I am Carmen Kwok, the founder of Asvida Jewellery, a light jewellery brand based in Hong Kong. We believe that jewels are meaningful additions to women’s lives, thus, we use top quality 18K diamonds to ensure our pieces are the perfect accompaniments.

At the moment, we use Instagram and Facebook ads to widen my business’s reach. However, we find it challenging to manage advertisements on Facebook owing to a limited following. With the #SheMeansBusiness Fellowship Program, I hope to master Facebook digital marketing skills, strategic planning, and networking to help grow my business in a systematic way.

In the coming years, we hope to increase shop locations within Hong Kong and reach countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, the US and parts of Europe. We are also keen on supporting our employees with digital tools for business tasks like replying to customers and tracking sales. At Asvida, we look forward to celebrating every milestone with our customers.

My name is Kitty Yip. I co-founded Addoilmusic along with my husband, Bryan, in 2013, after we concluded that several young talented musicians give up on their music dreams due to the lack of stable income, support and network. Our aim is to help such musicians develop their career and let underprivileged children learn music for free.

Addoilmusic is the first social enterprise in Hong Kong that promotes playing and making music together. For the past 8 years, we have used Facebook and Instagram to help promote our business, announce updates, and engage our clients and alliance. Our “Dare to Write and Sing Songwriting Contest” has attracted over 800 participants, 300,000 online audience and nearly 20 supporting organizations since 2017. We have already trained and employed over 30 part-time professional musicians and tutors, and have been working with over 40 schools, NGOs and corporations successfully to serve over 22,000 children, young people, adults and seniors.

We hope to expand our existing music education and production services to different sectors such as speed jam sessions, lyrics co-writing workshops, pop music ensemble band training, studio recording and music production services.

With the program, I want to improve our digital marketing and business skills to make Addoilmusic more sustainable and impactful. Also, among key priorities are increasing Facebook and Instagram followers, generating more revenue, supporting 100 HK young talented musicians to produce high quality music works, and helping 1,000 deprived children to learn music for free. Eventually, we wish to become the largest music platform in Asia.

I am Zoe Chan, the founder of Happeriod, an initiative that strives for a more environmental and menstrual-friendly environment in Hong Kong and helps women gain autonomy of their bodies and alleviate stigmas around menstruation.

Our vision is to popularize menstrual cups and other alternative menstrual products and make them mainstream, offering women/menstruators a freer and healthier choice. As a social entrepreneur, I started Happeriod so that we could help more people learn about a happy period.

We grow our business via Facebook and Instagram and most of our customers get in touch with us through them. We have also created a Facebook group to strengthen our community and maintain relationships with our customers. With the program, besides advocacy and education, I would love to learn ways through which I could market our services and products and build our reputation/brand image with specific focus on Facebook ads and content creation.

In the near future, I plan to increase our sales to three times the current value.

My name is Ding Ding Yip, and I am the founder of Festyle—a social enterprise that aims at promoting women employment and empowerment, as well as healthy dining culture in Hong Kong.

Growing up, I was inspired by my father’s persistence and enthusiasm in operating restaurants and my mother who ensured I had access to healthy homemade meals. As a business, Festyle has provided family-friendly working opportunities to over 35 women, generating over 20,000 working hours. Working with housewives with home-cooking experiences, it has generated over 1,200 recipes to deliver heart-warming food service to over 11,000 family members. To support women micro-entrepreneurship, Festyle’s HOME-trepreneur program in 2021 has trained 42 housewives and empowered 8 of them to launch their own products.

We connect with our customer base through Facebook and Instagram pages while advertising to attract and re-target potential customers. WhatsApp Business has been our main customer communication channel to distribute news and provide support.

As a young social entrepreneur, the lack of experience, network, and professional knowledge is causing some bottlenecks in business development and fundraising in the business growth and scale-up stage. Thus, with the #SheMeansBusiness Fellowship Program, I expect to learn more about digital marketing, business development and strategies, and branding.

In the next three years, we plan to become the market leader in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat food subscription landscape. We also want to set up 3 physical stores for customers to experience and interact with the brand values and product offerings and establish a community to empower and support women to start micro-entrepreneurship to unleash their potential and extend their passions in food and beverage.

I am Renee Kwan, the founder of Professional Ear Spa Association of Asia. While studying Chinese Literature at a university in Taiwan, I spent my spare time learning all about ear care (earwax and massage skills) from a master owing to my interest in the field. Upon my return to Hong Kong, I realised that there was a lot of misinformation surrounding ear care and the facilities an ear spa entails. Thus, years later, in August 2020, I started PESA with the intention of busting myths and setting the right example.

Most people think that an ear spa is about cleaning earwax, but it’s a way to relax, release stress and heal the soul. PESA aims to build a certain business standard and spread awareness about ear picking and caring. At this point, we use Facebook and Instagram to spread the word about our business, but the main roadblock is reaching targets through various online platforms. The team spends much time on promotion but does not get rewarded. What also is a challenge is presenting content in a way that is not only appealing but also helps us stand out from the competitors.

With the program, I am keen on improving our business communication and digital marketing skills, learn all about Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and connect people of different ages, professions and regions. In the future, we would want to train more therapists, teach spa courses across various target groups, and eventually, become the top ear spa training centre in East Asia.

My name is Konnie Lee and I founded The Fu Court in 2019 to promote gender equality and Boys’ Love (BL) culture in Hong Kong through online media and offline experience and build a safe community for our customers.

Despite the rapid development of the industry in many places such as Thailand and Japan where BL TV dramas and comics are a huge rage, the acknowledgment of this culture is minimal. We aim to introduce the multi-aspects of BL including history, development, products and beliefs behind the culture through online media, offline activities and a physical store. We are also keen to build a close community for local BL enthusiasts (“fujoushi” and “fudanshi”) by providing a safe place for them to communicate and make friends thus removing the stigma around BL.

We use Instagram and Facebook to interact with the target audience through different posts and stories. However, we face lack of manpower and are unable to execute plans despite many ideas. With this program, I desire to grasp marketing and planning strategies and understand the best way to execute our ideas. In the years to come, we want to become the largest BL brand (as a retail store selling BL books, a successful online media and a production studio producing our own BL drama and comic series) in HK and provide a wide range of online and offline services with more staff and branches.

I am Natalie Chow, the founder of Happy Baton, HK’s first online toy subscription platform, providing toy box swaps every 4 weeks at your doorstep.

Being a busy parent, I wanted to ensure the time I spend with my children is purposeful, especially when it comes to play time. I have always had a strong passion for quality toys whilst promoting sustainability. At Happy Baton, the toys are sourced from renowned brands using excellent quality and safe materials. There are successful start-ups with similar offerings in the US/EU but none in Asia.

Most of our audience comes from Instagram, and we use its stats for analysis. We haven’t placed any paid ads as of now. We get a lot of queries about the quality and sanitization process of the toys from customers. With the program, I aim to improve our social media communication messages, customer journey throughout all touchpoints and ad spends to eventually have 1,000 active customers in HK, 15 B2B customers and start our business in Singapore.

The toy industry is the most plastic-intensive industry in the world, where parents often overconsume which leads to enormous waste. With a circular model, we hope to reduce the clutter and educate our next generation the virtues of sharing.

I am Ice Chong, and I founded JOMO Coffee & Cakes with the aim of providing a comfortable space that helps balance one’s body, mind and spirit.

Motherhood taught me the importance of health and quality of life, and JOMO is an attempt at demonstrating this pursuit through my passion in baking. The venture raises awareness about living consciously and reflecting on the quality of food that we feed our bodies. For now, we use Facebook ads to increase audience awareness, but it’s a challenge to strike a balance between motherhood (with competing priorities and limited time) and running a company.

With the program, I want to improve our digital marketing and online promotion skills. Next year, we plan to inaugurate a new branch in Kai Tak, and in the next few years, JOMO is keen to focus on online cake orders and develop more merchandise. Our focus is to help people experience the “joy of missing out”.

My name is Eva Sung, the founder of mYSpace, a venture that aspires to continue the indigo dyeing culture by providing a platform to experience it hands-on. We hope that the dyed fabrics can be used as home accessories and are able to add a gracious touch to customers’ lives.

We have linked our company’s website to our Facebook page to promote our business. We also ensure we post regularly, follow SEO guidelines and use relevant hashtags to increase traffic. However, it’s a challenge to manage time whilst running a company and at the same time allowing space for creativity.

With the program, I desire to explore more marketing methods and business strategies and get a better grasp on social media. Eventually, we want to shape our business as a unique, competent and sustainable part of the cultural and creative industries.

I am Zola Cheung, the founder of Bunny Garden— an enterprise that offers silk flower products for different occasions to create unforgettable memories.

Ever since my daughter’s birth, managing my time and roles has become our biggest challenge, and that is why Bunny Garden strives to learn to grow and run automatically and systematically. We must maximize the efficiency and profit to build a sustainable business. Currently, we use Facebook ads and the shop function to promote our products and increase reach.

In the pipeline are creating a catalogue for customers to make informed choices, fixing budgets for marketing and increasing brand recognizability by creating a set of visual images or illustrations that align with our brand story.

With the #SheMeansBusiness Fellowship program, I intend to learn more about branding, marketing, creating effective ads to enhance conversion rate and best practices to maximize efficiency. Eventually, we want Bunny Garden to become a name to reckon with in its industry.