Spill the Tea with our Founder, Valencia Chen!

It’s the festive season and we want to share something lighthearted and fun this month. We finally managed to catch our busy founder, Valencia to catch up for a short interview! 

Congratulations on your new space! For the sake of those who are new to Little Bearnie, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hello to those who are new to us! Little Bearnie turned 5 this year and we just hit a new milestone. This October, we moved to our new space at Paya Lebar as we needed a bigger space to store our new range of products and designs. (Hooray!) We created a concept where customers can come to the store and pick up their orders, experience one-to-one service and personalisation of gifts and products like what we used to do at craft market.

We are known for our variety of adorable teethers and last year (2020), we created our in-house iconic designs such as the Gem Biscuit, Shiba and Hotpot teethers.

Apart from providing silicone teething accessories, we expanded our range of products to include silicone bibs, feeding ware and even swaddles. This year (2021), we also came out with multiple gift bundle sets to provide essential baby gifts at an affordable price.

How did Little Bearnie come about?
A few years back, it was the marriage season among my friends and I often had to shop for baby gifts! Since there were a number of friends to give baby gifts to, I wanted to bless them with something unique and memorable, something that will bring a smile to both the parents and the little one.

The Little Bearnie team has created so many designs to date. What’s your favourite Little Bearnie design so far, and does it have any special meaning to you? Also, how do you get inspiration to create these designs!

It’s so hard to choose as they are all so adorable! But, due to my love for food, my favourite designs would be the Local Foodies and Taiwan Foodies collection. I’m a huge foodie and most of the prints include my favourite food. As for the Taiwan Foodies collection, it has a great meaning to me as Taiwan is a country that holds special memories. Hence, I’m happy to incorporate the meaning of my life into my business and share it with everyone. :) 

We know that starting a business is not a simple feat. Can you share with us what you had to overcome and also what kept you going?

One of the fundamental challenges most startups will face - being a new face in the industry. Compared to many other bigger players, Little Bearnie was unknown to most. I was determined to make a revolution; thus, I went to a large number of events to increase Little Bearnie’s presence.

I guess what really kept me going then were the smiles from my little precious customers who enjoy our products. It made me even more motivated to create even more quality products for them.

Any interesting memories of customers that you have met before?

Once, I met a customer at craft market during an event. The customer told me that she used to purchase gifts from Little Bearnie for her friends’ baby showers. That day, it was her turn to purchase our products for her own kids. Really touched that she has supported us since then.