From how she tackles difficult conversations to the wakeup call that saved her marriage, Lim discusses life behind her multimillion-dollar business on the latest episode of Gen.T’s Crazy Smart Asia podcast
Not many millennial entrepreneurs can say they’ve been running their own business for nearly 20 years. Love, Bonito’s co-founder Rachel Lim is one of the few who can.
Her startup story has been well-documented in the many media features she’s done: She started a blogshop for pre-loved clothes with two of her good friends in 2005; dropped out of university, broke her bond with the government and borrowed a five-figure sum from her mother to turn the blogshop into one of the OGs of fashion e-commerce; rebranded it in 2010; grew it globally to rack in millions in annual revenue; before finally deciding to step down as CEO in 2021 to allow a trusted executive of hers to take the reins and bring the business to the next level of growth.
Read more: How e-commerce entrepreneur Rachel Lim built her fashion empire
She has the battle scars to show that the journey isn’t always smooth sailing and the maturity of a seasoned founder who bootstrapped and built her empire from scratch.
She still goes into the office regularly, but she’s now more conscious of not getting consumed by work. Her other priorities in life—her husband, two children and passion for learning—are even clearer these days. And she shares what it took to get to this stage with Gen.T’s Chong Seow Wei in the latest episode of our Crazy Smart Asia podcast.
Read on for some excerpts from their conversation or click the audio player below to listen to the full episode.
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