Meet the Founders: Jenny Le & Pam Yip, Bubble Tea Club

Jenny Le and Pam Yip (Atto Accelerator 2020) launched Bubble Tea Club in 2020 as a way to give everyone access to store-bought quality bubble tea at home. We chatted to Jenny about where the idea came from and how it’s all going.

Where did the idea for Bubble Tea Club come from?
Pam and I wanted to make bubble tea at home but we also wanted it to taste as good as when you get it from the shops! We also wanted to make it accessible because we found that it’s really difficult to get every ingredient from one place. And also, we wanted to make it affordable. When you buy bubble tea in the store it can cost about $7 for a cup whereas our tea starts from $1.75 a serve.

How did you start working together on this? Have you been friends for a while?
Well, Pam is a big food influencer (she goes by ‘Munching Melbourne’) and my fiancé owns a couple of restaurants and invited Pam to one of the restaurants to try the food. That’s is when our paths first crossed and what a wonderful blessing it was! Working together is lots of hard work but it’s also a lot of giggling.

What were you both doing before you started Bubble Tea Club?
We were both working full time. Pam has her own marketing agency called VSNRY as well as juggling 'Munching Melbourne' and I worked as an optometrist but was also writing food reviews. You could say that it was our love for food that helped us create Bubble Tea Club.

Did you always know that you wanted to start a business together or did it happen by accident?!
Pam had the idea of selling bubble tea kits and my fiancé suggested that we do it together. So, we just gave it a red hot crack. My workplace closed during lockdown and because there was so much insecurity I decided I was willing to start my own business as a backup plan. However, this side-hustle has become more like a full-time hustle.

What was the first thing you did to get BTC up and running?
We started by sourcing the ingredients and doing a lot of taste testing! Not long after that, we created a website and logo and launched to see if people were willing to buy the product.

Did either of you have experience in running a digital service or have you been learning as you go?
We’ve been learning as we go. Pam has experience in terms of marketing but I was completely thrown in at the deep end! I’ve had to quickly learn how to do operations and finances.

What's the biggest thing you've learnt over 2020 when it comes to founding a startup?
The biggest thing we’ve learnt is how to effectively communicate with each other and how to manage our staff. In the beginning, we were trying to figure out how to work with each other as we’d never run a business together. It was also more challenging being in lockdown and not being able to see each other as frequently as we would’ve liked.

Have you launched your subscription service yet?
We have done a trial run with some of our Bubble Tea Club members, also known as ‘bubblers’ but there’s still some changes we need to make. We think it’ll be launched in time for Christmas.

What else have you been up to?
We’ve just launched a massive 10 days of Christmas project where we announce something new over 10 consecutive days. For example, we’ve partnered with four different previous Masterchef contestants. It’s really helped to boost our branding. Secretly - launching our new subscription service is going to be one of the special Christmas reveals! But, sssh 😉.

What's the next goal for BTC?
We want our brand to be widely recognised in Australia and we also want to start selling internationally.

How has Atto's program helped you this year?
There are so many pearls of wisdom given by Kate, Sian and the educators from the program. However, the most valuable thing we got out of Atto is the supportive network from other likeminded female entrepreneurs. Everyone is incredibly open to providing feedback and giving suggestions.

And finally... favourite bubble tea flavour?!
For the milk teas, we both like taro milk tea with coconut jelly and pearls. For the fruit tea, Pam likes grapefruit and my favourite is the Yuzu mango fruit tea created by Masterchef contestant Bryan Zhu.