and it gives it flavor. So that's it. Yeah, that's tapioca. Otherwise there's like popping pearls. Some people call it bursting boba. It's just biting into a burst of flavor. There's actually a lot of toppings available.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, I love them. They're so good. All right.

Nathan Bush: So I just had to get that

Nathan Bush: out of my head because otherwise it would sit there for a long time. Now we can have. We'll get into it. So you are the founder of Bubble Tea Club? Yes, I believe it's a Covid baby.

Pamela Yip: That's right.

Nathan Bush: Tell us how it came about.

Pamela Yip: It's actually pretty crazy. It happened in the peak of COVID so April 2020, we're actually coming up to our second year anniversary. And during that time, at the core of it, we were, me and my business partners, we run businesses. It was Covid. I lost a lot of my income overnight. Jenny, who's an optometrist, was stood down. So we were actually starting new businesses almost every week. Like one of the first ones we started was called We're Open Now. I work in hospitality and digital marketing. At that time, the keyword was pivot. But not a lot of businesses had the resource knowledge or even how to just jump online. So the first thing we actually did together was a website where you put in the postcode and it would just tell you who's still opened because otherwise if you didn't walk, there's no foot traffic. You'd have no idea who actually is opened for takeaway. And at that time, it was really about supporting small businesses. So that's one of the first things that Jenny and I started. Then Bubble Tea Club started because I was on social media. On Facebook, there's a group called Subtle Asian Traits. I don't know if you've heard of it before. There's over, like. Yeah, there's over 2 million people in that group all around the world. And as a joke, during the peak of COVID in Singapore, they closed all of takeaway, all of the restaurants, so you couldn't order anything as well. And bubble tea was being sold on eBay for three to $5,000 as a joke.

Nathan Bush: There's some serious withdrawals out there.

Pamela Yip: Yeah, but it's crazy. Like, come to think of it, bubble tea, you couldn't really get it anywhere besides from the shop, which is crazy to think. So imagine if you were craving a coffee or a tea and you couldn't go to make it yourself. You had to pay someone 7 to $9 to make it and then an additional $5 to get it delivered to your house. It is wild. Bubble tea is a massive drink. It's phenomenal. Like, there's a shop everywhere now. It was just crazy to me that you couldn't buy it to make yourself at home. That tastes good. So I told that to Jenny and she rocked up to my house the next day with the ingredients and we're like, let's try this out.

Nathan Bush: So did you actually sit down and see if you could make a bubble tea yourself first or you already knew that you could make a great bubble tea?

Pamela Yip: No, I didn't know. So I did search online on how to make it, but a lot of ingredients are very hard to source. And where I live, it's whoop, whoop. So you definitely can't get a local Asian grocery around you. And if it did, you couldn't find like taro powder, you couldn't find tapioca to make it. So that was crazy to me. And when Jenny brought the ingredients over, because she went out to source it from different parts of Melbourne and we made it, I made it for my family, like, wow. Like, this actually tastes really good. And it was actually really easy to make. Like, why does this not exist? Because it was actually really easy. It was literally just taro powder, for example, and you stir it in hot water.

Nathan Bush: As tea should be.

Pamela Yip: As tea should be. Exactly. Yeah. So it was not hard. So we were amazed at how easy it was to actually make it. It just came to how premium the ingredients were.

Nathan Bush: That's awesome. And from that moment to actually launching the website and taking your first order. How long are we talking here?

Pamela Yip: It was four days. So keep in mind that we were launching businesses, like, almost every single week. So we actually kind of like fell into a process. Jenny brought it over to my house. The ingredients I filmed from my living room with, like a blanket as a backdrop. And if you actually look at my first ever videos on bubble with tea club, you'll notice there's no branding, there's no packaging. So at that time when we launched, we put up our website. I just shot all the photos from my living room. We had our first 100 orders and we started still not had packaging yet. So that's how we were able to launch in four days though. It was just really testing. Like you guys said. It's like mvp just a very minimal viable product, minimal sellable products and then just became a minimal lovable product. And that's how we started out and how we were able to scale really fast.

Nathan Bush: And do you remember what were some of those other business ideas that you had in those weeks leading up to cracking Bubble Tea Club?

Pamela Yip: Yeah Nat, we were even talking at that time. We didn't have the restriction yet. So we're like, oh, let's take people onto tours of trying different restaurants. Jenny also did one for puzzles because Dan Andrew said that puzzles were essential during lockdown. So they started like a puzzle challenge.

Nathan Bush: We all went through a puzzle stage, didn't we?

Pamela Yip: Yes, yes, exactly. We even had like a baking kit because at that time everyone was making their own sourdough, making their own food. So that's just random things we were trying.

Nathan Bush: Fantastic. And so what was the moment where you went bubble tea club is the idea. That's the one we've got to chase.

Pamela Yip: I think if anything it was just once Bubble tea club took off, we were just on a roller coaster and we never stopped since then. So it was never a moment of like, okay, we're going to put everything in. We started off that way already and because there was momentum and there was traction, we just kept going.

Nathan Bush: Life is like a box of chocolates.

Nathan Bush: Try not to get squished. This was vitally important for boutique chocolatier

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Nathan Bush: their amazing products arrived in tip top shape.

Nathan Bush: But when Signet introduced them to their own foil insulated mailer, they bounced on over reducing their packaging costs by 50%

Nathan Bush: and maintaining 100% non squashed chocolate customer satisfaction. That's very smooth.

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Nathan Bush: Did you find out anything in those early days about your audience or your product that really surprised you from that mvp?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, I think we actually built our business off of our community. And what I mean by that is because our content was going viral, we had like hundreds of comments coming in. So we had people telling us what they wanted. They're like, oh, it's great that you guys have plastic straws but have you thought about paper straws? So based off of that, we actually went off and actually replaced every single order with paper straws. And they were telling us at first we literally were so minimal with how we launched our product that we were printing labels from officeworks at that time. So we became very familiar with the local Office works team. But because our products are very sticky, because you're making a drink out of it, they were telling us, hey, it's really like, it's really sticky. Can you. So we changed everything to waterproof stickers. We learned a lot from our customers. But the most surprising part is definitely realizing that most of our demographic was actually Western. We actually started this business thinking it would appeal to mainly Asians. But the interesting thing is that Asians are living in an area where there's local bubble tea to them, so they can just go down the street and grab it. Whereas for people that are western, are in more rural areas, they couldn't do that during lockdown.

Nathan Bush: So true.

Pamela Yip: Yeah. And the other very interesting thing as well was that we actually have a lot of people in our community who are Aussies and Westerns and they're like, to us, oh, I've always seen this in shopping centers, but I've been too scared to try it. They're like, what's, what's the black balls? Don't be scared, don't be scared. But, yeah, but for the first time, there are social proof. Like we were showing, like they had people on Instagram, their friends making it. There's like customer reviews that like reassuring them. We had customer service, like answering all their questions in the safety of their own home. So I think that was definitely the most surprising part for us.

Nathan Bush: That's awesome. And were there any flavors that were immediately more popular or flavors that surprised you? Oh, pineapple as in that surprised you?

Pamela Yip: That surprised me because also when we first launched it, we, the way we approached it was just like, we want to offer the top selling bubble tea flavors that are currently available. And pineapple doesn't actually sit up there, like if you go to gongcha or any of the large like cha times and stuff. And it surprised us because it was not a very common flavor. But looking back at it now, it shouldn't have been a surprise because like I said, most of our customers were Aussies and pineapples, a tropical flavor made sense. It's a very familiar flavor.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, because we're a bit weird. Australians are a bit weird in that we like pineapple on pizza as well.

Pamela Yip: Oh, I love Pineapple on pizza. I think, if anything, I think we thought we were weird as Asians. So if anything, we, like, we were like, oh, yeah, yuzu matcha. Like, they're really popular flavors. And we're like, oh, pineapple is a normal flavor. It was just us being weird. That's great.

Nathan Bush: That's great. And so take us to where you are at today. I read that you've got over 40,000 customers and generating over $2 million in revenue. What are some of the milestones you're most proud of so far?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, I think the crazy part is, like, when we mentioned before that we're in a roller coaster, that you're so busy reacting to the moment and looking ahead that we've hardly turned back on the roller coaster, and we're like, oh, yeah, we just totally went up something really high and dropped really low. It's until moments like this where people ask us, what are you most proud of? And I think for us, as a business community is really big. And we honestly are very passionate about seeing how other people have benefited from us starting bubble tea. So we've had moments in the community and, like, our Facebook group where someone, like, lost their job and they posted in a group like, like, hey, like, I've, like, I really love supporting you guys, but currently on a halt, not buying any bubble tea because I've lost my job. And in that comment section, our community flooded with comments saying, hey, what's your address? I'd love to send you some. Oh, it was, like, insane to us. And they'd be like, hey, I've tried this flavor. Wasn't really my thing, but if you're keen, I'd love to send you our flavor. So that was really amazing to us.

Nathan Bush: And is that a private Facebook group that you've got going on?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we invite, like, it's just part of the email flow. Once they purchase from us, we welcome them to, like, the community, and we call them bubblers, and they actually gave themselves that name, which is crazy to me. It is crazy to me. So I think moments like that. We've also had moments through our, like, like, obviously virtual crowdfunding. When we did equity crowdfunding and we broke. We broke the record for the most amount of interest expressed into at that time. And we also had a lot of people that are really young and, like, Asians reach out to us and say, like, hey, we were, like, on Harold's side. We were on A Current Affair, and they were just reaching out and they were saying, like, hey, thank you so much for representing us. It's so nice to see young females. It's really nice to see Asians. I've been on the line about starting a business, but I've started it because of you. I think those are really massive moments for us, and it makes us, like, super rewarding.

Nathan Bush: That is. That's amazing.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: And I'd love to come back to that before we move on the breaking the record on your crowdfunding.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: What do you put that down to?

Pamela Yip: I have no idea.

Nathan Bush: Just a fluke. You just fluke.

Pamela Yip: We had, like. We decided to do the virtual crowdfunding because we were tossing up between VC route and crowdfunding. So the moment that we decided crowdfunding had a lot to do with the community. But I actually think that's what really drove it. I think it was us challenging a lot of things. Being young Asian females. We're really young. We're all just in our 20s. We're females. I think we were challenging a lot of perspective that you've usually seen in a business or in a crowdfunding scene. So people are really supportive of us, which we're just really lucky and grateful for. They loved our business model, they loved our perception, and they loved that we were different, and I think they supported us on those three different areas.

Nathan Bush: Yeah. Your crowdfunding video is amazing. I watched it a couple of times now. Even though it's closed, I go back to it because I just think it's such a great way to show, obviously, a really successful product and a business on a great trajectory. But also, just. You guys, you really do a great job in showing who you are and what people can buy into.

Pamela Yip: Yeah. Which is, like, insane at that time, because when I was doing the scripting for that pitch video, my team and I just did this. I'm really lucky for my team. We actually had a. There's a scene in the backdrop where there's a stack of, like, our bubble tea, like, shipping boxes and our packaging. And there's also a scene where I have, like, a really big $7 note.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: Those are literally ideas. I just said to my team and be like, just imagine if there's a wall of boxes. Just imagine there's a dollar note this size. And I think it was incredible because my team would just. I would rock up and they would have done it. So I think that really helped. But back to the part about showing our personalities, that was actually really interesting for us because we actually ended up shooting that across two days until, like, 12:00am even like, past midnight and one of the scenes. And initially actually scripts a lot of the. I script a lot of humor into it because that's just how Jenny and I actually talk in real life. And in that moment, we actually hesitated. When we actually went to film, we were just standing there, like, in our. We actually had a trench coat on. And, like, it just looked professional.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: And we recorded that first half and then we looked back at it, like, what are we doing? We look so, like, rigid. It's not us. And we showed, like, we showed our team and they called us out on too. They're like, what are you doing? This is not you. So, like, okay. I was like, yeah, you're right. Let's go back to our original script. Let's go to Jenny's apartments and just be ourselves. And I think that was really important to us. I'm really glad that we made that decision.

Nathan Bush: That's such a great lesson because I've done it as well here at E Suite with the training program that we're doing. And I got professional, like, videographers in and I had on and I was doing face to camera and I was so serious, like, reading like a news presenter. And I watched it like, oh, you're an idiot. You're not like that. And then I recorded one, like, in my home office where I was like, just, you know, had, like, rough talking points, but I just record heaps of stuff and just whatever came to the top of my head on those points. And once you edit it all together, you get such a better view on who you are and what you're trying to do. Right?

Pamela Yip: Yeah. Because you just get the message across emotionally a lot better because it's who you are.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: And I've always just found that really interesting, like the idea that you have to have a professional side to you and the media is also portrayed what successful businesses look like and you have to be serious to be taken seriously. So again, just back to challenging a lot of that stuff as well.

Nathan Bush: Do you think because you are willing to show your true personalities come through that that was the secret to some of the PR that you got in those early days? You mentioned that A Current Affair and some other really high profile. Do you think by doing that. And we had the guys from the LAD Collective on a couple of weeks ago as well, and very similar, like, very authentic, very true to themselves. Don't change for anyone. Great pr. Is that a similar story for you?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, I think if anything, like, I know that when we were talking to a PR like, to people that are interviewing us, they thought they were very different, which is really. They're just like. It's very refreshing. Like, we were cracking jokes with our, like, Herald sun photographer and they're like, oh, man. Like, I've done so many photo shoots before. This is like, this is one of the highlights for us. I was like, ah, that's so reassuring. That being ourselves is so anything is that we've also had, like, a lot of reassurance from people just being ourselves. We just had so much more fun. We just really want to enjoy the process, not for ourselves, but for everyone else that's around us too. So if anything, we've never, like, purposely done it. We've just tried to be ourselves and just have fun in the process.

Nathan Bush: How did you guys meet?

Pamela Yip: Oh, we actually met ages ago. I met her through her. Jenny's partner, now husband. Actually met him because I started Instagram for my dog and I also have. And I also have an Instagram called Munching Melbourne, which is Melbourne Foodies. And Justin is a food entrepreneur. Like crazy. He had poked and he invited us to his store. He also opened scroll as well. Scroll ice cream in Chads.

Nathan Bush: And look at you. You got all bases covered. All good food bases.

Pamela Yip: We love food. We love food. We love community. I could eat all day. But, yeah, I actually met him through there. He invited us to one of his stores. Jenny was actually just there at that time. I never really, like, directly spoke to her, but it was definitely through Covid that we got a lot closer. Like, I look, I was like, when she walked down the aisle, I was controlling them. It was very stressful. Yeah. That's how we met. I met through her partner and we got super close because of COVID and because of. And because of Bubble Tea Club.

Nathan Bush: That's awesome. So I was just having a bit of a snoop around in the background. And it looks like you had a massive spike in website visits and Instagram followers in August last year. That seemed to be a really critical point for you, what happened there?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, I was just surprised when you found that out. I was like, of course. You know all this detail, which is interesting. Yeah. It was actually our biggest month in all of our business. And that was just when a lot of the PR started coming out and a lot of our competition started coming out. Yeah. So if anything, and like, something I've learned from my previous marketing role is that sometimes competitors entering is not a bad thing because they're helping you drive awareness.

Nathan Bush: Yep.

Pamela Yip: So we have a lot of people Driving awareness around DIY Bubble Tea kits. And once they've tried it, naturally you'd search online and you'd naturally start conversations. You'd be like, hey, I just tried this kit from Woolies. And then someone else would then say, yep, I've tried Bubble Tea Club before. Have you tried it? And so the big focus for us was always around flavor. I think a lot of concerns, like, even when we were doing virtual and like, VC crowdfunding, they're like, how do you know you're not just a lockdown product? Like, we actually had our biggest month coming out of lockdown. But for us, there is always a gap to fill in terms of authenticity of flavor.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: So we always told ourselves that let's reverse it. Like, say if we opened a physical store next to the competition, who would our customers choose? So taking away the DIY kit element and we're like, we need to compete on experience and flavor. So the brand experience has always been very important to us. Flavor we've never compromised on. So during the time of August, having PR around us and having competitors entered actually drove a lot of awareness to Bubble Tea Club. And people would end up, yeah, we were actually really surprised about that because we definitely were monitoring, just making sure how the market shares, how we're positioned. At that time, some of the competitors videos were going viral on TikTok and our community would post on the comment section and be like, nah, Bubble Tea Club is the way to go.

Nathan Bush: Send in the gang.

Pamela Yip: But then we're like, we're super lucky. We've even had competitors go into our Facebook community and, like, direct message hundreds of our customers being like, we'll offer you 50% off and our Facebook community. Her name's a Diddy. She's a. She's a Bubbler. She's a customer. She messaged me, direct messaging me right away and goes like, are you available to jump on the phone? I need to talk to you right now. I was like, oh, what did I do wrong? But she's never called me before because I've never met her before. She was a customer. She's been with us since, like, day.com and we made her like a moderator. She called me and showed me screenshots of our competitors messaging our customers, offering 50% off to try their products. And it was insane to me that our community then posted into our Facebook community and be like, that was just not moral. It's unethical. Would never betray Bubble Tea Club. So I think, if anything, back to your question of what happened To August was we had a lot of competitors enter into the space. But thanks to our community and thanks to. To our brand positioning, we actually drove a lot of awareness back to bubble tea club and encouraged people to try us as well. So that was really interesting.

Nathan Bush: That's awesome. And you've obviously got such a strong community, strong advocates for bubble tea club, but you're also a product that's meant to be consumed in the home. Do you have any plans or strategies around how to connect people in the real or physical world?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, yeah, we actually were talking about that because part of our purpose. There's two angles to our purpose, which we're still trying to refine. Like, one of them is closing the gap of Asian representation in the Western culture while having fun. And the other thing we notice as well is that when people make a bubble tea and when they've been posting it online and telling us about it, it's a moment where it makes them happy because they're treating themselves like we'd have moms say, I've just put the kids down, I just made a cheeky bubble tea. Or my partner's had a long day, I just made both of us a bubble tea. Like, it's a moment of joy.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Pamela Yip: Yeah. And we're like, okay, we really want to focus on this. And so if we were to go into a retail space, we would want to partner with people that share that same purpose. So we actually are in the chat to speaking to a retailer to discuss this, but I can't disclose too much.

Nathan Bush: Top secret.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: No exclusives here.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: So tell us.

Nathan Bush: We've touched on it a few times and I think I'd love to get

Nathan Bush: your experiences being a young Asian woman

Nathan Bush: as an entrepreneur in Australia. What are some of the experiences that you've come up against? The biases? What are we trying to overcome here?

Pamela Yip: I actually remember when I first started in marketing. I won't say where, but I've always heard on TV that there was like, racism. And I've never experienced it. Like, I grew up in Australia, I lived in America in school. I've never experienced it. It was fine. There was a moment where I was an intern at a marketing agency and it was a cultural shock for me in the sense that I grew up in an Asian household. So marketing has a lot to do with culture in the sense of, like, relevance, depending what your product is as well. You really just got to understand cultural moments and significance that happens throughout the year so that you can market to them, etcetera so that's a major cultural shock to me. I think, if anything, I've had to really understand how I can market Bubble Tea Club, for example, which is very Asian, into a Western society. But also in digital marketing, I worked naturally, a lot of Asian businesses, too. And a lot of challenges they always face is that, like, they're massive in Asia. There's, like. There's one, like, sobing. So they're like Australia's first chain, but in Korea, they're the number one Seoul being. Or like, shaved ice dessert. The challenge for them coming into Western cultures usually is that they have a really hard time integrating with the Australian culture. So you find that they have massive lines, they're super popular. But one of their challenges, like, saying to us, how can I introduce this to the Australian customer base? Because at the end of the day, it's just shaved ice. There's nothing really that, like, unique or different. But there's always been a challenge. And if you do introduce Asian flavors from, like, Asian countries into Western society, usually it's a compromise.

Nathan Bush: Yep.

Pamela Yip: In the sense of you try to make it very fusion. And so the last 10 years for me has always just figuring out what's the best way to navigate that. How can you best market the Asian aspect? 100% acknowledging how, like, what does it appeal to, like, Australians and Aussies? Like what? How can you make it fun for them to try this new thing? Not feeling like it's too freaky.

Nathan Bush: What about you personally? So if you take product out of it, and then whether that be as your time as a marketing intern or yourself now as an entrepreneur, dealing with suppliers, partners, all that sort of stuff, do you feel that you get treated differently or people come with assumptions that you have to overcome that others might not?

Pamela Yip: Yeah. I think the first one was overcoming myself, because in Asian culture, for example, we sit at a table and anything that anyone that's older, like our aunties and uncles, we never speak up to or, like, we never challenge what they say. And especially when you're, like, an Asian female, like, there's still a lot of tradition around. Like, you should be quiet. You should be a lot more feminine. You shouldn't be assertive. It comes across as, like, very dominant. So in some ways actually had to overcome that myself first, because then I realized that because in Western culture, you guys don't have that perception against us in the sense that I'm older than you, so you shouldn't challenge what I'm saying. It actually doesn't, like, exist in your mindset. It's very much my own mindset, and this is what I challenge on my team as well, is that if you're confident about what you're saying, it's just being a lot more vocal about it. So that was one thing I had to overcome. But, yes, a hundred percent, because I also don't look like my age. People don't take me very seriously.

Nathan Bush: Drink?

Pamela Yip: Yeah. It has a youth. Youth elixir. No. So I've had people, like, in meetings, they're like, oh, have you finished uni yet? Are you still in high school? And that just comes with, like, because I look a lot younger than my age. So I've had to really learn to build confidence. I've had to also. I've also had scenarios like, this is very interesting. I've also had scenarios where older men, like, my business partner for my digital marketing agency is a male. And in those meetings, they would just talk to my business partner, even though I was the one that was running the client and running the ideas. So I actually had to learn to be a lot more assertive, a lot more confident in what I'm saying. But it was very hard for me because I didn't like the idea of coming across as. What's the word? It's not assertive, but aggressive. I had to learn the difference between the two, that I was being assertive, not aggressive, and that my contribution to this conversation is going to benefit everyone.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: So, yeah, it's a whole ball game. I'm still learning it. I challenge a lot of my team to do that as well, because I've been in their shoes. Yeah.

Nathan Bush: Yeah. In your bio, you've said that your purpose is to close the gap between Asian representation in Western societies through edutainment. What do you mean by that?

Pamela Yip: Yeah. Okay. So I usually find that. I think I'll use, like, being vegetarian or vegan as an example. Like, usually when you hear that someone's vegan or, like, vegetarian and they talk about it, very proud, it can come off across, like, too pushy.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: For me, it's like, how do you find the balance then, of me sharing about my culture without putting any other culture down? Because it has nothing to do with that. How can I share about my culture but make it fun? Which is, like you said in our pitch video, we're still trying to convey information and try to get a point across, but we were just thinking, how can we do it in a very lighthearted way that's entertaining for everyone else? So it just gets absorbed a lot More easier.

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Nathan Bush: To me, that comes across naturally because I feel from what I know of you guys, that's your natural personalities. Do you feel that's a challenge, say for Asian represented businesses in Australia that you almost have to western ify your communication to have those businesses fit in?

Pamela Yip: Yes. I remember like this time last year, Lunar New Year was sitting in. This year sitting in like February 1, which is very close to Valentine's Day. And so when it came to like marketing, it was choosing between which one do we run a campaign across. And we were like to ourselves, like, because most of our audience is like, Western is like, is it too much to be running a full on like Lunar New Year campaign? As in like we put red pockets into every single order. We created a messaging messenger chatbot digitally where if you clicked into the messenger, it would open up a random red pocket for you. So we just made it fun. So for us it was like, yep, we want to do this, we want to hear it because it is fun. Like for me, like I see culture as something not like more so towards like the religion, but more so it's just something to fun to celebrate. Like there's line dancing. There's a lot of that element to it. And red pocket is the part where you receive money every year. So like can't complain. But

Nathan Bush: there's a part of culture to celebrate. Pretty good part.

Pamela Yip: Yes, yes. Receiving money. No, but it's. But it's crazy because we made the decision to do that and we made it fun. Like our customers loved it. They were taking pictures of it and they sharing like on our Facebook group what they want for the red pocket. And like during the chatbot we would do things like FYI, it's the year of the cow, it's the year of the tiger. So like very subtle ways. We were just sharing part of our culture and why it was really like significant to us but also like lends credibility to our brand because we're a bubble tea business as well. So I think back to what you were saying. It really just depends on your business. You just really have to find cultural relevance. I think if your business is not like ours, where it's like bubble tea, like the heritage comes from Taiwan and it had nothing to do with Asia, then it's a fine balance of like, are you doing it just to feel like you need to be a part of something, or is it that actually lends credibility to your brand as well? But it was interesting because this year I saw our competitors all use the Lunar New Year campaign to run, which I was like, it is great because while they were choosing to replicate us, I was like, it's great. More people are actually learning about our culture and they're all a lot more confident about celebrating it. So I was like, okay, it kind of sucks that we have competitors replicating, but great that they're celebrating and they're getting the word out.

Nathan Bush: And I think, you know, if you use mechanisms like bubble tea to bring people into the culture, that's a great way to do it as well, because it's something everyone can get around. Like you said in our pre chat, it's like, bubble tea is tea. Everyone loves tea. We can all appreciate it.

Pamela Yip: Yeah. And I think the crazy thing is, like, there doesn't need to be. I think usually when you have Asian food or like Asian flavors in western country, it's fusion or compromise or you either have like, leaning either way. So for us, it's like, it's nothing to do with compromising Australian culture because we partnered with Melbourne Bush Food and we developed the lemon myrtle bubble tea, which we loved. So it's about heroing both.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: Nice. I love that approach. You were recently voted in the top 20 coolest retailers by Inside Retail.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: How'd that feel, given you're a relatively young brand still?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, that was crazy for us. I think we're like, I'm very passionate about, like a brand universe. And what I mean by that is like, I started an activation in agency where you pretty much do, like, interactions and activations in person. So for me, in digital marketing was always about, like, how can I bring this to life online? That's where we use like the chatbot to do, like, spin the wheel campaigns and the. Instead of physically giving red pockets in a shopping center, we just gave it out digitally. And we're also, like, very somatic about where we place our logos. And so I think it just came down to when we were announced top 20 coolest retailers. Okay, that was worth it because I was a little crazy, but that was worth it because there was also times like Black Friday and like Cyber Monday where everyone around us was doing like massive sales and discounts and we're like, oh, this is really not who we are as a brand. Like, how can we participate in this but not compromise on dropping our prices? And also the idea that we just did this with like, on my, like, my team is literally just 20 year olds. So we literally built this brand from very, like, passionate branding.

Nathan Bush: Yeah.

Pamela Yip: Like, her name's Amy. She's. She's so into the details of brands. She helped bring it to life. There's like Rachel where she executes and she looks after every single piece of branding that goes out to someone. So I think when we were announced that we were just like, okay, this is all that was very worth it. This is really rewarding. Yeah. To be alongside like culture kings, like Country Road, just imagining the type of teams and people they have in their marketing department running. Yeah, super rewarding for us.

Nathan Bush: And I think it's so well deserved because you look at what you guys stand for and the role models you guys and the strong community and customer feedback you've got, it's all creating this beautiful ecosystem of a brand that actually means so much.

Pamela Yip: So many. Yeah, that's really rewarding. It's awesome.

Nathan Bush: On the branding side of it, did you have this vision of what the brand would be from the start or you've had to evolve and change it over time?

Pamela Yip: No. So that's actually a really interesting topic because I think traditionally you think that you have to. People usually start a brand pack first, but we didn't, like I mentioned before, when we launched the business, we had no name for the business when I was filming and we had no packaging as I was like pulling it together. Bubble Tea Club came from. We wanted to build a community. So Tim, one of our other co founders, actually came up with the name. And so for me it was for bubble tea. I more so thought about it in terms of how can I evolve the brand and what people know of bubble tea in our logo and in our branding. Because bubble tea has actually been around for like 40, 40 years. Like I knew about it from, from my parents. And the bubble tea brands there, like very traditionally show logos of like the actual bubble teacup. Like their brand is called Happy Cup. So for me it was how could I develop brand that suits today's time and suits social media in terms of like then pulling in the colors. We did a lot of AB testing on our social media and in our Facebook ads. So we ran creatives that had yellow background versus Taro and we were starting to build our brand deck off of what converts online. So it's a very different approach, I find, to traditional. Like our brand is still evolving now.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, that is. That's amazing. To build a brand kit or style guide based on AB tests of what's already in market.

Pamela Yip: Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Bush: I love your agency background and obviously you've got great experience there. And it's not uncommon to find agency folk who are throwing around a bunch

Nathan Bush: of ideas, but because they've never been

Nathan Bush: in retail or even actually done their own thing as an entrepreneur before, are going, I just don't know how to like, they can launch it, they can get a website up, they can get a basic product, they don't know how to go the next level. What advice would you have for people coming from an agency background on some of the skills that they may have to close to be able to turn an idea into a successful business?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, I mean, if anything, agency is really powerful because you work with a lot of, not necessarily third parties. Even within the agency itself, you might have like developers. So like when you're talking about the website, there's someone within the agency that you usually briefly that helps you bring the website to life. So even just connecting with that person and asking them like, hey, any recommendations for starting your own website? Is one way to go about it. I would say the only thing that's probably missing an agency is the operations, supply chain aspect of it. In that sense, I would say that working in client side really helps because when you're developing marketing campaigns, you have to run about operations. And I learned a lot of that through my 711 graduate program. Like what I really enjoyed about that was it made you go through four rotations. That was not just marketing. So they took me through. I had to run stores for six months and learn how to start a franchise. I got franchise training and it was super interesting to see how marketing was executed in stores. Like, there are so many elements I did not think of when you're just developing the campaign from a head office. I would suggest for agency side, there's a lot of like when it comes to marketing creatives, anything digital, you probably have a lot of resources internally in your agency. So just connecting with them is really helpful. But then actually speaking to people that run business in terms of the operation side, supply chain finance is probably what you Want to see in agency. And if you're trying to start a business, I think they're so important.

Nathan Bush: Yeah, 100%.

Pamela Yip: Yeah. You would start a business for like what you're strong at. So like, in my case, I started business in marketing. But what I've realized over time is that marketing makes up probably 20% of my time. The rest of the 80% was figuring out the finance. You're like HR, managing a team.

Nathan Bush: I didn't sign up for this.

Pamela Yip: I didn't sign up for this class. I quit my 9 to 5 and then now I'm working 24 7. You see that meme? I'm like.

Nathan Bush: But it's so true. It's like, I think as a marketer, sometimes we look at it as a really straight funnel, but really what we're doing is. Has such a 360 effect on, you know, what we're doing in marketing has an impact on profit, has an impact on supply chain, has an impact on customer service. You got to make sure that's working together.

Pamela Yip: Yeah.

Nathan Bush: All right, we have to let you go. What's final question. What's your favorite flavor? We're talking about pineapple as a weird flavor that's come out of the woodwork. What's your favorite. What's your go to.

Pamela Yip: My favorite always changes depending on what we're trying because we do a lot of R and D. Like our food tech was coming up with like rose flavored milk tea. That's amazing. Or even like a milk tea with a green tea base. Because traditionally it's just made with a black, black tea base. Like, honestly, it just keeps changing. The most recent one I've tried was brown sugar in a green milk tea base. I hope that processes.

Nathan Bush: It does. It does.

Pamela Yip: This is a weird combination. Yeah, there's like thousands of combinations. So it just changes all the time for me.

Nathan Bush: Lovely.

Nathan Bush: All right, we mentioned the potential physical

Nathan Bush: retail partnership coming up. Is there anything else coming up for Bubble Tea Club that you're really excited about?

Pamela Yip: Oh, actually learning to focus this year.

Nathan Bush: Is that code for you've hit exhaustion?

Pamela Yip: Yeah, no, it was just we were doing so many things and we've been very fortunate by having like a raise and we also got like a boosting female founder grant. But for us, it's learning to focus and really go back to the core of our business and what our purpose is and how can we now amplify what we know best. We're also restructuring who we bring onto the team as well. So that's, that's A big part, like big part of our business right now is actually just planning for the next three years. So the retail was in the woodworks. We're doing a lot of testing. There are new products that are coming out. There are collaborations in the line as well. Also chatting to ambassadors to represent us too. But yeah, going into the States is a big one. Canada and uk. So all of that is in the works.

Nathan Bush: Just little countries, little moves.

Pamela Yip: This is all we need to focus stuff like let's focus on actually like propelling those.

Nathan Bush: So good.

Nathan Bush: Pamela, if people have heard this and

Nathan Bush: they want to know more about bubble tea Club or get in touch with yourself, what's the best way to do that?

Pamela Yip: If you want to get in touch with me, just like hit me up on LinkedIn and then put in the notes section. And you're from ADD to Cart. They sent you here so I can find you. Yeah. So I was like, so I can see you guys like right away. I love chatting about ecob. I love chatting about branding and I love helping as well. So reach out in that case. If it's for a bubble tea, we actually made a promo code for. For the add to cart as well. So just add DBT to Cart as the promo code.

Nathan Bush: Awesome. Thank you.

Pamela Yip: Giving the free even reach out there. My kids up on social media and anywhere I'm across all of them, I have notifications on for all of our touch points. So reach out anywhere you'd like. We're on all of the social medias.

Nathan Bush: That's fantastic. We'll put that promo code into the show notes as well so people can access it.

Nathan Bush: Pamela, thank you so much for joining

Nathan Bush: us on ADD to Cart. We love the story so far and

Nathan Bush: no doubt bigger things to come.

Pamela Yip: Thank you so much for your time.

Nathan Bush: How cool was that? I especially loved hearing from Pamela. Her perspective as a young Asian female entrepreneur. Obviously a world that I haven't been from. So it's always great to get another person's perspective, especially how they've come into E commerce in Australia. Okay. Three things that I got out of that conversation. Number one, be yourself. It's a theme that's come through from a few of our guests recently. Authenticity is way more powerful than ticking a corporate checklist. Have fun. It's a myth. I think that you need to be taken seriously in everything that you do these days. Even the most serious activities, such as capital raising, they can be more successful if you ditch the corporate BS and be yourself. Plus, you'll attract people that like you, that you're actually going to like. Number two, piggybacking on competitors. I love, I love when Pamela said sometimes competitors entering the market is not a bad thing because they're helping you drive awareness. So while it is natural to see competitors as a threat, they can often help you create a market if used right. So instead of discrediting them, sometimes you can actually build on their message.

Nathan Bush: 3.

Nathan Bush: The anti target Target Audience Pamela and her team knew that bubble tea was was huge for the Asian community, but what they didn't expect is that they would make bubble tea accessible for an Anglo audience. The trick is now to balance the two cultures. Authentic Asian heritage packaged up for a new audience. Could you adapt any part of your product to appeal to a whole new community as well? To get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to addtocart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday we will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free e Commerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly e Commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers Adding to Cart all right, all right. I know you're probably sick of me banging on about it, but a really quick message to say that the 10 week eCommerce accelerator program kicks off on the 14th of March. So soon. Registrations are still open. And don't forget the discount code for Add to cart. Listeners use the coupon code Add to cart or one word to get $200 off your registration. Head on over to Learn.Esweettalent.com that's Learn.EsweettalEnt.com to secure your place today. All right, I'm off to practice my teacher voice.

Nathan Bush: I'll see you in there.