At the Kent Ridge Alumni Family Day 2022, the founders of food start-up, Curated Culture, shared their business journey.

At the recent Kent Ridge Alumni Family Day, the founders of food start-up, Curated Culture, shared their business journey in a webinar hosted by the NUS Annual Giving team.

Every entrepreneur’s journey begins with a single step. “If you have a good idea for a business, do it. You can talk to others and think about it, but at some point, you have to stop thinking, and just do it,” said Ms Shermaine Heng, Chief Operating Officer of Curated Culture, a start-up that creates and sells healthy and all-natural probiotic beverages.

Ms Heng and Ms Sew Shu Wen, the firm’s Chief Technology Officer, were the speakers at a webinar titled, “It Takes Guts!”, hosted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Development Office (DVO)’s Annual Giving (AG) team, as part of the Kent Ridge Alumni Family Day organised by the Office of Alumni Relations on August 13.

The team encourages alumni, students, staff and others to donate annually to the university. For this event, it urged the audience to make gifts towards the NUS for Women initiative, which supports efforts to promote diversity in the workplace by empowering women to progress professionally in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Donors can also give towards other AG funds, such as bursaries and scholarships, the Enhanced Financial Aid Scheme for full-time Singaporean undergraduates from low-income households, as well as faculty, school and halls of residence priority funds.

Ms Heng and Ms Sew, who co-founded Curated Culture in February this year with Mr Christian Eviston-Putsch, a fellow NUS alumnus, shared the story of their business to date, and gave advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

They noted that Singapore has various funding and incubation programmes for start-ups and people with viable business ideas. These include NUS Enterprise’s Startup SG Founder Grant and Hangar, and the NUS Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP).

“We did not have a lot of prior experience in business, so joining the Hangar and GRIP programmes was very beneficial for us. They helped us to formulate our pitch deck, and convert our research project into a commercial product,” shared Ms Heng.

The speakers sharing their journey on getting the word out on their new business.

She elaborated that finding the right mentors, advisors and partners, especially through incubation programmes and networking events, is crucial. “Our advisors are key pillars of support for us. They tell us when we are missing out on important things, and remind us when we need to focus on certain things.”

Ms Sew added that the firm is exploring collaborations with researchers, dietitians and medical professionals to improve its beverages. “For the next few years, we plan to go in depth, and look at different ways we can help people’s gut health through our drinks,” she explained.

Ms Heng urged budding entrepreneurs to go after their dreams, noting that there are many ways for start-ups to get support in Singapore.

 “NUS has given us many opportunities, during our education, when we were establishing our company, and even now. When we participated in the InnovFest 2022 conference organised by NUS Enterprise in June, we got to network with start-ups and businesses, and showcase our products,” she said.

“Just pitch your idea, and you will have the chance to get funding to kickstart your idea.”

The speakers answer a popular question on how to get seed funding as a start-up.

If you would like to discover the full entrepreneurial journey of NUS Alumni and Curated Culture founders Ms Shermaine Heng (Science ’20), Ms Sew Shu Wen (Science ’20) and Mr Christian Eviston-Putsch (Business ’22), watch the full webinar here.