Starting a business is taking risks and also a leap of faith. Rachel Lim the co-founder of homegrown fashion label love, Bonito raised the stake so high in her own situation. The 32-year-old CEO had quit college to pursue her dreams.
21-year old Lim was juggling school and also running her blog shop with her sisters Viola and Velda Tan at the time. And although Lim was doing well at both, she decided to settle for the one she has the most passion for. The blog shop was called ‘BonitoChico’ and it was a blog shop that sold imported items of clothing for women.
Lim and her sisters did this than to gather more pocket money. When they started in 2005, online retail was just gaining ground in Southeast Asia. It was however embraced with a positive turnout as consumers gained access to technology.
Lim who was bonded by the government had to pay off the five-figure fee for stopping school to start her own business. The 21-year-old Lim who had not enough money to her name had to turn to her mother at the most difficult period of the year for her family.
Her mother then was juggling two works to take care of the family and her father’s shipbroking business was affected by the Asian Financial crisis of 1997. After Lim acquired the loan which is her mother’s life saving, she made up her mind and stayed determined that she cannot fail.
What started out as a blog shop where Lim and her friends sold pre-loved clothes, clothes they didn’t wear much, was later rebranded in 2010 as Love Bonito which is now a multi-million-dollar fashion empire. Love, Bonito sells only tailored clothes for Asian shoppers.
Lim was inspired to sell tailored clothes for Asian women with small body sizes and kinder cuts from her experience as an online seller of imported clothes on her blog shop. She noticed international brands left Asian women out of their consideration when making clothes.
European and American women were their major focus as not only their body proportions were solely put into consideration, their climate, preferences and skin tone were also considered. This gamble and leap of faith has blossomed into a million-dollar project, got Lim on the Forbes list of Under 30s in Asia, made her meet dignitaries like the Prime minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong to discuss her passion and brought Lim to the limelight.
Lim stated that her mother was quite unsure at the beginning, she had fears that the government would come after her daughter because online retail at the time was not a legal thing. “But, in the end, she decided to take a leap of faith,” Lim stated.