Tatler speaks to Sital Gill Phichitsingh and finds out how she manages her beauty boutique, Powella, as well as her two young kids
How I’m Making It is a weekly series in which Tatler speaks to influential individuals about their unique journeys and what keeps them going.
Sital Gill Phichitsingh is a force to behold. From balancing her time between family and her own company that she operates from Thailand, Sital will stop at nothing to put the business she founded right in the heart of the beauty industry.
Powella is an online beauty boutique that aggregates the best natural, cruelty-free beauty brands worldwide for customers to shop on one platform.
However, Sital had never dreamed that she would end up being an entrepreneur.
"I was born in Hong Kong and then moved to Singapore shortly after because my mom is Singaporean. I grew up there and went over to Australia for high school and then university," the 32-year-old said.
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She continued by saying that she graduated with a double degree in law and commerce at Monash University in Australia with the full expectation that she would become a practising lawyer.
However, life had different plans for her and Sital saw her law career moving out of reach after she met her husband and subsequently moved to Thailand.
"I studied and passed everything to be able to practice law in Australia. My certification isn't transferable so if I tried to practise in a different country, I would have had to get all that again," she said.
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However, instead of panicking, Sital decided to turn to her commerce degree and figure out how she could make a career out of it.
"I moved into a private equity company and there I was moving stakes and dealing with fashion and the business. That's where I learnt about how to start a business," she said. Sital continued to learn about the ins and outs of businesses as she progressed through her career and different jobs.
However, a few years later, Sital, who has eczema-prone skin, found herself using a moisturiser from Olive Skincare that she could not find easily in Singapore. It was the only product that was working for her skin and her inability to find it in Singapore gave her the idea to try to bring in some of these products and then sell them locally.
"I didn't even really think about it. I bought almost $5,000 worth of this cream to sell to some of my friends and family. I was so sure it would work," she said with a laugh.
Unfortunately, it did not. "No one really wanted to buy the products and I was making this huge loss. It was just sitting in my house," she said.
It was then that Sital started joining some Facebook groups and taking courses to learn how to sell her products as well as how to source and market them.
In 2015, Powella was born; and she was finally able to put natural and clean beauty brands on the shelves of retailers and in the hands of women who needed them the most.
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