Female Founder in Focus – Priyanka Beswal – Founder of Ellybean Designs

Welcome to the Female Founder In Focus series!

This series on my blog celebrates women blazing trails in different areas of business, tech, art, entrepreneurship, fashion, beauty etc.

I hope by sharing the stories and journeys of other women, you are inspired to chase your dreams, work hard and never give up.
Today’s Female Founder In Focus is Priyanka Beswal — a Singapore-based entrepreneur and founder of the international custom children’s gifts, activities and accessories company Ellybean Designs.

Priyanka grew up in Mumbai before she moved to Singapore in 2007 to study animation, stemming from a deep passion for animated movies such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. While she didn’t quite end up becoming an animator, Priyanka has had an impressive career in marketing and brand partnerships for media and content companies such as NBCUniversal. Her role entailed coming up with unique brand partnerships, sponsorships and ad solutions for brands like Unilever, P&G, Singapore Tourism to name a few.

Priyanka admits that being creative is a big part of who she is and it filters into the kind of work she likes to do. After working in the corporate sector, Priyanka felt an itch to start her own business combining all her interests including design, creative thinking and social enterprise.

Building a business with a purpose

Without a formal business plan of any kind, Priyanka took an arguably simple approach to building Ellybean Designs. First, she identified her “why” for wanting to launch a business and it was clear: using creativity for kindness. Second, the venture was going to be self-funded so Priyanka spoke to her husband and together they assessed their finances and calculated the business’ burn rate (the rate at which a business spends money in excess of income). Third, she launched Ellybean Designs.

With her design, animation and creative background, Priyanka has concepted and executed every aspect of the company from the brand name, logo design, website design to marketing, product development and customer service. Some manufacturing is done in-house and some is outsourced.

While Ellybean Designs is pretty much a one-woman show, Priyanka shares that she has an “unofficial board of directors” she values greatly, which is made up of her husband, my family and a few close friends. Each one of them contribute in meaningful ways such as overseeing the India operations, providing financial advice, and offering advice and feedback for strategic decisions.

What’s in a name

The brand name ‘Ellybean’ is a fusion of the words ‘elephant’ and ‘jellybean’. It was the serendipitous result of a fun brainstorm between Priyanka and her husband who suggested looking at animals for inspiration. Priyanka chose the elephant because it is large and maternal by nature and jellybeans are small, colourful and fun — a sweet treat all children love. By combining the two words in a juxtaposition of big and small, it’s a representation of what the company stands for: colourful and fun little things for children with big meaning.

Using creativity for kindness
In the middle of 2018 Priyanka launched Ellybean Designs, which is a custom children’s gifts, activities and accessories company. The business is inspired by Priyanka’s childhood passion for creating unique handmade things such as cards, play dough roses, hand drawn magazines, scrapbooks and more to make her loved ones feel special on special occasions.

“Today, my business Ellybean is a result of keeping that same joy alive – we’re in the business of making people feel special through creative ideas, innovative products and small acts of kindness.” – Priyanka (Source: www.ellybeandesigns.com)

She admits she didn’t have an “aha moment” when the concept of Ellybean Designs was born; it was more of a purposeful, organic process because Priyanka always knew she wanted to create a business that is meaningful and created social positive impact. And that’s why 5% of every Ellybean product sold is donated to Feeding India, an organisation dedicated to helping end hunger and feeding children in need in India.

All a result of Priyanka’s incredible creative imagination, Ellybean Designs offers a wide range of customised and personalised products that will surely bring a smile to your face. Be sure to check out the website for more details: www.ellybeandesigns.com.

Learning the “not so sexy” side of business

Looking at Ellybean Designs’ brand identity across all touchpoints — logo, product, marketing, social media and website — it is safe to say design and marketing are very much in Priyanka’s wheelhouse. She admits that to ensure Ellybean Designs’ success, Priyanka had to learn what she calls the “not so sexy” side of running a business, which includes everything from operations and finance to accounting and international custom laws.

Another key skill she had to pick up very quickly was the art of skillful negotiation to deal with vendors and manufacturers. If there were no successful negotiations, then there would be no products.

And possibly the most important aspect of business Priyanka had to get quickly comfortable with: customer interaction and driving sales. Priyanka recalls the first trade fair she participated in when Ellybean Designs newly launched, “I was standing at my booth for a while and I just assumed people would come up to me and ask about my products. It didn’t happen. An hour later I just had to get out there, throw myself in people’s faces, introduce myself and my company, and ask people to come and see my products”.

Challenges of running a business alone

Even though Priyanka is a seasoned entrepreneur, she says “Some days still feel like day one” referring to how running her own business can present unexpected obstacles and challenges that she might not have the answer to. Priyanka compares how working in a company offers the advantages of having a team or management to fall back on during tough times; to use as a sounding board during decision-making; or to simply have for camaraderie and support. But as a solo business owner everything falls on Priyanka and it requires her to think quick and act fast on her own, which is easier said than done.

In a product-driven business, Priyanka works closely with various suppliers and manufacturers to bring her product concepts to life. She shares one example of how she was close to finalising the pricing for the manufacturing of one of her new products, which Priyanka had spent months developing, only to have the manufacturer go back on their word and increase the cost of production by an exorbitant amount due to change in management and policies. Priyanka admits it was a huge disappointment and sense of personal failure but the situation also taught her to do better research and spread risk (not put all your eggs in one basket).

As the owner of the business Priyanka feels every success and failure, both professionally and personally, and it’s easy to become overly self-critical especially during the not-so-good times. She says she has to constantly remind herself to celebrate the big and small wins.

The impact of Covid-19 on small business 

Priyanka openly discusses the impact of the coronavirus global pandemic on small business. She says demand for Ellybean Designs products has significantly decreased and delivery operations in India and Singapore are on hold indefinitely. Not to mention a trade show she spent 6 months preparing for and where she was supposed to launch a new product got cancelled too. Priyanka didn’t anticipate the extent to which the impact of the Covid-19 global shutdown would have on her business.

But the silver lining is she was able to quickly pivot and develop new digital product ideas such as the downloadable Be Calm Kit for iPad, which requires no hand-to-hand contact. Priyanka is also able to spend more time on the marketing and operational side of the business that were being put off such as developing SEO, Pinterest strategy and new product ideas.

Priyanka has also launched a new business vertical, Ellybean Studios, which is a creative design studio offering branding, packaging and stationery design for brands and individuals as a service during a time when shopping for physical products and delivery is unpredictable.

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