【#IWD2022｜Michelle@Pacha】

Pacha has always stuck to the principle of providing women with a wider variety of comfortable feminine environmental hygiene products. The brand hopes everyone will pay more attention to women's physical health and environmental protection through cooperation and promotion. On the occasion of International Women's Day, we asked the founder of Pacha, Michelle, to share her entrepreneurial journey.

Originally a lawyer, Michelle founded Pacha, a start-up company that sells organic and eco-friendly feminine hygiene products, including sanitary pads. Based on the nature of the company's products and target customers, she sees a great advantage as a female entrepreneur because she can think about what women need from a woman's perspective. Since Michelle is also a real user, she can use her own experience or those around her to improve her products.

In addition to selling feminine hygiene products, Michelle's company has another vision to popularize women's health and sex education. Part of the population still feels ashamed to discuss topics like menstruation and even sex education. Michelle pointed out that Hong Kong’s overall demand is not aligned with foreign countries. She cited some foreign countries that provide free hygiene products in the bathrooms in shopping malls and companies. This effort has inspired her to cooperate with large companies and venues to try it out in Hong Kong.

When asked about the overall working environment for women in Hong Kong, Michelle joked that Hong Kong has made great progress in the past 10-20 years. For example, women can go out to work and even get promoted to management positions, such as the president of HSBC and Hang Seng Bank. However, she believes some industries are still male-dominated, such as engineers and scientists. Michelle discussed the difficulties faced by women in the workplace with her colleagues. She believed that many women worry about not being able to take care of their families due to long working hours. Fortunately, women now have more flexibility to balance work and family, which can alleviate their worries. Additionally, Michelle pointed out that some women worry they're not as persuasive as their male colleagues when it comes down to business. She believes that these are self-imposed boundaries and encourages women to speak out their ideas with confidence and to discuss them with others, so they can find others who can relate.

Entrepreneurship is a relatively large investment, and what you pay is not necessarily proportional to what you earn. The courage Michelle needs comes from her family education. When she was young, her family environment taught her that no matter what she does, she needs to calculate the risks and bear the consequences herself, which has influenced her bold personality. Ten percent of entrepreneurship is glory, while the rest is hard work and management behind the entrepreneur. During the interview, Michelle mentioned a word her parents told her since she was a child, "when most people are resting, you need to work hard silently and work silently". The results Michelle has achieved are due to 200% hard work. In addition to family factors, Michelle believes that keeping a close eye on social issues and the needs of people around her is an important element in helping her start a business. She believes that if you want the company to develop sustainably, the foremost thing is to find out what people are concerned with, propose solutions, and find business opportunities.