Launching Singapore’s first bridal veil boutique
Today, my wife and I launched Singapore’s first bridal veil boutique. It has been a beautiful day of many firsts, the coolest among which is that this will be the first time we’re formally working together as a married couple. We are, as you might imagine, quite excited about the work that we will be doing.
Our bridal veil boutique is run entirely as an online shop and is called ang veil yú - a play on both our last names that happens to sound like “unveil you”. We thought it was a really cool name the first time we heard it suggested by our friend, Gillian. I was happy to have a few friends validate our beliefs today.
I was before this quite averse to working with my wife. I was worried about a bunch of things that I continue to be concerned about today, but that’s a topic of another day. But we’d still have to address the elephant in the room - how will we work together?
The partnership
The way we’re splitting the work in running ang veil yú is based on our complementary skill sets, which is quite nice.
Charlane is a makeup artist and naturally has a lot of ideas for bridal veils. She has been to countless weddings and seen for herself what is out there. With her strong creative background and desire to express them, she is going to be the designer and craftswoman behind every veil. I don’t have an ounce of doubt that she will pull this off gracefully.
As for me, well, my strengths are in communicating through writing, doing web development, and, increasingly as I continue working in ad-tech at Smartly.io, marketing.
In short, she will design the products and I will help make them sellable.
The launch party
Another first was holding a launch party. The way the night unfolded so perfectly was just surreal. We loved every moment of it.
What I’ve learned from organising a launch party is that it can actually be quite simple. The most important thing is authenticity in what is being launched. The logistics can be managed by any adult.
On the surface, it appeared like we were launching a business, but I think we were really launching ourselves into the world of entrepreneurship. Before today’s launch party, we were somewhat passive consumers of other people’s creativity and entrepreneurialism, maybe except in our own small ways in our respective line of work.
But today we have declared to ourselves and the people in our lives who matter (through the event and its ripple effects on social media) that we are people who take things into our own hands when we see an opportunity to.
It almost feels like I’m on a slightly elevated plane of existence now, even though nothing really has changed apart from a new online store, new social media accounts, and a freshly designed line of bridal veils. I’m seeing doors I’ve never seen before, sprouting up in every corner my eye can see. It feels great.
What now?
Now that we’ve gone out and announced the launch of ang veil yú, we will be prioritising learning. There is so much to learn about running even a simple business like this that it would be foolish to prioritise anything else.
A few things we’d like to test soon are:
- The effect pricing has on sales, and getting to the sweet spot
- The ROI of paid social advertising (and for me, naturally, using the great tool from Smartly.io as an employee)
- The effect branding, mainly through storytelling on our blog and Instagram, has on sales
Exciting times are ahead!
Video produced by freshfromkenneth.
Follow us on our new business journey on Instagram (@angveilyu) today.
If you’re looking for a bridal veil for your wedding, we’d love for you to check out what we have in the ang veil yú online store.