INTERVIEW WITH PSLOVE FOUNDER — PECK YING
Caring for the Female Heartbeat
You have read about my positive experiences with PSLove's MenstruHeat pad and how it seeks to provide natural remedy and relief for women experiencing menstrual cramps. This local enterprise is made definitely one up and rising firm to be reckoned with as they further develop themselves further into the feminine health care sector.
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1. Tell us more about yourself Peck Ying. What ignited your entrepreneur spirit to start up PSLove in 2014?
My first encounter with entrepreneurship was through a program I joined during my Uni days, some may know it as NOC (NUS Overseas College). It was an internship stint with a start up company and also my first full-time exposure to understanding what a start up is and the kind of challenges they face on a day-to-day basis. Despite the crazy workload and intense emotional roller coaster, I actually found it very rewarding. It was also then that I saw the possibility of a small entity being able to create an enormous impact, and I knew I wanted to do just that.
After graduation, I worked for 3 years with a start up incubator till I finally decided to leave my full-time job and jump over to the dark side. That was in 2014, and PSLove was incorporated.
2. We ladies definitely love the idea of a pain and cramp-free period and MenstruHeat is such a life saver really. Share with us something we don’t already know about MenstruHeat.
MenstruHeat went through 5-6 product iterations and countless tweaks since we launched – from fine-tuning the temperature, changing up the packaging quality to re-wording all our usage instructions. We never stop trying to make MenstruHeat the best product for women. As we speak, our new and improved version of MenstruHeat is on the way and that will be the largest improvement by far – upgrading the ergonomics, adhesive and temperature so that it drastically improves usability. Customers don’t see it, but to us, every intricacy matters – even a 0.5cm difference in size can affect the entire experience!
We are very focused on designing MenstruHeat with the right amount of temperature so that it can be effective for menstrual cramps. This means that we have studied and experimented on countless temperature curves and also worked on its formulation so that enough heat is given off. This sets us apart from body warmers or winter pads where its temperature is not targeted to ease menstrual pains.
3. How long did it take to R&D before MenstruHeat was born? What were the challenges along the way while developing and who has assisted you along the way during the development
period?
It took us about 6 months to develop MenstruHeat 1.0 – but since then, we’ve never stopped iterating and improving on the product. It’s always a work in progress. The biggest challenge was to find the right manufacturer who would go out of their way to help us manufacture the product as we want it to be. Our product is quite demanding in terms of getting the temperature curve right – not all manufacturers are willing to do that for us. Thankfully we managed to partner with one who was willing (and capable) to develop the product with us together. We’ve also spoken to Gynaes who helped us with their inputs as well!
4. What are the challenges in starting up your company and now, in growing it?
At the start, retailers were very skeptical of the product and its market demand. It was not easy to convince the first 10 retailers to carry your product – there were many times when we doubted if we should be doing this. I’ve come to accept that rejection and doubt are the norm in this entrepreneurship journey and the important thing is to always learn and grow beyond these challenges.
Now, we do face a very different set of challenges. Building a great team who will fight alongside yourself is one of the hardest things and I’m always balancing between the company’s interest, the founder’s interests and the team’s interests. As we scale up in terms of production and entering other markets, I’m already foreseeing and being prepared that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Haha!
5. What is your biggest satisfaction being in the feminine care industry?
The biggest satisfaction is always hearing customers share how MenstruHeat has helped them. I can’t ask for anything more than that. There was once where a few products went haywire and we didn’t manage to remove the defects in time. To our surprise, customers graciously wrote in to inform us about the defects instead of being upset and even complimented us on creating MenstruHeat. It’s moments like these that make the grueling journey worthwhile.
6. Finally, what can we look forward to with PSLove in the future?
We are bringing all females an improved, awesome version of MenstruHeat, which I am extremely excited about! We are also working on other products for women in the pipeline and they are likely to launch at the end of the year – so stay tuned!
Thanks Peck Ying for the very
interesting insights towards her entrepreneurial journey and I wish them success!
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