EzyMeal上报了！
1月13日，EzyMeal的创办人接受The Star报章的采访，以下是采访的内容：
CHANGING LIVES: BY FOONG PEK YEE
If you need to market your product, it helps to have an extensive network. An enterprising woman found that being a Wanita MCA Beliawanis member made all the difference when she wrote a book. And now, she will be tapping this network for an online food portal business.
WHILE his parents talk about business, three-year-old Edison Lim Yi Han runs around mimicking the actions of his favourite cartoon characters idols like including Power Rangers.
Like other young children, his attention span is limited, and he cries when he is hungry or sleepy.
Family affair: Yat’s husband Lim (right) and son Edison are usually with her at the all-women meetings.
But he does look forward to tagging along with his parents, Vanne Yat Pui Yeng, 30, and Melvin Lim Hong Yeow 31, when they attend meetings of Wanita MCA Beliawanis (Wanita MCA Young Women Bureau whose membership comprise women aged from 18 to 40).
Perhaps, he too understands the importance of such meetings.
Yat and Lim have been actively involved in Beliawanis for the last three years and their participation has proven to be very rewarding – if not life changing – in a lot of ways.
For a start, Yat, who holds a diploma in architectural engineering, published a book last year and she has Beliawanis to thank for providing her with networking assistance all the way.
While it is not impossible for Yat, a former draftswoman, to publish the book on her own, one cannot deny that it is “the MCA that makes the difference.”
After all, there are about 390,000 Wanita MCA members nationwide and the networking is certainly extensive.
Recalling how the book came about, Beliawanis chief Carol Chew says: “Vanne came to me with the idea of writing the book to share the stories of successful women. I found that find it to be a very interesting idea.”
And the rest, as people say, is history.
Yat agrees that joining Beliawanis helps in terms of networking. She is now enjoying royalties from the sales of the book, Secrets to the Success of Malaysian Women Entrepreneurs, which is priced at RM29.90 a copy.
She says the book, which is in Chinese, and was launched by Wanita MCA national chief and Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen in September last year, has sold 1,000 copies so far.
Chew, who has been head of Beliawanis since 2005, says the bureau has been organising talks by experts in various fields to enlighten young people on what it takes to do well; from being a professional, entrepreneur to homemaker or a combination of such roles.
“The Beliawanis Entrepreneur Club, launched four months ago, conducts programmes like entrepreneur training and education, mentorship programmes to help members start and grow their businesses and empowering communities in need to pursue income-generating activities,” she says.
People like Yat are among many who have benefited one way or another from the bureau that was initiated by the first Wanita MCA national chief Datuk Teng Gaik Kwan in 1992, says Chew (see table).
And this is just the beginning for Yat and Lim who ventured into business in 2001, conducting training courses and Internet marketing.
Tomorrow(Jan 14, they will kick start open the door to another type of business – an online food portal to deliver lunch boxes. Lim who has a degree in food technology from Universiti Putra Malaysia has been sniffing the while faithfully accompanying his wife to the all-women meetings over the past few years.
“People, especially women, are increasingly health and beauty conscious,” nowadays,” observes Lim, adding that their menu, which features 150 types of dishes, is divided into three categories – ezyhealth, ezyslim and ezydetox. (www.ezymeal.com.)
“We also aim to cater for MCA functions,” quips Yat, claiming that their online food portal is the world’s first bi-lingual (English and Chinese) one.
Yat says her mother, Lam Yit Kan, 57, will oversee the cooking while despatch staff will do the delivery.
To those who want to venture into business, Yat, who worked as a draftswoman for about four years before going into full-time business, has this piece of advice to share:
“You must be brave to take the first step. Do it when you are young.”
