The Path to “Mumtrepreneurship”
Think you’re good at multitasking? Take a look at founder of MomBoss Academy, Michelle Hon, also known as thechillmom. Aside from being a mother of three children, the 41-year-old entrepreneur is also an author, podcastor, speaker and founder of four online businesses that focus on helping mothers fulfil their entrepreneurial dreams.
Michelle started her blog in 2013, as a result of the unfulfillment of being a full-time stay-at-home mother, after giving birth to her first daughter. At that time, she was financially dependent on her husband as she had given up her F&B business to focus on her newborn daughter.
The blog, which was a way to express herself creatively and document her motherhood experience, gained traction from other mothers who had shared experiences. Michelle’s innate entrepreneurial instincts kicked in, taking this opportunity to transform this hobby into her vocation and hoping to be a platform to inspire and help other mothers.
Since the conception of MomBoss Academy, Michelle has been able to support mothers through different avenues of her businesses.
Boss academy has expanded from the confines of her personal blog to include a maternity concierge, which provides planning and consultation services to mothers, published books and even a podcast. In addition, it also provides programmes and memberships to coach mothers who want to start their own businesses through developing their personal branding and providing marketing services.
Watch our interview video with Michelle here:
Balancing her Businesses and Family
Optimism radiates from Michelle as she tackles challenges that are being thrown her way throughout the years. Michelle views challenges as an inevitable part of any entrepreneurial journey, opting to take charge of the narrative by viewing these challenges as obstacles to her goals instead. This mindset allows her to power through any demanding periods that she had to go through as she built her business.
Seeing Michelle successfully navigate building her business while being a stay-home mother, one may question: How does she get anything done?
Michelle’s answer to that is simple: Scheduling.
To maintain the balance in her life, Michelle ensures that she is disciplined with her time management. Understanding that entrepreneurship is hard to juggle, she ensures that she plans her time well on her calendar.
A typical work day in Michelle’s life would include two to three zoom meetings with her team or clients, as well as shootings for social media content or recording for a podcast episode. In addition to these main tasks, Michelle also reserves timings in between for deep work and picking her children up from school.
“If it’s not there, it doesn’t get done”, Michelle said in her interview with Women’s Weekly, emphasising that it is important to have a proper system of managing the limited hours she has in her day, even scheduling the time she needs for self-care.
Building her business around her children, she never fails to place them as her top priority. Michelle has been candid about her views about her work-life balance in the long run, recognising the need to tip the scale to different sides at different stages of motherhood. This means that there would be stages in her children’s development that require more of her attention, such as their infant years, and there would come the time when her children are older and be able to depend more on themselves.
In that regard, Michelle is grateful that her job allows her this flexibility.
Empowering other mothers
Working hard to break the traditional belief that women should focus less on entrepreneurship and more on their maternal role, Michelle is a firm believer that there are ways for women to be successful at both.
This belief has allowed her to constantly encourage her clients to take charge of opportunities and focus on what is already available for them.
One such example is the plethora of technology and platforms available for use. Attributing advancements in technology as a huge stepping stone to allow women to have the best of both worlds, Michelle has shared that there are many apps that help her effectively manage her finances and schedule, such as Wave Financial and Calendly respectively.
In addition, Michelle also encourages mothers not to be held back by any lack of skills or qualifications, as there are many ways to navigate such situations. These include learning from resources online or even outsourcing certain functions of the business.
Building her business around helping mothers through their journey to entrepreneurial success, Michelle is able to share her experiences and empower other mothers to pursue their passions and seize opportunities.
Having achieved a sizable amount of success so far, Michelle’s advice to women is concise, yet effective: “Take your time. Don’t rush it.”
Looking back at her own entrepreneurial journey, Michelle has learnt that the road to success was a tumultuous one, but it was important to her to learn at her own pace, taking full responsibility for her goals and actions.
This enabled her to be the #MOMBOSS that she is today.
