In order to realize their dream of founding a food company, Olivia Chen and Pauline Ang chose to create Twrl, a milk tea business that embodies their beliefs as mothers, graduates of Berkeley, and members of the AAPI community.

For their whole 20-year friendship, they have always shared a love of food.

In spite of the challenges of setting up a tiny business in the midst of a pandemic, Pauline took the time to experiment and eventually make the tea she wanted. In the Twrl, she invented the first vegan, low-sugar, and low-fat milk tea.

The two eventually hired a co-packer and a food scientist for their canned and on-the-go product.

The co-founders’ early supply purchases from small family farms had been stirring. They were able to help them by making them their suppliers and even assisted them to get non-GMO certification through their products.

Because peas have a neutral flavor, require very little water, and produce significantly fewer carbon emissions than soy and almonds, Twrl used them to make sustainable milk tea.

Olivia and Pauline chose the name Twrl for their company based on a Chinese tale about brewed tea. Twrl is a company that embodies tradition and history with a touch of modernism.

As Asian-Americans who grew up drinking milk tea as part of their family heritage, they are major admirers of it and have even changed its ingredients with their loved ones.

Olivia went on to say that teas in cafés have extremely high-calorie content, low-quality ingredients, and impractical portability. In Twrl, they created its antithesis.

Olivia said they are motivated by the need to create a product that accurately represents America as a nation of immigrants, just like them and their families. A company that offers people the chance to blend their races and serve as role models in the community.

She clears up that as the organization’s founders, they are an Asian-American brand rather than an Asian or American brand.

Founding a business startup and starting a family simultaneously was proved possible by the CEO and co-founder Hanna Wu of Amplify Life Insurance, a life insurance platform focused on helping people build wealth.

Wu first realized the importance of insurance policy when her 20-year-long best friend lost his father and financial backbone at the same time after the latter’s father died of cancer.

Upon knowing more than a year ago that she was pregnant, it gave her mixed emotions as a 16-hour working woman who travels from here and there.

Trying to sort out the situation, she researched articles on early-stage founders as moms but failed to find ones that fit.

As a BIPOC member, she sought a community from the same race who are also women founders only to find out that barely 7% of the global fintech community are women and that they only receive 2.4% of the total capital invested for startups.

Finding no one, Wu felt alone and wondered how others balanced the various startup stages while starting a family.

The journey was never easy for Wu but truly, hard work, goal orientation, and perseverance make everything achievable.

Wu started to plan everything before and after her delivery and how she would be able to raise funds for her business considering the time when the market dropped so low.

While thinking about getting a nanny and how the set-up would be after her delivery, Wu engaged in lower-stakes conversations to test investor sentiments, and fortunately, she was able to secure a large reinsurer’s venture arm.

Wu also woke up early in the morning daily to study for her investment adviser exam and everything else she did with her impending delivery as motivation.

Three days before finally giving birth, they signed the term sheet for the company.

In the 9-month time of pregnancy and struggle towards establishing the business, Wu raised over $25 million in investments and thereafter hired a full leadership team, kicked off their RIA status, signed several significant partnership contracts, and grew their revenue four times: everything planned in her to-do list.

With her success, she shares in Quartz 5 work strategies to prepare for parenthood:

Sort your parental leave plan. It’s harder for early-stage founders to take leave, but preparing your care plan and naming what’s important to you.

Consider your travel schedule. Prioritize travel by business needs, and don’t be afraid to break from the way it “should be” done.

Become an expert on roles and responsibilities at home. You, your co-parents, and caregivers must become experts on the roles and responsibilities at home. Stay connected to the right people and in the right ways. 

Plan for everything and expect failure. Be easy on yourself when mistakes happen, or roadblocks pop up.

You don’t have to choose. We don’t have to choose between our careers and families. It’s not easy, it will be far from perfect, and undoubtedly you’ll need a lot of support, but you can have it all if that’s what you want.

Nothing is impossible to 30-year-old Liao Zhi of Sichuan, China who lost her legs during an earthquake in 2008 but now mastered the art of dancing while wearing high heels with her now husband’s self-made prosthetic legs.

The Chinese former dance teacher caught the online community’s attention with her talent and story being an epitome of hope and faithfulness.

“It’s like she dances with life,” a netizen commented.

During the tragic incident in Sichuan where Zhi was trapped in the ruins of a building for 30 hours, she not only lost her legs but the most important persons in her life, her 10-month-old daughter who died in the disaster and her husband who divorced her seven months after the tragedy.

Being the only one to survive in the devastated building, the brave woman neither shed a tear nor complained of everything she went through including her legs being amputated.

Instead, Zhi said that “The earthquake gave me rebirth.”

After learning to walk with her artificial limbs, Zhi moved on from the nightmare by continuing and staging her passion in different places.

Although the training had been difficult and painful, Zhi was determined in doing what she loves. 

According to the South China Morning Post, she and her husband-dance partner defeated competitors in China and won as first runner-up in the reality show Dance Out My Life in 2013. 

Her husband became her strong support in recovering from her downfall.

Despite having been through a lot, Zhi remained optimistic. “Dance is my ray of sunshine, and while I would also be fine if I didn’t dance, I would not feel the same sense of joy that it gives me when I do,” she said.

Being an inspiration to many, Zhi’s life story was turned into a play entitled Angel’s Psalm that was staged at Kwai Tsing Theatre in 2015.

In an article by CCTGN, it was said that Liao is currently a happy wife as well as a proud mother. However, she is still fighting for a higher ambition – helping more people like her to recover their life value.