Entrepreneurshit

Enterpreneurshit.

Saw this today and I couldn't help but to giggle:

To all the entrepreneurs out there, is this right, or is this right? 😅

Woke up this morning feeling exceptionally shitty.

I think what's getting to me is the fact that being a solopreneur means that I am spending long periods of time by myself in my room, completely alone and staring at a computer screen for hours and hours at a time. For an extrovert which enjoy being around people, this is extremely depressing.

Don't get me wrong.

I love my business. I love Fit Rebel. I love designing, creating beautiful sportwear, exercising in them and sharing them with the world.

It's just that one of the realities of being a solopreneur is isolation and it is starting to effect me negatively.

Have been considering what I can do to break the monotony of my solo working arrangement.

Of all the things that popped up in my mind, teaching part-time seems to appeal to me the most.

I was invited as a guest speaker at KDU University College in July 2017 and I loved the session I had with the students. Then in December 2017 I was invited to present to the students of University of Southampton (Malaysia Campus) and I really enjoyed the experience as well.

I wonder if I can be a part-time lecturer at a university, teaching entrepreneurial related subjects. It only makes sense for people like me to be part-time lecturers as we are busy being full time entrepreneurs, right?

How does one go about something like this? Anybody want to hire me? 😁

Jokes aside, my background and experience is 100% relevant. I'm a graduate from Manchester Business School's Full time MBA program. I wrote a book about my entrepreneurship journey which became a national bestseller and I AM an entrepreneur.

*Scratches head*

Gotta figure this out.

How to create a unicorn

I love En Lazim. He is one of the nicest, kindest and sweetest gentlemen that you will ever meet. He is also the creator of a lot of the batik artworks for the SENI by Fit Rebel leggings. Here is a photo of him proudly displaying one of his latest artworks for our next collection, a fairy! He was so in love with this piece that he almost didn't want to hand it over to me after completion... but luckily he did!

After this piece, we discussed our next project, which was a unicorn inspired piece. My brief to En Lazim was as follows, "I want a majestic white unicorn. However, the highlight of this piece would be his hair, because I want his mane to be rainbow colored".

En Lazim nodded and got to work.

2 weeks later I showed up at his gallery and he proudly displayed his artwork as below:

I was stunned when I first laid eyes on his piece. To a certain extent, En Lazim totally nailed this piece. Here was a majestic white unicorn with gorgeous rainbow colored hair.

But... unfortunately he had crazy eyes and looked a bit too badass for my liking. In fact, this unicorn looked kinda scary. 😨

Wasn't quite sure how to react and I didn't want to upset En Lazim especially since he looked so happy and proud of this piece. I smiled and said the nicest thing I could, "His hair is gorgeous!!!".

I then left the gallery sweating. SHIT. What was I gonna do about this?

I frantically got in touch with the only person I knew who could save this, Illustrator Extraordinaire, Soefara Jafney

We both agreed that his hair is gorgeous but he was one scary looking unicorn.

"Don't worry. Can be fixed", said Sophie.

And relief spread through my body and soul.

With much care and love, Sophie made small adjustments and gave Mr. Unicorn kinder eyes.

I remember staying up (pretty much) all night admiring his kinder looking eyes and asking myself what else can be done to turn this piece from good to great. So I took a shot at editing this piece.

Here is my version below (pay attention to his mouth to see the difference).

When I finished making the edits, I remember taking a step back to just stop and look. It was almost as if Mr Unicorn was finally smiling at me. And I smiled back.

Finally crept into bed at 3am and woke up at 6am to prepare for a presentation that I had to give at OCBC Bank's belated International Women's Day celebration.

It was a great event which was organized by a bubbly and friendly bunch. The audience was awesome and the energy was extremely positive. I had a blast.

Me with Kok Lai Ching, Head of Human Resources of OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad

 After the event was over, I got home and crashed.

Woke up the next morning and shared the edited unicorn with En Lazim. He loved it.

Later in the day I was emailing some of the ladies from OCBC Bank who attended my presentation and this email came in:

This is the best. thing. EVER!!! 😍

When you give good vibes, you get good vibes.

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you be awesome... and create a unicorn!

XOXO

#OnceUponATime Collection

The upcoming collection has been one of the most challenging collections that I had to create so far.

In fact, it has been harder to create this collection compared to July 2017's 'Fantasy Collection' which was inspired by Game of Thrones. For that collection, we had some really imaginative pieces like a Dragon, Wolf, Raven, Weirwood tree (GOT fans would know this) and an abstract fire & ice (red & blue) piece. It took us foreverrr to come up with original, imaginative pieces that were inspired by that hit TV show.

The upcoming #OnceUponATime Collection is inspired by Disney Princesses and Popular Fables. Seems like we are taking longer than forever, due to the ambitious ideas that I have. The artworks that I wanted to create would be inspired by the following:

• The Little Mermaid
• Swan Lake
• Tinkerbell
• Rapunzel
• The Last Unicorn

Since my batik artists managed to pull off a Game of Thrones inspired collection, I figured that they could pull off anything.

I was almost right. Kinda. Sorta. But not quite.

When we started designing for the #OnceUponATime Collection, our first few attempts weren't great.

Check out our very first mermaid sketch:

The Swan Lake piece wasn't great either.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the results and figured that we needed to start over.

I decided to enlist the help of an old friend and extremely talented illustrator, Soefara Jafney.

There are no words in the dictionary that begins to describe this amazing young woman who produces jaw dropping artwork. Her passion is drawing girls. As soon as she was old enough to pick up a pencil and draw, she was the happiest and most creative when she was drawing girls. 

Check out some of Soefara Jafney's work below.

Here are her finished pieces:

Here are her doodles:

Crazy talented, isn't she?

With the help of Soefara, we got off to a new start for the #OnceUponATime collection. 

After weeks of trial and error (MANY errors, mind you!) we were finally nailing this collection.

Check out our Tinkerbell inspired piece below:

We seem to be hitting our stride and the Rapunzel piece which was just completed today looks really pretty too. We will not be revealing it today, muahaha! Stay tuned for moreeeeeeee!

For a peek at the collection of our art inspired leggings, click *HERE*

The December 2016 Collection Was Suppose To Consist Of 6 Designs, But We Are Only Going To Release 2 Of Them. Here's Why.

A few weeks after the launch of Seni by Fit Rebel in August 2016, I headed back to the art studio to work on new designs for the upcoming December 2016 collection. I was chatting with a friend over the phone and she commented, "You're with your artists, working on new designs? Oh Nadia, your job is so much fun!".

I remember thinking to myself... if only you knew.

As the title of this post suggest, I had the intention of releasing 6 new designs in December. However, life is such that it messes with your best laid plans & not everything will turn out how you would have liked. So we'll just need to go with the flow and make the best of every situation in order to maintain our sanity (not as if I have much of it left. Lol!). Just kidding! Or maybe not...

Below are the 6 designs that were created over a period of 2 months by two of my best batik artists. Out of the 6 designs, 4 were accepted. 2 were rejected. Here are the ones that made the cut.

 

This Edgy Peacock design in an inspiration from it's original, the 'Bonnie' print. The Bonnie print was soooooooooooooooooooooooo popular that I was asked to recreate this design, but in different colors.

Ask and you shall receive. Me thinks that this actually looks better than the original. This is fierce! Bad ass!

 

This Fighting Fish design was something that the artist and I brainstormed together. I wanted something beautiful & graceful, yet powerful. After weeks of throwing ideas back and forth, we came up with this concept. Three weeks later, this artwork was created.  

The vertical lines incorporated into this design was done on purpose & meant to create a more flattering look. The prototypes leggings are already out and they look fantastic.

 

Butterflies are pretty and I knew that I wanted butterfly inspired designs at some point. Nuff said. 

Here's a cute behind-the-scenes photo of Mr Lazim, hand painting the butterflies:

 

Below are the 2 designs that didn't make the cut. Once you see them, the reason why becomes obvious (why they were rejected).

Here's the first one...

Like, omg. The brief to the artist was to create a whimsical, dandelion inspired design. And this is what he came up with. *Face palm* It's not entirely horrible, but not exactly what I had in mind...

Here's the second (rejected) design:

 

I gotta admit. This is a bit better. But compared to the designs from the previous collection, this is nowhere near as cool as my existing designs. 

Then someone said something which made me completely rule out this design entirely.

"You can position this as Harley Quinn inspired pants & launch this over Halloween".

And I was like... No.. just no. I'll leave the Marvel inspired apparel to Black Milk and concentrate on producing gorgeous & inspiring leggings featuring hand painted works of art. 

The 4 approved designs were then forwarded to my manufacturer who created the mock ups as follows:

 

 

A few days later, these prototype leggings arrived at my doorstep. The Edgy Peacock and the Fighting Fish are GORGEOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. So proud of them. I am arranging for them to be photographed in the studio and will reveal the images when they are ready. Friends who have already seen them are already drooling and pre-orders are already piling up. Good stuff.

The butterfly leggings were a disappointment, though. Here are the images:

I know what you're thinking. They are not bad, Nadia.

Problem is, 'not bad' isn't good enough for me anymore. All my designs have the WOW factor & customers really have a hard time choosing their favorite design because they were all amazing. And that is the standard that I have set for Fit Rebel & something that I want to maintain and surpass over time.

Something that I've learnt this year is that when love, care and attention to detail has been put into something, it shows in the final results. People will notice these things and it does matter. And personally, I will feel a bigger sense of pride and satisfaction in knowing that I have created something amazing. Not something that was 'not bad'.

So that is why, I will only be releasing 2 out of the 6 designs in December. Sorry for any disappointment caused, but it's only gonna be the best from me to you.

Thanks for reading, folks. X

My Experience On Creating My Own Line of Fitness Leggings

SENI by Fit Rebel leggings has officially launched and the first batch of orders has been processed and delivered to the backers of our crowd funding campaign.

The best moments from the previous weekend was receiving emails, messages and seeing posts from friends & customers receiving their leggings & doing social media shout-outs.

Here's Claudia from Vienna, Austria, enjoying the weekend, going about town in her fun, new leggings.

Suhana was spotted engaging in the #22pushupchallenge in our phoenix inspired leggings.

 

Alya was captured ice skating in our Japanese Koi inspired leggings! 

When good things happen in life, one has to take a moment of silence to feel gratitude and to give thanks to the universe, and to everyone and everything that has helped me along this journey to make this moment possible.

I believe that things are better when shared, so I would just like to share some learnings and observations that I picked up/ experienced through out this whole journey of creating my own line of leggings and running a crowd funding campaign.

LESSON #1: To Build Something Great From Nothing, You Must Really, Really, Really Want It

All I started with was an idea. Just an idea. Something in my head.
Literally, it went like this, "I want to create the most beautiful yoga pants in the world".

I didn't know how I was gonna do it, or what it took. I just really, really, really wanted it.
And the reason why I wanted it was due to a calling that was much bigger than myself. I realized that most women would get more excited about their workouts if they had fun and beautiful workout attire. Having been through some difficult times in the past 4 years (death of father, broken engagement, etc) I have personally felt the positive benefits of exercise which helped me overcome some of the most difficult moments in my life.

If having fun and beautiful active wear can get women to exercise more often, then I was going to create the most beautiful leggings in the world to inspire women to do just that.

It took me 12 months, which consisted of the following:

• 2 months of design, and finding the right artists to work with
• Going through 20 different prototypes before I was happy with the final product. 
• Traveling through the region, visiting fabric suppliers and manufacturers to compare fabrics, printing and manufacturing quality
• Weeks of stress testing the prototype with friends who engage in a wide variety of sports such as running, yoga, aerial hoops, martial arts and dance. Making improvements to the prototype based on their feedback
• Photoshoot, videoshoot, running the crowd funding and doing all the necessary marketing activities required to grow awareness
• etc

 It was hard. But I was clear on my vision and my intention, and I was unstoppable.


LESSON #2: You Must be Willing To Give Up Everything For What You Really Want

There really is no other way about this. To get something you really want, you need to do something you have never done. It's a shift of priorities that comes from within, once you have committed yourself to the goal.

I quit my job.
I think twice, three times before going on vacation, because that means I'll be away from work.
Hanging out with friends for a period longer than 3 hours makes me uncomfortable because it's time away that I could be doing something else for my business.


LESSON #3: People Will Surprise You

This has got the be the best lesson/ observation that I gained from this entire experience.
What I realized is that most people who can help, will do everything they can to help you succeed. Everyone from my models, photographer, artists, friends and family rose up to meet me and carried me even higher.

I can still remember the day of the photo shoot, when we were on our feet from the crack of dawn until sunset. I was barking out requests to friend & photographer (Jonathan Khee) the whole day, and he patiently obliged to everything I wanted. Till this day, I am filled with gratitude that he put up with my moment of crazy and we remain good friends :)

The flip side to all this light is the 'dark side'. Some people disappoint.

I guess that is life. Everyone is fighting their own battles and I should not judge people for what they did or did not do. I can only hope that with time, everyone will show their good side eventually.

And that's all for today, folks!

To view the SENI by Fit Rebel collection, you can visit the Fit Rebel website here: https://fitrebel.com/

Counting My Blessings in the Month of May

May 2016 has been quite a month. Lots of ups and downs, but one thing that always comes through in the midst of all this madness is that regardless of what happens, we gotta keep moving forward and keep pushing through otherwise we will be stuck, and that is never good.

Let's start by counting my blessings for all that was good in this month.

For starters, SENI by Fit Rebel was featured in this month's issue of Women's Health Malaysia!

We were featured in their Style Scoop section in page 28. Yay and a big shout out to the team who made this possible!

TimeOut Magazine has nominated fitrebel.com as one of the best local online stores for active wear! Link here: http://www.timeout.com/kuala-lumpur/shopping/the-best-local-online-stores

In early May, my brother and I traveled over great distances to meet up with fabric suppliers and manufacturers to tie up some loose ends and finalized some details before I start production of the Seni by Fit Rebel leggings. Meetings were successful and I do not foresee any issues with production when the time comes.

Now, let's talk about the crowdfunding campaign.
For those living under a rock and have no clue about what I am referring to, here is a link to my campaign: igg.me/at/senibyfitrebel

So far, I have raised USD3,622 and we have 12 more days to go till the end of my crowdfunding campaign. Although this is a relatively low number, to a certain extent, there is a sense of pride, as I did this all by myself with no previous experience.

After a heartfelt discussion with my manufacturer, we have agreed to proceed with production of Seni by Fit Rebel leggings, but with smaller quantities that originally planned. I now hope to raise at least USD4,000 which will cover all costs associated with the new minimum order quantity (MOQ) as discussed with my manufacturer.

Being ever positive, I know I just need to push and hustle for the next 12 days. Leggings are priced at USD39.00 per pair, and these prices are only available through this crowd funding campaign which runs until 31 May. After this date, the regular retail price for the leggings will be set at USD59.00.

To all friends reading this, do contribute, if you haven't done so already! A small contribution of USD5 can go a long way if I have 100 friends who are willing to contribute that amount. Sacrificing 2 designer coffees at your favorite hipster cafe is definitely worth seeing your friend's dream come true, right?

Well, I guess I will end here. Whatever happens, the dream will live on and I will continue to push forward with my vision.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend, ya all!

x

Nadia

On Crowd Funding and Manufacturing

The Seni by Fit Rebel Indiegogo campaign has managed to raise 18% of our intended goal of USD15,000. With 22 days left in the campaign, we are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to meet our target.

For those who have not been following this blog, Fit Rebel is creating a new line of high performance leggings featuring hand painted batik designs by artists from South East Asia. These leggings are suitable for a wide variety of fitness related activities as well as for casual wear. The designs were created by traditional batik artist and were hand drawn and painted using traditional batik painting techniques.

For more information about this project, click here: https://igg.me/at/senibyfitrebel

On to other matters.

Last week, my brother and I did some traveling to meet with fabric suppliers and manufacturers to confirm all the details before we begin with the manufacturing process of the leggings, which will commence immediately after the Indiegogo campaign ends on 31 May 2016.

All meetings and negotiations went smoothly and we foresee that the manufacturing of the leggings will go just fine.

We hope to meet our target of USD15,000 and begin manufacturing as soon as possible. Having said that, even if we don't raise USD15,000 we will still go ahead with the manufacturing of the leggings anyway. We are determine to make these leggings a reality for everyone to experience and enjoy!

The Indiegogo Campaign

Friends within the Fit Rebel community would already be familiar with our latest initiative, where we are featuring traditional batik artwork onto trendy leggings. Keep on reading for a brief overview of this project, and for the newest developments since our last blog post!

Research has shown that having fun and beautiful active wear inspires women to enjoy their workouts and train more often. We want to encourage more women to lead active and healthy lifestyles, so we set out on a mission to create beautiful and awe-inspiring active wear.

Taking influence from our Malaysian roots, we turned towards batik, a traditional and versatile textile art and created 5 beautiful, nature inspired designs to be featured on high performance leggings.

 

We worked with a community of traditional artist who hand drew and painted the designs using traditional batik techniques. Once the artwork is complete, it is transferred onto spandex fabric via sublimation printing, so that the leggings are machine washable, the colors will never fade and the leggings will continue to display the hand painted designs for over the length of it's lifetime.

Please watch this video for more insights to this project:

To bring this initiative to life, we will be launching a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo on 22 April 2016.

For those of you who are not familiar with crowd funding or Indiegogo, crowdfunding is a process of raising funds in small amounts from our fans, followers and the public. The idea is to focus on "its not what you do, but why you do it." Fit Rebel's bigger purpose is to empower women with active wear that they feel confident, comfortable and beautiful in. But beyond that, we want to bring forward the work of local artists who work very hard on their regional art forms. This gives them a canvas to share their art, and #SENIbyfitrebel will continue to support them with growing commerce options.

Funds raised through this campaign will go to the artists to benefit and preserve their craft. The balance will go to costs of production of these leggings, which include costs of materials and costs of workmanship.

All backers will receive perks/rewards for your generosity. The perks are as follows:

• Pledge USD10 and receive a hand painted batik greeting card
• Pledge USD20 and receive a cotton batik handkerchief
• Pledge USD25 and receive a Japanese Koi painting
• Pledge USD39 and receive ONE pair of SENI leggings (Early Bird Special, limited to the first 50 backers!)
• Pledge USD49 and receive ONE pair of SENI leggings
• Pledge USD92 and receive TWO pairs of SENI leggings (USD46 per pair)
• Pledge USD129 and receive THREE pairs of SENI leggings (USD43 each)
• Pledge USD160 and receive FOUR pairs of SENI leggings (USD40 each)
• Pledge USD185 and receive FIVE pairs of SENI leggings (USD37 each)

Here's a sneak peek at the greeting card, cotton handkerchief and koi painting!

Please support this initiative by getting yourself a piece of art or a pair of these gorgeous leggings!

Our Indiegogo campaign is now live here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/seni-by-fit-rebel-art-inspired-leggings/x/13000759#/

Your Dream Yogapants

Alya, sitting under a tree :)

We are doing our part to preserve traditional art by featuring hand-painted batik designs by batik artist on our high performance leggings. On top of that, we also want to make sure that we create a pair of leggings that you will LOVE. 

Alya, friend and aerial hoop practitioner (pictured above) had these kind words to say about our leggings, "They're super comfy and stretchable, plus so pretty to look at!! Perfect for dance, yoga, fitness, etc as well as casual wear". 

Encouraged by these words, we are striving to do even better. And what better way than to hear your opinion about what features your dream leggings should have.

We have created the easiest and funnest survey in the world, which consist of only 10 questions and will benefit YOU entirely. We appreciate if you can take 1 - 2 minutes of your time to fill it out here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7PW6YC7

Your feedback will be taken seriously and incorporate into our design. To sweeten the deal, we will conduct a random draw and 10 lucky participants will receive a free sports bra as below. 

 

Thanks, and if you are curious to follow the developments of our new line of art inspired, high performance leggings, do follow us on any one of these platforms:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/fitrebelapparel

Instagram: www.instagram.com/fitrebelapparel
Twitter: www.twitter.com/fitrebel1

 

Back!!!

It's been a while since I last wrote.

There have been some changes, the most major one being that I have made the decision to expand & carry more brands instead of just Liquido.

We have added Gylder Apparel to the list brands that we carry. Glyder Apparel is a brand from the USA which produces beautiful active wear for women, of great quality at a very competitive price. We are also negotiating with several other brands from the USA, Japan & Singapore and even talking to a very interesting company that produces under garments specifically for the active women!

Another significant change is that I decided to do a rebranding exercise and move from liquido.com.my to a new domain, which is fitrebel.com. It didn't make sense to bring in new brands and offer them under the old site (liquido.com.my), so this migration to a new online storefront under a new name (fitrebel.com) happened very naturally.

Sales have been affected somewhat (because my customers can't find the new site!) so I'll have to keep on pushing the message that we are expanding and have moved.

This news been featured on several publications. Here's a decent piece that was published by The Malay Mail Online, one of Malaysia's leading online news portals: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/fit-rebel-daring-funky-fitness-wear-to-energise-your-workouts

So, here's to new heights & challenges!

Thanks for reading. xoxo!

Freebies. Free Shipping. No Kidding =)

We are rewarding the loyal customers of www.liquido.com.my (who are subscribed to our mailing list) by sending them freebies.

Free Stuff. Free Shipping. No Kidding.

We have been doing this in stages and have gotten EXCELLENT feedback from customers.

Beth Albright, emailed and remarked, "This is brilliant! Nobody does this!"

Well, nobody but us, I suppose :)

First thought that probably comes to your mind is - "Why are you doing this?"

Simple answer - We are nothing without you :)

It's really not thaaat difficult to find a budget to reward loyal customers. And if there's something that we have learnt along the way, we get a lot more when we give, compared to when we receive.

So enjoy your goodies, people!

If you are one of our loyal customers, but haven't received your freebie or an email notification regarding this, it's probably because you're not subscribed to our mailing list. So hurry and get to it!!!

You can subscribe by visiting our website here: http://www.liquido.com.my

Insert your email address in the space titled 'Subscribe for latest Liquido updates' located at the bottom right of the page.

We may or may not do this again. However, something we will do is give out coupon codes for discount on our website, exclusively through our mailing list - so there is benefit to sign up.

Thank you for your support, which allows us to keep doing what we do - to make sure that you look fabulous while pursuing an active lifestyle!

Much love! XOXO

Fun team pic #1

Fun team pic #2