I moved to Hong Kong with my husband and daughter in 2013. Jon had been out of work for almost a year and out of necessity we made the move. Whilst exciting it was also heartbreaking for me to leave the career I loved, with not much prospect of getting a job when I arrived, but sometimes you must do what’s best for your family and that’s what I did. I spent the first 18 months settling in and we had another bub, which kept me busy, but I needed more. The sad situation for most expat wives in Hong Kong is that we all gave up careers for our families and local jobs are scarce if you don’t speak Chinese.
I had been offered an opportunity to start the Asian arm of an Aussie business. I was excited but I had never run my own business and was daunted by the prospect of doing this alone.
One day I was sharing this news with a mum friend, Jodie, who was also missing her career. She kept asking more questions and before I knew it I had found myself a business partner! We launched Pixta HK when our second bubs were both under 6 months old, probably not the best timing and we were constantly exhausted, but we thought if we keep putting back the launch we will never start, so off we went!
We were lucky. We found a gap in the market for our service and also made some key connections at the start, which got us on our way. There have been setbacks here and there and days when we thought we should just give up, but we pulled through to find brighter ones on the other side and are stronger for the experience every time.
As mums we support each other on those days when the wheels fall off. Our children are very close friends, which makes it easier in those times when we are so busy with work and we are not around. Our husbands both work 70-100 hour weeks, so we cannot rely on them and no family around to help but thankfully we are blessed with domestic helpers to fill the void.
For us, the key is we love what we do. Whilst it’s not all fun, on the whole we enjoy ourselves and get along well together, although we are very different. I am more technical and am terrible with admin where as Jodie is the opposite! Day to day, if I’m honest, we don’t really think about words like ‘empowerment’ we just get on with it! But looking back I think the things that empower us to succeed is a belief in the quality of our service and commitment to work hard to keep this business going not only for ourselves but for our families.
