'Hopefully I can retire earlier': This 22-year-old woman opened a nasi lemak store and a bolo bun cafe within a year

While most people in their early twenties are sitting in university lectures or working odd jobs for extra pocket money, Hoh Loyi is a bonafide entrepreneur.

And while helming an F&B business in Singapore is no easy feat, the 22-year-old has successfully managed to open not just one, but two thriving businesses — Champion Bolo Bun and Dickson Nasi Lemak.

Curious to know how she ticks, we sat down with Loyi for a chat.

Despite her success, the Malaysia-born entrepreneur was extremely down-to-earth and the conversation flowed easily, just like how it would between old friends. In fact, we ended up chatting for two whole hours about how she got to where she is today.

She stayed in Hong Kong for two years just to learn how to make bolo buns

While waiting for her O-level results, Loyi decided to pursue her passion for baking by working part-time at cafe Baker & Cook and saw it as a good opportunity to pick up some skills.

"My other part-time colleagues all went to be service crew, but I went into the kitchen to make sourdough pizza with the rest of the chefs," she says with a laugh and adds that the experience was "intriguing".

She also ended up taking a gap year and pursuing a bread-making course under the China Grain Products Research & Development Institute in Taipei, thanks to a recommendation from a family friend who had attended the same course.

After studying there for a year, she and her family went to Hong Kong in 2016 and during this trip, she visited a cha chaan teng (Hong Kong-style cafe) called Kam Wah Cafe & Bakery, which is famous for its bolo buns (pineapple buns).

Loyi, who holds a Hong Kong IC, had frequented this cafe since she was young, but this time around, she came with the bread making experience and knowledge she had gained in Taipei, which inspired her to learn how to make bolo buns.

Therefore, she plucked up the courage to approach the head chef, whom she calls Kit sifu (Cantonese for master), to ask for an apprenticeship.

"Not to my surprise, he turned me down, because back then, my Cantonese was terrible! I just sounded like a person from mainland China who was trying to speak Cantonese," she tells us with a hearty chortle.

"I think he thought that it was illegal for me to work there because I don't sound local."

But after multiple attempts of knocking on the kitchen door, Loyi finally managed to convince Kit sifu to take her in after whipping out her IC to prove that it was legal for her.

She then worked in Hong Kong for two years and picked up Kit sifu's secret bolo bun while she was there. Fun fact — only three people in the world know the recipe, including Loyi.

Her father let her use her university funds to run pop-ups

When Loyi returned to Singapore, she got the green light from Kit sifu to sell the bolo buns at events. He even advised her on how to do so, she adds.

After settling all the nitty-gritty details, she went on to set up her very first pop-up booth at a Singapore Expo event. She also went on to participate in several other events, including Artbox.

Understandably, running a business from scratch albeit a small booth is no walk in the park and some may wonder where Loyi got the money to do so.

"My father had set up a university fund, but I didn't go to university in the end so he let me use the funds to set up a booth," she confesses with a laugh.

While Loyi spent a year doing pop-ups, she also had long-term goals in mind and took these events as an opportunity to find a partner or investor to grow Champion Bolo Bun.

To get the word out, she simply put up a sign at her booth.

"If we didn't put up that sign, I think not many investors would come and look for us," she says.

It also helped that her booth had the "longest line" at all the events she attended, which caught the eyes of potential partners.

However, settling on an investor was no easy task either. Loyi explains that she had to sieve through people who sounded like they wanted to con her money as well as people with ridiculous demands before eventually finding an investor that was genuinely interested.

Nonetheless, she says she's grateful for that experience as it helped her "learn how to deal with different people".

Venturing into new concepts like nasi lemak

While Champion Bolo Bun continued to grow, eventually turning into a concept store in Tanjong Pagar in April 2021, the tenacious Loyi did not just want to stop at one business venture. She also set up Dickson Nasi Lemak, which was inspired by her favourite childhood nasi lemak haunt. 

Every time she went back to visit her grandmother in her hometown, Kuala Lumpur, Loyi would eat the nasi lemak from Village Park Restaurant, she recalls.

So, when a family friend told her that a chef from the restaurant was quitting after 15 years, she grabbed the opportunity to tap on his knowledge and start her own business.

She was able to get the chef to impart the recipe and his skills to her and her team, and he'll even be cooking up nasi lemak at Dickson himself when he secures a work visa. 

Compared to Champion Bolo Bun, Dickson Nasi Lemak has quite a different concept, but Loyi says that she did it because she didn't want to be known as a one-trick pony.

"The media was portraying me as a baker and a young girl who was running a cafe business. There were a lot of labels saying that I only know how to bake, I only know how to bake bolo buns, I only know how to run a cafe business, I only know how to sell something that is nice and pretty."

Unfortunately, while Dickson just opened this year in March, it has had to close temporarily because of recent chicken supply issues. In a recent update, the eatery said it hopes to reopen "sometime in July".

While Dickson could have used frozen chicken instead to tide through this period, Loyi explains that she would rather shutter the shop temporarily instead of letting her customers eat subpar chicken.

"Between closing for one month versus serving bad quality food, I would rather take the hard decision to close for one month and not tarnish the brand image or reputation.

"Yes, we may cover the cost, but once people eat it, they may not come back and it is damaging for the business in the long run," she elaborates.

She wants to expand Champion Bolo Bun overseas

While Loyi has already accomplished a fair bit compared to most people her age, she's not done just yet.

"I do have a sense of satisfaction, but I still have a lot of goals that I have yet to reach and I still feel like it's not enough, I still have a lot of potential that I've yet to release," she tells us humbly.

One of these goals includes opening Champion Bolo Bun stores overseas across Asia and in the United States as she doesn't want it "to be labelled as just a local brand."

Citing examples such as Blue Bottle and % Arabica, she hopes that they will be able to "establish that kind of branding".

"I want to work the hardest during this period and hopefully, I can also retire earlier than my peers. I do have this goal, that's why I'm working so hard."

Aspiring to be like Loyi? She tells us that one piece of advice she has for budding entrepreneurs is to take up a sales job if possible as it can help your personality and emotional intelligence.

Another tip is to always keep things low key because you'll never really know if something goes wrong along the way.

"I don't know why but usually, when you tell people your plans, things end up not working out," she says exasperatedly. 

She lives by that rule herself — even while she was in Hong Kong for two years, she didn't tell many people about her plans.

In fact, she was so adamant about keeping her plans a secret that when she came back to Singapore during breaks, she would even decline her friend's parents' offers to give her a lift home.

"I was afraid that they would ask me questions," she confesses.

"It's my personal value. A lot of times, when I have something I want to do, I tend to keep it to myself until it's almost done or like halfway through so I can see my progress before saying anything," she shares.

"Just keep it low key, be humble about things."

melissateo@asiaone.com