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A well known entrepreneur and influencer, Vivy Yusof has had a lot written about her on the web. As such, there are already loads of enjoyable information and titbits about her life, and far inspiration that may be obtained from her journey.
Yet, there’s nonetheless rather more that we will be taught concerning the entrepreneur.
In her enterprise autobiography, The First Decade: My Journey from Blogger to Entrepreneur, which was printed in December 2022, we have been capable of choose up plenty of issues we didn’t know earlier than studying the e-book.
Here are seven apparently lesser-known issues about Vivy that you just’d be hard-pressed to search out elsewhere on-line.
1. Her startup capital included an RM50,000 mortgage from her dad, which she paid again together with giving him shares
It’s already public data that Vivy and her associate, Fadza Anuar, began FashionValet with a capital of RM100,000.
Yet, Vivy had not appeared to say earlier than that her RM50,000 half of that capital was really a mortgage from her father.
“We were a couple of 22-year-olds,” Vivy wrote. “Yes, Fadza and I come from comfortable families and our parents are well-off. They were well-off, but we weren’t.”
With little to no financial savings and no belongings to supply, the 2 believed that no financial institution was realistically going to fund them. Vivy additionally mentioned that this was in 2010, and never a lot funding was out there for startups on the time.
So, she went to her dad to borrow some capital.
She and Fadza offered the concept of FashionValet to him. He grilled them concerning the marketing strategy in return.
At the tip of the day, he agreed, however as a chaperone, he would additionally be a part of as a shareholder with a small stake so FashionValet wasn’t only a “boyfriend–girlfriend company”.
Later on within the e-book, Vivy additionally clarified that other than the shares, she has additionally paid her father again.
2. FashionValet’s first coffee-table e-book on style was a complete flop
While The First Decade has been taking the bestseller spot in numerous bookstores, the identical can’t be mentioned for a previous e-book Vivy labored on.
Called The Rise of Malaysian Designers, the e-book was printed by FashionValet in 2017. The group carried out interviews with twenty designers, and the ultimate draft was fastidiously copyedited by Vivy.
“This coffee-table book was the first of its kind in Malaysia; no one had ever done a compilation of designers in one place before,” she raved. “We had a larger-than-life mockup of the book on stage and had every designer come up and sign it.”
The e-book felt like successful. Media publications have been selecting it up. Vivy was even planning to have a Volume 2.
Yet, on the day of the launch, when Vivy checked the gross sales, she was shocked, and never in a great way.
The e-book had solely bought twenty copies.
In Vivy’s personal phrases, “We were drinking our own Kool-Aid and never stopped to ask ourselves, ‘How many people would actually buy a coffee-table book about local designers?’”
Thankfully, she learnt her lesson, and such hasn’t been the case with The First Decade.
3. She was going to call her actuality present “Sincerely, Vivy”, however Astro didn’t prefer it
Long-time followers of Vivy Yusof would remember that she has starred in two seasons of her very personal actuality TV present, “Love, Vivy”.
But she initially had by no means supposed for it to be known as “Love, Vivy”. Instead, she had pitched the present as “Sincerely, Vivy”.
However, Astro thought that “sincerely” was an excessive amount of of a mouthful and never pleasant sufficient to the mass TV customers.
Even although Vivy cringed on the thought at first, the title caught. Astro would possibly’ve been proper to go along with such an simply memorable identify in spite of everything.
4. Many manufacturers on FashionValet broke their contracts to work with Zalora
Through the course of her e-book, Vivy went in depth about FashionValet’s competitor, Zalora.
According to Vivy, no matter consignment price FashionValet supplied, Zalora would supply much less.
“Which designer would not want that lucrative offer? Who can blame the designers for switching?” she requested rhetorically.
She noticed many designers break their exclusivity clause to affix Zalora. Some blatantly used their model names whereas others got here up with sub-brands as a loophole to work with the opposite ecommerce website.
But Vivy shared that because of the relationships she has constructed through the years, there have been many designers that stayed loyal to her firm.
Other than this subject with Zalora, there have been additionally different occasions the place manufacturers would breach their contracts, corresponding to when they didn’t ship within the shares that they agreed to.
Yet, Vivy selected to not sue them, believing that in the event that they began suing individuals within the style trade, they may as properly have simply mentioned goodbye to FashionValet.
5. She by chance signed a petition to take away herself from the Board of Directors of University Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Vivy isn’t any stranger to controversy, regardless that it might be fully fabricated.
During the pandemic, she was watching a Facebook Live that was discussing how SMEs ought to be given some type of assist to avoid wasting them. Finding the discuss attention-grabbing, she posted it on her social media to boost consciousness on the subject.
But within the clip she shared, there was an element the place a panelist mentioned one thing that commenters discovered contentious. Seeing all of the adverse remarks, Vivy determined to take down the video.
Although Vivy doesn’t point out it in her e-book, one more reason individuals have been reacting negatively additionally gave the impression to be due to a reply remark she made on Instagram, the place she had agreed to a pal’s worries of how “the poor will become rich during the pandemic and jobless after”.
In an apology assertion she made later, she mentioned her remark was taken out of context and was a poor selection of phrases.
“Deleting that IGTV post would later become a big mistake,” she wrote. “I became the number one trending issue on Twitter in my entire country. For all the wrong reasons.”
More than being simply “cancelled” on-line, individuals began a web-based petition to take away Vivy from the Board of Directors of University Technologi MARA (UiTM).
“The link was shared in so many WhatsApp groups, and people were encouraged to forward emails to their friends,” Vivy recalled. “Ironically, one email was sent to me, and when I clicked on the link to see, a prompt said, ‘Thank you for signing the petition’.”
According to Vivy, this occurred as a result of the configuration had been set that when somebody clicks on the hyperlink, it might robotically be registered as a signature.
“So, there you go, I signed my own petition,” she wrote. “It was a really weird day.”
Although she mentioned the Board initially assured her that the petition was no grounds for elimination, Vivy quickly acquired a letter despatched by the Minister of Higher Education.
The Minister had terminated Vivy’s tenure, supposedly with none motive, and he or she was requested to depart the Board.
6. She bought tons of of what was imagined to be dUCk’s debut scarves on FashionValet, underneath a special model identify
Most individuals could know Vivy not simply because the founding father of FashionValet, however the thoughts behind dUCk, the modest put on model recognized for its scarves.
But do you know that the first-ever batch of dUCk scarves by no means fairly made the lower?
When the primary bins of dUCk merchandise arrived on the FashionValet workplace, the group was excited. But Vivy felt like one thing was flawed.
Apparently, she felt just like the chiffon scarves didn’t align with the imaginative and prescient she had for dUCk.
“Nothing was wrong with them, but they didn’t wow me. The scarves looked like they were from any other brand out there—a normal chiffon scarf. That’s it. That’s not dUCk.”
Sticking to her intestine, she determined to not go ahead with the scarves. But what ought to she do now with all that inventory?
Easy. She bought them on the FashionValet platform underneath an unknown model.
“Data told me chiffon scarves sell well, so true enough, they all sold out eventually. It didn’t wow anybody, and no one remembers that brand, but it served the purpose—a simple chiffon scarf. We made back our money. And FashionValet made commission, so phew.”
Perhaps some Malaysians on the market would possibly personal these “pre-debut” dUCk scarves, however they only don’t comprehend it.
7. After FashionValet’s closure, she reworked the corporate tradition with these six values
After closing down FashionValet, Vivy started to strategy the corporate with a brand new mindset. She believed it was time to scale, and to take action, the group wanted to rent individuals who might just do that.
She employed an skilled Head of People to remodel the tradition at FashionValet. One factor that defines that mentioned tradition was six values that Vivy revealed in her e-book:
- Act like an proprietor
- Be a Sponegbob
- Customer is bae
- Teamwork makes the dream work
- Dare to be completely different
- Bite on Humble Pie
Of these, one that may be complicated may be the “Sponegbob” one. Essentially, FashionValet hosts “Spongebob sessions” the place group members are anticipated to “soak in knowledge like a sponge”.
According to Vivy, her group makes use of these values each day of their conversations, in efficiency opinions, and firm actions.
“We even made WhatsApp stickers out of these values with cute illustrations that we use in our daily conversations—highly recommended,” she wrote.
Although the six values may be tailor-made to replicate the worth Vivy is aiming to foster at FashionValet, these are all additionally virtues that may be practiced in lots of different workplaces.
If these factors have been in any respect insightful to you, maybe The First Decade would make for an attention-grabbing learn.
- Learn extra about The First Decade: My Journey from Blogger to Entrepreneur right here.
- Read different articles we’ve written about Vivy Yusof right here.
Featured Image Credit: Vivy Yusof
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