Webinar: How these small business leaders managed

Our most recent webinar at Ambition was definitely a roaring success! We were joined by Nada Tielu from Koala and Jennifer Ng from Seasons Fruit Market for their inspiring stories of overcoming the challenges created by COVID-19 and thriving in this ‘new normal’.

I have honestly been overwhelmed with all the positive feedback and responses I received from those who attended the session - it was definitely an inspiring and insightful one! I would love to be able to share this experience with those who could not attend the livestream, so here is a summary of what we discussed and full recording below!

Nada's tips for success

How did the Koala team come up with a new ‘Working from Home’ desk to meet this newly created market and only took 6 weeks from conception to product launch and customers being able to order the desk online?

- They became more agile than ever by shortening multiple sign off stages and had the Design, Development and Digital teams working collaboratively to minimise the product planning stages.

- They had also already planned for a scenario where Koala is growing really quickly. So when the pandemic came and they needed to launch this new product on the website very quickly, they were already in the position to do so thanks to all the advance planning!

- Prioritisation and de-prioritisation!

I’ve had people message me on LinkedIn to say that Nada’s inspired them to think about getting into Product Management now. How exciting!

Jennifer's tips for sucess

Jennifer’s session is definitely a refreshing and eye-opening one! I am still amazed at the success that she’s had with turning her family 38-year-old Asian grocery store, basically an institution, into an E-Commerce store within 6 weeks and achieved #1 SEO ranking for brand keywords within just 4 weeks of the website launch along with multiple press coverage on Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller. How did Jen do it you ask?

- Decide on your MVP - ‘done is better than perfect or you will never launch’

- Customer experience is critical. Jen carried out multiple user testing sessions with friends and family on the soft launch of their website before the official launch. She also based the design of how the products are categorised on the website based on the customer feedback

- Continuous streamlining of processes for greater efficiencies and automating processes using simple tools that are readily available like Shopify, Google Map, Facebook, Instagram, etc.