I am still afraid at 47 years old. Honestly speaking, I am afraid of failure. I regret so much, you know, the only thing that I regret so much was I never started my entrepreneurship journey earlier. I have been working for people. I’ve been working for my husband and his partners. You know, I build something for them, but I never did it for myself [until now]
Joyce chua
Today’s episode is with an entrepreneur from Malaysia, Joyce Chua. Joyce is the Founder & CEO of Queva Beauty based in Johor, Malaysia.
Queva is a business service that Joyce believes is the answer and solution to the biggest headache that beauty consultants suffer from! It is a co-working salon space for freelance beauty consultants who don’t want to be bogged down by salon rentals, hiring staff, administration, accounting and more.
Interestingly, most women start businesses in the areas they have the most experience in. And Joyce is no different.
Joyce has always been in the beauty and skincare industry starting from the time she worked for some of the most popular brands in Malaysia in the 1990s such as Dermalogica, The Body Shop, Xixili and more. She used to work in training, marketing, PR and sales and she admitted that she learnt a lot working under industry mavens such as Datin Mina Cheah-Fong of The Body Shop franchise in Malaysia.
Essentially it is a space for freelance beauty consultants who don’t have the capital to open up their own salons. In this way, Joyce says she wants to empower freelance beauty consultants and encourage them to be in business without the technical difficulties of starting one.
When I go online, I’m like, oh shit, what should I say? It was tough. It was tough to push myself to go [live] on social media. It was like a learning curve for me, for my age. You know, I’m not like 18 yearold girls, you know, I’m in my 40s. How am I supposed to get into social media, make people look at me, make people trust me. So those are the big challenges that I broke through!
Joyce says,” One of my most significant accomplishments was I came out from my comfort zone to start making sales which were never my forte but I know this contributes revenue. It turns out to be one of my most significant accomplishments, I was able to close deals one after another and customers trusted me.” It was a lightbulb moment as she realized she could be an entrepreneur with confidence and realize her dreams!
Besides the salon business, she is also the founder of a skincare product – a Vitamin C serum named Fabs Skin. Her fruit-powered serum contains Vitamins A, C and E, as apple and carrot extracts to prevent hyperpigmentation problems in women’s skin.
I learned from Molly Fong. I learned from Mina. I learned from Melissa from Dermalogica and Joanne from Xixili. They are ambitious. They’re driven. They know what they want. I’m so blessed that they taught me a lot.
She loves this quote by Oprah Winfrey, “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.”
Joyce says she is inspired by women entrepreneurs such as Rachel Lim of Love, Bonito and Vivy Yusof of The FashionValet. Her favourite read is by Richard Branson, The Virgin Way.