From a familiar face on local television dramas to becoming an entrepreneur on their own, these 5 local celebrities showed us that you too, can realize your dreams if you put your mind and heart into it.
Photo credits to Body Inc.’s Facebook.
1. Jacelyn Tay
Jacelyn Tay is an actress that has played many roles during her acting career but the proudest role she has ever gotten would probably be her own life journey to be an entrepreneur. However, success didn’t come easy for her as she once hit an all-time-low with bankruptcy in 2000 and was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome in 2001. It was during that period that she decided to find ways to be healthy, focusing on nutrition and wellness.
This transpired into her writing her first book – “Feel Good, Look Good with Jacelyn” in 2004 and eventually led her into becoming a health entrepreneur and founded Body inc. in 2006. Body inc. is a holistic detox and nourishment center for health and beauty wellness indulgence that uses integrated medicine techniques combining western and Traditional Chinese Medicine, osteopathy, dietetics and nutrition. Furthermore, she is now not only a health coach, but also a speaker who conducts workshops and talks on health, beauty, entrepreneurship and motivational topics.
Photo credits to Twelve Cupcake’s website.
2. Jaime Teo
Crowned Miss. Singapore Universe in 2001, Jaime Teo is a well-known actress and host that we’ve seen in sitcoms, dramas and live shows. In 2011, she decided to turn her passion into a career and co-founded the popular dessert brand, Twelve cupcakes.
Twelve Cupcakes had their humble beginnings starting in 2011, in their very first outlet at United Square Shopping Mall. The company then expanded and opened three more outlets during the first year of operations and sold over three million cupcakes in the same year. In 2014, the company established a new dine-in cafe, Dulce and Sucre which had 29 stores in 4 different countries, with 16 located in Singapore. Twelve cupcakes has since grown rapidly, adhering to their brand promise – “to deliver only freshly baked cupcakes that are handmade from scratch daily” and expanded their menu with brownies, cookies and cakes.
Photo credits to Studiofrost’s Facebook.
3. Nurul Aini
Starring in the recent Channel 5 drama ‘Lion Mums 2’ as Durrani – a workaholic and perfectionist mum, the trilingual actress-host Nurul Aini co-runs Studiofrost – an online fashion store and Studio Cafe SG – an eatery at Toa Payoh. When she was younger, she juggled acting gigs and a hotel job at Mandarin hotel. However, she decided to quit her day job due to the instability of a paycheck in acting jobs and eventually left her hotel job to begin her entrepreneurial journey co-founding a blogshop with her best friend, that has now evolved to online boutique – Studiofrost ‘aims to make every woman feel beautiful, regardless of their size or age’ with their high quality apparels sold at affordable prices.
Studiofrost now sells a wide range of apparels ranging from tops, accessories and malay traditional costumes (e.g. Kurta, Baju Kurung) for women, men and even kids. She started her next food venture – Studio Cafe SG, with 3 other Suria artists – Ashmi Roslan, Fadhlur Rahman and Khairudin Samsudin. Studio Cafe SG sold both local and western dishes including Nasi Ayam Penyet and pastas.
Photo credits to Chix Hot Chicken’s Facebook.
4. Taufik Batisah
Taufik Batisah won the hearts of many when he brought home the trophy from our 1st ever Singapore idol. Besides his amazing talent to sing, Taufik has since started to act and host on our local television shows too. However, he has proved that he is more than just an entertainer with his newly co-founded fried chicken restaurant – Chix Hot Chicken, which specialises in Nashville style fried chicken with different levels of spiciness.
Starting the restaurant wasn’t as easy as chicken feed for him nor his partner, they faced a few challenges along the way – they had to fly in their spices from USA, find the accurate peppers for their spices in their recipes and also make sure that they were organic with no additives since they had to comply with the Muslim regulations to be a halal restaurant. To make matters worse, their opening date was pushed back by a month due to renovation issues too. Even though they had these obstacles, the duo managed to pull through and the restaurant has garnered many good reviews online with 4.9 stars on Facebook reviews.
Photo credits to Wufang Singapore’s Facebook.
5. Vincent Ng
Vincent Ng was popular for his Wushu moves during his acting days when he was a Mediacorp artiste. He also clinched many gold medals and represented Singapore in the SEA Games, World Wushu Championship and Singapore National Wushu Championships. With the support from Mediacorp, he founded a Wushu school in 2005, Wufang Singapore for both children and adults to be involved with Wushu and fitness training, now teaching at Civil Service Club, community centres and schools. According to his website, Wufang Singapore has more than 10,000 students practicing Wushu and they also set up their headquarters – ‘School of Martial Arts in The Yards’ in Singapore this year with facilities equipped to provide Wushu training, hold local and international Wushu competitions and exchange programmes for Wushu athletes.
Nothing worth having comes easy. If you’re still figuring out on your entrepreneur journey and want to know more about how other successful entrepreneurs do it, come join us at our next LearnXNetwork session on 16 January 2019 to meet like-minded individuals.
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