Ditching the 9-to-5 to start a business? Be prepared for ‘sh*t’

Mompreneur Carol Ong advises fellow aspiring business owners to embrace failure but prepare safety nets. 

If anyone else were to take inspiration from her own business journey, Bebebalm founder Carol Ong has one piece of advice.

An award-winning Filipino advertising executive based in Shanghai, China, Ong quit her day job of two decades to pursue her passion project of developing skincare solutions for her eczema-prone children. Thus, Bebebalm was born: a line of all-natural treatments for babies and adults alike with sensitive skin. 

But Bebebalm only started as a home remedy shared among friends and family. Ong had no business plan and no capital once she had decided to focus on Bebebalm full-time. Just sheer determination and willpower. And “sh*t money.”

“It’s like, ‘sh*t, I’m out of here’ money. If you want to get out of jail, you’d want to make sure that your getaway car has enough gas. It’s just enough money to sustain yourself while figuring things out,” Ong told radar Business.

Sacrifice is a necessity

Ong had been making Bebebalm concoctions for six years before she pursued the business idea in 2018.

Leading up to that, she had already been passively computing what she would need to keep herself afloat before fully committing to the business.

Even with a lucrative advertising career—which she continues to practice in a freelance capacity to this day—Ong had to assess where to cut spending in order to make the full-time Bebebalm gig a reality. She had a family to feed, after all.

Ong gave herself two years to develop the business until it potentially failed. She’s still at it seven years later, with the products currently selling in the Philippines, China, the United States, and Canada but still looking for ways to grow her base. 

“Sometimes, you cannot plan everything. There will always be pleasant surprises,” she said.