"Life as an entrepreneur is tough" Is An Understatement For Vanessa Techapichetvanich

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September 12, 2022

Some business owners spend years building a company only to see it fail before it even takes off. How are you going to survive and cope? Will you just give up that dream business?

We all know that life as an entrepreneur is complex, but once you hit it, everything falls into place. Following the example of 27-year-old Thai entrepreneur Vanessa Techapichetvanich as she trusted the process and waited for the right moment to reap the benefits of her efforts.

Read through as Vanessa shares her story with the AHN community about building her passion-driven business Jamulogy, a 100% plant-based Indonesian herbal tonic. She discusses her struggles that almost made her give up, and what kept her going in order to reach her successes today.

Hitting Rock Bottom At The Very Start

2 years ago, I poured all my life’s savings into building Jamulogy. I raised quite a significant amount of funding through families and angel investors, built my first factory from scratch, and lost over $1M, due to the pandemic and an over-prioritization of FoodTech R&D.

I was devastated. This tremendous loss was beyond tragic. I was at the point where I wondered whether it was stupid for me to leave my high pay corporate job only to lose all my savings along with a sum of money from my investors.

What am I going to feed myself tomorrow? What will my employees do when they lose their job? How will I regain all the money I’ve lost? How will it affect women founders’ reputation in the startup ecosystem?

These questions and my desperation kept me wide awake at night for months. I was distressed, depressed, and hopeless. It was one of the lowest moments of my life.

It also made me realize that when someone says “life as an entrepreneur is tough”, it is very much an understatement. You’re pretty much living on the edge 24/7, giving your 10000% best while success isn’t guaranteed.

What am I going to feed myself tomorrow? What will my employees do when they lose their job? How will I regain all the money I’ve lost? How will it affect women founders’ reputation in the startup ecosystem?
-Vanessa Techapichetvanich

Shedding Some Light On Untapped Opportunities

I almost gave up. I would have.. had I not coincidentally connected with someone from AHN who is in the import and export business. One really good thing about this group is you have people from everywhere around the globe, and they are able to share insightful expertise on some stuff you’re not familiar with.

I joined AHN more than a year ago when Facebook suggested the group to me. One day, I saw some people posted about expanding their food products to big retailers like Walmart, Wholefoods, and Costco, and from there, I got to connect with someone from San Francisco who works for a national distributor company in the US, and that’s how Jamulogy’s products entered the US market.

This encounter shed some light on untapped opportunities and calls for a pivot in our business model. And I have been rebuilding since January. Despite the adversity I have been put through, this journey has been my greatest teacher yet.

I’m proud to share that Jamulogy is now available in 5 countries worldwide, including the US, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Jamulogy has also recently “graduated” from Southeast Asia’s biggest FoodTech accelerator program.

Despite the adversity I have been put through, this journey has been my greatest teacher yet.
-Vanessa Techapichetvanich

Transforming Traditional And Holistic Drinks Into Recipes Of Yummy

Jamulogy was born out of my passion for a healthy lifestyle and my dream to bring Asian pride to the global stage. My mother is Indonesian, and I was introduced to Jamu when I was 5. The word “Jamu” itself means herbs in Indonesian. Sadly, our generation in Asia has overlooked these Indonesian herbal drinks that have over 1,300 years of history as they often associate herbal blends with older people.

Using modern food tech and all-natural non-GMO ingredients, we aim to recreate traditional Indonesian Jamu as a way to restore health to modern consumers. We are also committed to debunking the myth that healthy food tastes terrible.

Our concept is “From farm to bottle,” and we take every opportunity to support local farmers & growers around Asia. Each bottle contains only 40-80 calories without cane sugar or highly processed ingredients.

Going forward, we are also diverging our product offerings into herbal powder mix to cater to different consumer lifestyles across the world.

Inspiration To Keep Going and Work Harder

What inspires me the most are our customers. I received all sorts of feedback from customers, both positive and negative. Whenever I hear our customers telling us how our products have created a value-adding impact on their health and life, I can’t help but smile to myself.

But of course, we also received negative feedback and complaints, which I got a lot of value from as those have helped us improve, adjust, and create even better products for our customers. Truth be told, we have experimented with over 150 recipes. It was a struggle at the start, but “fall seven times, get up eight.”

It’s the joy of being able to create a positive impact in society that keeps me going.

It’s the joy of being able to create a positive impact in society that keeps me going.
-Vanessa Techapichetvanich

Advice To Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
Do not let your failures define who you are, but do learn from them. Every successful person I know has gone through several major failures before they get to where they are today.
Surround yourself with like-minded people. I can’t stress enough the importance of this.

For me, the most important traits of being an entrepreneur are a growth mindset and adaptability. It’s not about who has the most brilliant ideas or who has the highest IQ, but more so who adapts the quickest to fit the market’s needs and customers’ expectations.

Connect With Vanessa

You may check out our IG/FB at @drinkjamulogy.

If you’re just starting an F&B business or planning on exporting to Asia and want some advice, feel free to reach out as well. I’ll try my best to answer

Uncategorized

Dreams Set No Limits To 50-Year-Old Who Started A Bakeshop Now The Philippines’ Most Famous Brand

“In a way, I was poor. I was hungry, maybe not for food but for self-achievement. I thought there must be something more I can do than just being a housewife. I was very determined to succeed, in whatever came my way,” thus said Julie Gandionco as quoted by the Inquirer, the Philippines’ local newspaper.

In January 1981, then-50-year-old Julia Gandionco opened Julie’s Bakeshop to satisfy her thirst for proving that she is more than a housewife.

Julie’s Bakeshop gloriously celebrates being one of the Philippines’ largest bakery chains with more than 500 branches all over the country, which can be traced back to Mandaue City on the Island of Cebu as its place of origin.

In the 1970s, Julie was a canteen concessionaire at a rattan company, and subsequently became a manager of its sister company. She also opened another canteen a year later.

Having these three canteens being managed, she felt the rising demand for bread which made her take the chance of opening a bakeshop, despite having zero knowledge of baking.

Julie stressed that her bakeshop exists because of “a growing need for bread products and a strong trust in God,” and that she desires to encourage and uplift other mothers to dream big and strive for their goals.

Nov 8, 2022
2 min read

News

Veteran Actor James Hong Lauds Asian-American Representation In Entertainment Industry

During the Critics Choice Association (CCA)’s Inaugural Celebration of Asian Pacific Cinema & Television, veteran actor James Hong received the prestigious Icon award along with a few other awardees.

The veteran actor reflects on his over 700 roles and how Asian representation has changed: “When I was a kid, ‘The Good Earth’ was played by Caucasian leads that taped their eyes up.”

In his speech, Hong commended Asian-American creatives for “carrying through” work to advance their careers in the entertainment world and emphasized that his ultimate goal was to stop hatred and boost the whole level of Asian-Americans.

“To see an organization collect all these people together and work together and stop this hatred for Asians is our main goal, I think, and just boost the whole level of Asian-Americans,” Hong mentioned to the PA News Agency.

Held at Fairmont Century Plaza, CCA’s celebrity-filled event highlighted both new and experienced talents and featured other notable figures from the Asian film industry.

At the age of 93, the veteran vigorously demonstrated a few martial arts movements for the photographers with a smile on his face during the occasion.

In his more than six decades-old career, Hong is a well-accomplished actor with hundreds of film and television credits who co-founded the East West Players in 1965, making him more than deserving to receive the Icon award.

The actor stated that CCA is perhaps one of the pioneering organizations that promote culture.

Nov 8, 2022
2 min read

Stories

TikTok Viral Beauty Brand Youthforia Inspired From Asian Roots And Self-Awareness

We spend most of our waking hours trying to care for ourselves, but there’s only so much time in the day. That’s what the makeup brand Youthforia is for — a line of high-quality beauty products that fit seamlessly into your routine.

Founder Fiona Co Chan accomplished this goal for Youthforia, making it the first East Asian makeup brand to be sold at Ulta Beauty.

While quarantined in Hong Kong, Fiona realized she should launch a cosmetics line. She also recalled a lesson her Vietnamese refugee mother had taught her early on about the importance of paying attention to what goes into one’s body. Although she didn’t have the best track record with makeup, she was able to consider her interest.

Before 2020, she worked in technology and visited several highly polluted Asian cities. She realized that her Western cosmetics reacted poorly to heavy pollution, resulting in skin damage.

This led Chan to work on a gentle formulation and test it out for two months before releasing it to the public on TikTok in 2021. She used the video hosting giant to see if people would be interested in trying out her new makeup creations, such as a liquid blush that adjusts to the skin’s pH. The BYO Blush was a huge success, and Chan’s Youthforia’s TikTok accumulated 40 or 50 million views in its first year.

While the launch of Youthforia on TikTok is undoubtedly cutting-edge, the brand’s core values are founded in the past. This comes directly from Chan’s identity and her upbringing in an Asian San Francisco household where her mother stressed the importance of viewing the body as a whole.

Nov 6, 2022
2 min read

Stories

Linda Lindas: What Life Is Like For Teenage Students Who Are Also In A Punk Rock Band

How does one balance their passions for creativity and artistic expression with maintaining an everyday life? This seems to be one of the hardest things to do when not everyone appreciates your creativity. Perhaps it may be possible, but very few people have been able to pull it off.

Meet the punk rock band Linda Lindas who are all still teenagers and are concentrating on their studies while on stage. They never go out to clubs after their concerts, instead, they do homework.

The Linda Lindas are comprised of the four members Lucia and Mila de la Garza, ages 15 and 12, respectively, their cousin Eloise Wong, age 14, and their friend Bela Salazar, age 17. They hail from Los Angeles and identify as both Asian American and Latinx.

Linda Lindas didn’t grow up thinking they would be a musician. The fact that Mila and Lucia de la Garza’s father is a Grammy-winning producer had no impact on their future goals. Wong always wanted to study paleontology, while Salazar dreamed of becoming a doctor. Youngest and most gregarious of the bunch, Mila de la Garza always looked up to the character of Olaf from “Frozen.”

In 2018, Kristin Kontrol invited local girls to perform with her at a concert titled Girlschool L.A., marking the debut of Linda Lindas with the Dum Dum Girls. The band’s reputation grew as they continued to perform in Chinatown. They have supported Bikini Kill, Alice Bag, Money Mark, the Dils, and the Alley Cats, among others. Amy Poehler reached out to them to have them perform a medley of “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill and “Big Mouth” by The Muffs for her film “Moxie.”

They say they do their homework in the backstage area, on the plane, or during another downtime. They are convinced they are not yet adults, but they would still like to give their full attention to schoolwork. The band’s debut album, titled “Growing Up,” is centered around progress and ongoing education.

Nov 6, 2022
2 min read