This 32-year-old S’porean sells balloons for a living, biz profitable in under 2 years

32-year-old Dora Lee set up party business Funlah almost three years ago with only a few bottles of paint, packets of balloons, and a helium gas tank.

This ‘gung-ho’ mannerism is not an uncommon sight seen for Dora. She’s a serial entrepreneur who has seen her fair share of ups, and downs. From handmade clay jewellery to customised phone casing to yoga fitness wear, the entrepreneur was selling various things for eight years until she chanced upon party items, which turned out to be her long-lost love.

“I decided to look for a new business that can allow my creativity to flourish and something that will bring happiness when consumers receive their orders. The first thing that struck my mind was birthdays, which are always happy occasions. Hence, Funlah was born to bring fun and laughter to every special celebration,” said Dora.

Today, Funlah is profitable and has grown from a handful of customers to thousands of frequent customers, Dora said.

From cancellations to jump in orders

But the pandemic certainly threw a spanner in the works for the business. 

“At the beginning of 2020, the sales went down as the holiday season ended and Funlah took a short break during the Chinese New Year period. Sales were not very optimistic as Singapore started to see new cases of Covid-19 and many people were very concerned about it. We started receiving calls and emails to postpone their celebration and some chose to cancel their party.”

However, after the Circuit Breaker, things started taking a turn for the better and it took Dora by surprise.

Even though people are not allowed to celebrate their birthday or graduation with a big group of their friends and families, gifting of balloons became very popular. “We have grandparents sending balloons for grandchildren to have the celebration through Zoom calls, teachers sending graduation balloons for their students, and people doing small celebrations at home,” she said.

“E-commerce gifting became an ‘in thing’ and the demand for home celebrations increased too. This helped us gain more awareness and eventually more orders of our party balloons.”

Online presence, wide balloons variety attract customers

The jump in orders was could not have been possible without the business’ e-commerce presence and Google search traffic, where a bulk of the customers found Funlah via organic searches.

The wide variety of balloons and competitive pricing also helped the business attract new customers.

The business’ most popular products continue to be balloons, followed by party supplies like banners, tassels, backdrop curtains, and pinatas for children to play with.  The collection ranges from generic balloons to animals, sports, and superheroes. There are even themes like Disney princesses, cars, Pokemon, and Paw Patrol.

“Generally, most of our customers will order online while some prefer to chat with us via WhatsApp or Messenger before placing an order online as it is their first-time getting balloons,” shared Dora.

The majority of customers will make their order in advance, but Funlah also does same-day delivery. However, the same-day delivery often depends on schedule and manpower, she said.

Up, up, and away

Dora revealed that Funlah is making more profits than last year, but the entrepreneur has taken the earnings to reinvest into the business.

“More than 50 per cent were reinvested into the business for future growth to support a greater variety of party items and new members joining our team,” she said.

As Christmas celebrations kick into full swing, she adds that demand and enquiries have risen by 20 to 30 per cent and are expected to continue until Chinese New Year next year, which is on Feb 1.

2022, come what may

If anything the pandemic has taught her, it’s to be resilient to changes and Dora says she is ready to handle 2022, come what may.

“In 2020, we had to deal with a lot of anxiety and frustration as more parties and events were cancelled. A lot of products were out of stock and shipping was delayed. I had to look for alternatives and other new suppliers to source for the items.”

“It was a challenging experience as the supply chain was affected, especially the balloons from the United States and a few of our suppliers were having limited manpower to fulfill our orders,” she said.

In spite of the boost in sales, Funlah is not taking a break and going full swing into sourcing and providing a wider variety of products for customers. Last month, it released its personalised hand-painted helium balloons series so that customers who plan to gift friends and family these party items can add a personal touch to the receiver via a customised message.

Featured Image Credit: Funlah