Milky Way founder: being a mother has made me a better businessperson

If there’s one thing you need to know about e-commerce in Singapore, it’s definitely booming in the past few years. Blogshops are hot, local labels are bringing it international, and some e-stores are taking it further via collaborations with international designers.

Milky Way founder Kay Wong (pictured right) is in the midst of this e-commerce battle. She runs an online store for maternity clothing while juggling three children. She says it’s important to have a mentor that comes from a traditional business background – in Kay’s case, her father.

We sat down with Kay to talk about juggling the roles of a mother and a businesswoman at the same time. She believes both require the same range of skills of being level-headed in the midst of chaos.

Vanessa: Tell us a little about yourself.

Kay: I grew up a middle child in a family of five. I loved drawing, and would spend afternoons doodling on thick drawing pads that I saved up to buy. I also learned to use the sewing machine – an Electrolux machine which belonged to my mum – when I was about nine years old.

What’s your online business about, and what is your role?

Kay: Milky Way offers maternity and breastfeeding clothes, designed and mostly manufactured in Singapore. We also have a worldwide network of distributors and resellers in countries such as Brunei, Australia, the Netherlands, France, and the United States. Our sister site in the United Kingdom was launched in July this year.

At present, I have four ladies working with me on flexi-time on various aspects of the business, such as customer service and inventory management. I still oversee the entire production cycle of our products as well as manage the branding, marketing, and expansion plans of Milky Way.

How and why did you get started in this industry? What made you decide to be an entrepreneur?

Kay: It started nine years ago with the birth of my first child. I was breastfeeding and was looking for breastfeeding clothes, which were limited at that time. I felt I could do a much better job, and with my background as an information architect and project manager at an e-solutions company, it seemed a logical progression to set up an online store.

But for all my enthusiasm, I later found out that setting up the online store was actually the easiest part of getting the business off the ground!

What were the steps taken to expand out of Singapore, and what measures were there in place to keep the “Singaporean” flavour there? How do you ensure that you can cater to both international and local audience in terms of fashion?