Tastemakers: How two former national softball teammates grew you tiao into a $2 million chain

SINGAPORE –When her best friend asked her to invest in her fledgling you tiao business in 2019, Ms Wang Jing Fang put in $10,000 as a side hustle. Little did the 34-year-old expect that their you tiao hawker stall would grow into a fried snack chain generating an annual revenue of more than $2 million.

The snack chain branded You Tiao Mei, or “fritter little sisters” in Mandarin, now operates eight outlets and a central kitchen churning out its signature you tiao ($1.20 each) and tau suan ($2.20).

Ms Wang and Ms Khor Ning Min, 31, both single, were teammates on the national softball team from 2009 to 2015. They became best friends after leaving the team and discovering they had a mutual interest in doing business.

Ms Wang, who graduated with a degree in computational biology from the National University of Singapore in 2014, was then working as a microscopy technologist at a research laboratory. But she had set up an e-scooter business called Scooter Hub with a partner in 2015.

Retailing e-scooters and providing workshop services proved an initial success, with Scooter Hub growing to three outlets in Clementi, Woodlands and Kovan, and earning over $1 million in revenue yearly. In 2017, Ms Wang quit her full-time job to focus on the e-scooter business. 

Ms Khor, who graduated with a diploma in sports science from Republic Polytechnic in 2014, helped her aunt set up an online store for her clothing business, then worked as a Grab driver at age 21 in 2015. She earned as much as $10,000 a month, driving 16 hours a day and saving up to start her own business. 

In 2016, while on the road, she stopped behind a van from a dough fritter company that had a telephone number for inquiries on franchising. 

She called the number and was quoted $10,000 to set up a franchise stall, including equipment, food products and training. Finding the cost reasonable, she decided to start her own hawker stall at Ci Yuan Hawker Centre in August 2016.

She hired a cashier and took to frying the fritters herself. Working 13-hour days, her stall broke even in three months.

In 2019, she approached Ms Wang to join her.

By then, Ms Wang’s e-scooter business was going downhill, even before the Land Transport Authority banned e-scooters on footpaths in November. She eventually closed her last outlet in 2022. 

Timely partnership offer

Ms Khor’s offer to make her a business partner was timely. They pooled together $20,000 and opened a new outlet at Serangoon Garden Market in March 2019.

Named Gardens You Tiao, it is the You Tiao Mei chain’s only outlet that is halal-certified – a requirement when Ms Khor submitted her bid for the stall. It broke even by the fourth month.

The success of the outlet spurred the pair, nicknamed You Tiao Mei by customers, to grow an eponymous chain of stores.

Using $20,000 of their earnings from the Serangoon Garden outlet, they rented an HDB shophouse unit in Bishan Street 22 for their third outlet in December 2019, which turned a profit in six months.

In 2020 and 2021, they expanded to seven new outlets, including five takeaway kiosks at MRT stations. 

But they found themselves toiling 16-hour days. The lack of sleep affected Ms Wang’s ability to focus and she once submerged her fingers in boiling oil while frying curry puffs at the Choa Chu Kang outlet. As she was manning the kiosk alone, she did not have time to tend to her wounds and carried on despite the pain.

While most outlets were profitable, others – such as those at MRT stations in Pasir Ris, Woodlands and Redhill – had to be shuttered.

Challenging times ahead

In November 2021, with six remaining outlets, the duo spent $500,000 – a combination of their earnings and bank loans – to set up a 3,000 sq ft central kitchen at FoodXchange @ Admiralty. They wanted to produce their own fried snacks from scratch instead of procuring them from a supplier. 

But Ms Khor, who was in charge of product research and development, had trouble nailing the you tiao. Their dough could not stand up to freezing, a vital part of the production process as the shaped dough had to be distributed frozen to their outlets, then fried.

The pair had to resume buying frozen you tiao and other snacks from their supplier.

It took 1½ years before the central kitchen was able to produce its own you tiao. During that time, the 1.55m-tall Ms Khor went from weighing 55kg to 80kg, from sampling you tiao and other fried snack recipes daily.

Also, as borders reopened post-Covid-19 and travel resumed, business at their outlets started slowing, with revenue diving 50 per cent. The central kitchen was in the red as it was not producing enough to cover operational costs.

Ms Wang says: “We had been overconfident in thinking we could produce our own you tiao immediately after opening the central kitchen. Up till then, we had a do-first-see-how approach to business and did not have a business plan.”

The next two years were the toughest, with neither of them drawing a salary in 2023 as they prioritised paying their workers and suppliers. At one point, they owed suppliers $80,000.

The dwindling business led to the closure of the outlets at Chinese Garden MRT station and a coffee shop in Yishun in 2023.

Ms Wang says the worst time was at the end of 2023, when they could not give their workers a year-end bonus. Two new workers left, but the rest remained. “The initial failure of the central kitchen and closures of several outlets made me doubt myself and my ability to make rational business decisions,” she recounts.

But taking the plunge to open an outlet at Buangkok Hawker Centre in November 2023 proved to be a turning point. 

Launch of new products

There, Ms Khor introduced new bite-size items such as banana sesame ball ($2 for five pieces), sweet potato sticks ($2.50 for 10), yam sticks ($2.50 for 10) and carrot cake sticks ($2 for 10). 

These were a hit with young customers in Buangkok, enabling the stall to turn profitable after three months. The pair rewarded their staff in 2024 with a mid-year bonus as well as a year-end one.

Success followed at their latest outlet at Woodleigh Hawker Centre, opened in September 2024. This saw the introduction of orh nee you tiao ($2.80 for five pieces) – you tiao stuffed with yam paste – and png kueh you tiao ($2.80 for five), which are you tiao stuffed with glutinous rice. 

Ms Wang says the business is at a sweet spot now and they are exploring expansion using a franchise model.

Despite having 40 employees across eight outlets and a central kitchen, high staff turnover is a constant challenge for both business partners, who stand in for employees who go on holiday or take medical leave. 

Ms Wang says: “The business has changed me. I was not a foodie when I started selling you tiao. Now, I follow food trends and like to visit new eateries here and overseas. I will scrutinise everything, from the food to the decor. I have learnt to appreciate what I eat and enjoy the dining experience.”

Going through thick and thin together also cemented the bond between the dough “sisters”.

Ms Khor says: “Our partnership works because we have a similar temperament and share the same values. Neither of us is hot-tempered, so we don’t get into a shouting match when we don’t see eye to eye.”

Still, she says, they have their share of cold wars. She adds: “One of us always gives in and we are able to talk things out calmly. At the end of the day, we know we need to find solutions to whatever problems we encounter.”