Entrepreneurs: Unseen Risks In Business

Starting a business will always be a risky endeavour for anyone. The amount of risks that are needed to be taken and the effort that is required to grow a brand from nothing to something is a very daunting task which not many would like to participate in. However, when Rachel Lim, one of the co-founders of Love, Bonito decided to enter the retail industry and start her own brand, the risks were especially high. Love, Bonito is a female fashion brand tailored specifically for Asian shoppers. The 32-year-old’s multimillion-dollar customised clothing line today adorns women and wardrobes from Hong Kong and Australia to the United States.

Lim wanted to create a new fashion line specifically tailored to Asian women, with smaller sizes and kinder cuts as a lot of the international brands cater to European, American women who have very different body proportions, skin tone, preferences, and even climate. Hence, they chose to create in-house designs to better suit proportions to make a more affordable and accessible fashion line for the Asian market. Lim also listened and addressed what her customers wanted and it has helped them to stay relevant in the constantly changing fashion landscape.

Looking for the right people to join the arduous journey of starting your very own business can be tough due to differences in beliefs and end goals. This was also one of the many problems that Lim faced when she first started. In an interview, Lim said that one of the main challenge for her company is getting the right people on board. Building the Love, Bonito team requires team members who believe in their vision and who will work hard to achieve company goals. It’s also a challenge to find stakeholders who will partner with their business to add value and support us in our long-term goals.

This had been a high-risk endeavor for Lim as she had invested all of her mother’s life savings which were also one of the many reasons why she will not allow herself to fail. Despite the risky journey, Lim managed to grow the business from a pre-loved clothes blog to a fully-fledged fashion site. Lim has overcome numerous challenges that were thrown at her and managed to build and revamp the business to what it is today.