The Yardbird owner and co-founder of female-focused platform Missbish gives her tips for women in business

Generation T lister Lindsay Jang is best known as the innovative restaurateur behind award-winning establishments Yardbird, Ronin and Sunday’s Grocery. 

As well as opening a second branch of yakitori hotspot Yardbird this month, Jang is focusing her “kick ass, work hard” mentality on Missbish, announcing the platform’s first private-label apparel collection.

“Missbish is an online editorial platform that’s focused on strong female-driven content,” says Jang of the company she founded with friends Gillian Wong and fellow Generation T lister Nicole Fung, of That Food Cray. “Our ambition is to give the audience we’ve built over the last few years the clothes and lifestyle goods that we don’t think are in the market yet.”

“We wanted to bridge the gap from function to fashion,” says Jang of the minimalist, all-black line of athleisure. “Because if you’re going out for drinks or if you’re going to the office, you can’t look like you just ran a marathon.” 

Given the platform’s focus on female empowerment, we asked Jang for her tips on how to be a successful female entrepreneur. For Jang, the gender divide isn’t so important: “I’ve never felt disadvantaged being female; I’ve actually always thought it was an advantage,” she says. Accordingly, most of her advice is in fact applicable to both genders—with one crucial difference.

Tatler Asia
Above The Missbish apparel collection. (Photo: Courtesy of Missbish)

Find the time to let yourself be inspired

“Find good people to work with, empower your team and don’t micromanage. If you’re too deep into every single granular thing about your business it’s hard to see the big picture, which is why I’m all about empowering the people that I work with.”

Be digitally organised

“I’m a huge supporter of digital organisational apps, so across all of our teams we use Slack, WhatsApp, Todoist and Google Drive. Keeping open lines of communication and transparency is, in my opinion, crucial to being highly productive.”

Tatler Asia
Above The line is designed to "bridge the gap" between function and fashion. (Photo: Courtesy of Missbish)

Invest in your team

“I place huge importance on adding value to a team. Find people who are smarter than you, or people with different skill sets from yours, without worrying that they’re smarter than you. I’m always extremely excited when I find someone who can teach me something.”

Value and develop all relationships

“Working and living in such a busy city can get very tit-for-tat. I think being fully present and giving someone proper time in any meeting—whether they’re a stranger, friend or a colleague—is extremely important. Being short-sighted is never a good thing; you never know what’s going to happen in the future, and you always want to be that person who was kind no matter what.”

Tatler Asia
Above Lindsay Jang at Ronin.

Use your feminine skills to your advantage

“The benefit we have as female entrepreneurs is the ability to use our complicated natures to our advantage in so many ways. I don’t mean using your sexuality to further your agenda, but we are very intuitive, probably more intuitive than the opposite sex. Plus, being nurturing, being motherly, I don’t think are negatives. I think they can actually be used to nurture and support your team and help you be a better leader by being more compassionate, which I think women naturally are.” 

Missbish’s apparel line is scheduled to launch later this year. Keep an eye on Hong Kong Tatler for updates.

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