ED 47: January-February 2013
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48<br />
ma r k E t in t E l l i gE n C E<br />
It all started with a DVD.<br />
What began as a mother’s<br />
passion for imparting bilingualism<br />
to her children is now a fullyfledged<br />
educational system used by<br />
parents as interactive materials to teach<br />
Mandarin. With a growing emphasis on<br />
the Chinese language both locally and<br />
abroad, MandarinaKids aims to help<br />
parents build and maintain a bilingual<br />
environment at home while allowing<br />
children to pick up the language in a fun<br />
and interactive way.<br />
The brainchild of Ms Lelia Lim-Loges,<br />
MandarinaKids’ establishment can be<br />
traced back to a mother’s passion for her<br />
children’s education. Like most parents<br />
in Singapore, Lelia wanted her children<br />
to be fluent in both their native and<br />
mother tongues, and while she could<br />
handle English quite well, Mandarin had<br />
to be left to the local school system and<br />
enrichment courses. However, Lelia soon<br />
realised that the definition of ‘mother<br />
tongue’ was analogous to its etymology:<br />
children tend to more readily pick up the<br />
language from their mothers, especially<br />
during the initial formative years of their<br />
development.<br />
“My children ignited the spark in me to start<br />
Ja n | FE b <strong>2013</strong><br />
En t r E p r E n E u r s’ Di g E s t<br />
From mother to<br />
entrePreneur<br />
How a mother’s passion for imparting<br />
bilingualism to her children became a<br />
successful enterprise<br />
MandarinaKids,”<br />
Lelia recounted, “I<br />
wanted them to see<br />
courage, resilience<br />
and motivation that<br />
only my actions<br />
could show. I could<br />
not do that if I spent<br />
only one hour a<br />
day being part of<br />
their lives.” With<br />
this in mind, Lelia<br />
left her perch in the<br />
corporate world<br />
and dived headfirst<br />
into the realm<br />
of entrepreneurship, creating the first<br />
Mandarin-teaching DVD in October 2010<br />
for her children to learn the language,<br />
and the rest as they say, is history.<br />
Based on a flexi-work model, Lelia<br />
essentially became a “mom-preneur”<br />
which gave her more time and flexibility<br />
in caring for her children. She can put in<br />
14 hours at work per day but is still able<br />
to be with her children during important<br />
periods: sending them to school,<br />
personally bringing them for classes and<br />
being home during dinner and bedtimes.<br />
As with all businesses, MandarinaKids<br />
has had its fair share of trials and<br />
tribulations to surmount during the startup<br />
phase. One of the biggest challenges<br />
that Lelia faced was securing funding for<br />
her new company. Although there are<br />
many organisations available to grant<br />
assistance, the application processes<br />
were – to her – tedious, and there was little<br />
help for start-ups with MandarinaKids’<br />
business model, specifically the spreading<br />
of bilingualism to children.<br />
“I have funded my own business,” Lelia<br />
said on her funding challenges, “but not<br />
many people will have that choice and the<br />
lack of funding can curtail one from being<br />
creative, hold back from expanding into<br />
other markets and finally have enough<br />
marketing might to get your brand out<br />
there into the market.”<br />
What started out as a single DVD is today<br />
a comprehensive educational system,<br />
a library of resources that is utilised<br />
by parents and children alike. With an<br />
emphasis on the Early Learning Years
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