Entrepreneurship
After running a business for a few years, I realised that
entrepreneurs require a range of skills in the areas of leadership,
interpersonal interactions, accounting, critical thinking, conflict-management
and problem-solving. Whether it is global organisations, large corporations or
small-and-medium-sized enterprises, they all contribute to the economy and
community by creating jobs and feeding families. Many successful entrepreneurs
are not focused solely on growing their wealth, but rather they want to create
innovative and sustainable enterprises. They enjoy challenging themselves and
their satisfaction comes from accomplishments.
My entrepreneurial journey
After I quit BNP Paribas in early 2017, I lost my motivation
to return to the finance industry. As a lifetime learner, I believed it was difficult to explore new and exciting perspectives to learn after working in
the finance industry for over 20 years. I had wanted to become a Life Coach
before I quit the industry. After I left my job, my children were my immediate
focus. I enjoyed spending more time with them by driving them to school and
extra activities. After visiting our friend in Auckland in the summer of 2017,
my husband asked me to consider immigration to other countries. I explored New
Zealand, Australia, and the UK. Since we had lived and studied in the UK
before, I decided to relocate to the UK as I knew we would survive, and our
children could adapt to the UK education easily because they studied in an
international school that followed the UK curriculum.
We found two routes to move to the UK: 1) the Investor Visa,
which required investing in equities and/or corporate or government bonds, and
2) the Entrepreneur Visa, which required investing in a business and hiring two
persons who have settled status.
Business idea
We decided to go for the UK Entrepreneur Visa. We needed to
decide what kind of business we wanted to operate. We had no experience in this,
but both our families had various business ventures.
Our first idea was operating a café, which should be able to
generate enough cashflow, but I had no interest in running a café because
creativity is crucial to my daily routine. Also, the long hours required would
make it difficult for us to take care of our children, who were 12 and 8. Then,
I came up with glass photo prints as I love photography. We sought help from
our family in producing these prints; they have been manufacturing laminated
glass for residential, commercial and public projects for over 30 years, and
were pioneers and leaders in laminated architectural glass in the Asian market.
They were very supportive and suggested we sell glass gifts as well.
Cutting glass for various decorative projects produces many
small leftover pieces. From the environmental perspective, it was good to
utilise them to create household decoration products. Besides, our family’s
company worked with a UK wholesaler to produce glass gifts before. Other than
making glass gifts and photo prints, we could also promote their laminated decorative
glasses and mirrors to UK and European clients.
Manageable steps
We drafted a business proposal with our immigration
consultant and submitted our visa application in early 2018. We received our
visas within a month.
In late 2017, we set about setting up our company, including
designing products and packaging, visiting factories to understand the
logistics, registering our company and logo in Hong Kong and the UK. We worked
with a vendor to setup a website to promote our various products, coordinated
with our solicitor on all legal documents, hired staff, promoted our products
via exhibitions and online, sold our products via Amazon and Etsy.
Other than monitoring our to-do list, I also maintained a
complete list of tasks we had accomplished. It was a self-motivating process -
we needed some affirmation before we generated business.
Entrepreneur vs executive
Those who think running own business is easier than working
for a large corporation need to re-assess this assumption. Working for a
company, we probably require fewer skills because we can seek support from our
colleagues, who are experts in different areas. Operating a start-up with
limited resources and support, my husband and I could only rely on ourselves,
and we required all-rounded skills. Our minds were with our business 24/7, even
when on holiday.
We had different roles within our company – I oversaw sales
and marketing. My husband took care of administration, IT support and
accounting.
Our operation
One of the conditions of our entrepreneur visa was to hire
two employees with settled status in the UK who both had to work for us for at least
one year during our initial visa period of three years.
We initially hired the brother of our neighbour, an Italian
with fluent English and a master’s degree in international relations. He was
very supportive and helpful; however, he did not fully meet the visa
requirements. Although he held a work visa, he did not have settled status in
the UK. As a result, we still had to hire two additional staff members to meet
the necessary requirements.
As a small start-up, it was difficult to attract talent. We
hired a few candidates via Indeed UK; sadly, these people were neither
competent nor responsible. Since the hiring process was a failure, we switched
to a recruiter; they helped us hire a girl with a diploma from the University
of the Arts London. She was a strong contributor to our team.
Although we finally built a better team, unfortunately, with
the COVID pandemic, the country had to lock down. We operated from home for two
to three months; my husband and I predicted the COVID impact could last longer
than six months based on the exponential growth in the global infection
figures. Therefore, we made the tough decision to close our office and lay off
our staff.
Fortunately, when we signed the rental contract for our
office, we added two break clauses; we could break the lease on the 2nd
and 3rd anniversary because we were not very sure our business would
be sustainable. Therefore, we exercised the break clause, and it was a relief
for us. Also, we fired our staff and paid for the minimum notice. This tough
decision had saved us some money. With no staff and office, we continued to
operate the company at minimal cost. It was frustrating as we didn’t know how
long the challenging period would last.
Challenges and opportunities
It was not straightforward to run our business in the UK as
1) we had zero experience in operating a business and 2) we did not understand
the business climate. Our company was a start-up. It was difficult to attract
talent, and it became more challenging. When COVID came and the country went
into lockdown, our hard-earned progress vanished. We were selling glass photo
prints to newlyweds but with COVID and cancellation of wedding banquets our
orders evaporated. Photographers who were keen to promote our products also got
zero business – no wedding events, no couples, no family photography.
We had one rewarding experience – an Italian designer in a
London designer house selected some of our glass products for a Macau hotel
project. Unfortunately, we lost connection with him due to the COVID lockdown.
Luckily, our sister company received some orders from the contractor of the
Macau project.
My lessons and experiences
In Hong Kong, it usually takes a few days to rent a shop or
office. In the UK, it took us two months to negotiate terms with our landlord
and another two months for the legal documents. Besides, the old infrastructure
in Cambridge restricted Virgin Media from installing broadband, and it took
them 2-3 months to figure it out.
Our glass gifts and photo prints were made using two layers
of glass and resin making them quite heavy and translating into high
transportation costs. Our products were not competitive, especially since they
were customized and produced in low quantities. Competitors’ retail products
were selling at attractive prices because of economies of scale.
The bespoke decorative glass products needed a wooden box
for protection and were expensive to transport because of their weight.
Although our glass products were impressive and unique, it was challenging to
gain a presence in the UK. We found that laminated and decorative glass was yet
to gain popularity in the UK market; the developers preferred using functional
types, such as tempered and double-glazed glass, which is much cheaper to
purchase in the UK and Europe.
We invested significant time and money into developing both
our international and UK websites. The most expensive features were the photo
editor and payment gateway. It was time-consuming to set up a powerful photo
editor, which allowed users to upload photos, select frames, add text and
aggregate into a high-quality PNG file for printing. Technical challenges
related to large photo prints delayed the launch of our website by at least six
months.
After the launch, for about one year, we experienced hacker
attempts on our payment gateway. As a result, PayPal requested us to upgrade
the authentication process. Since we never earned any money from the website,
we removed the payment gateway feature. It was challenging for a small startup
to keep investing and upgrading technologies such as cyber security due to the
complicated operating environment.
Becoming a holistic Life Coach
The disappointing journey of GlassXpert & Design didn’t
discourage me. My true passion was to become a Life Coach, Mentor and Writer. I
enrolled to study for the Undergraduate Certificate in Coaching at the
Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge from October
2022 to June 2023.
Setting up and operating GlassXpert was a wonderful
experience, and some skills were transferable to my coaching and mentoring,
especially graphic design and website development. Although COVID affected our
business and it didn’t work out, I remained undeterred. I drew upon my
resilience and creativity to identify my strengths and overcome adversity. This
period has provided me with invaluable insights into the challenges,
limitations, and concerns that business owners encounter. Combining my
expertise from the coaching course and my entrepreneurial background, I can also
act as a Business Coach, offering motivation and support to fellow
entrepreneurs.
Insight from a failed enterprise
Don’t treat any disappointing experiences as failures. Don't
let them discourage you but treat them as lessons and reflect on how to improve
next time. We can always learn, grow and accumulate our experiences building up
on the foundation of past events.
Winner Lee
Life Coach, Mentor, Writer
The original article was published on LinkedIn on 12th May 2025:
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