Tammy Tay, 31, shares 8 mistakes she’s made with her businesses since starting out at 15

We’re not starting a cult but some followers on Instagram would be nice. Thank you.

These days, Tammy Tay is better known as an OnlyFans creator.

If you’ve lived through the Tumblr and Blogspot era, however, you might recall her origins as a fashion entrepreneur on LiveJournal, followed by a brick-and-mortal apparel store at Haji Lane, before her beauty businesses at Joo Chiat today.

The 31-year-old has previously spoken about her business debts, and how she saw OnlyFans as her only way out as she did not receive much education or have a normal résumé.

In a more recent video on May 2, Tammy shares eight mistakes that she’s made since starting out at 15.

Mistake #1

“My first mistake is not having a mentor or an expert to give me wise advice,” the influencer says.

Mistake #2

Her next mistake, Tammy continues, was not hiring the right staff.

“I usually don’t go through a very thorough hiring process. Because I really think that there’s potential in most people as long as they’re willing to work. But no. If you hire the wrong people they can make or break your company.”

She now leaves the hiring to someone with a “better judgement of character.”

Mistake #3

Her third mistake stems from the second.

Because hiring the wrong people and having to clean up after their mistakes took up so much of her time and caused her to lose trust in people, Tammy ended up wanting to do everything on her own, from marketing to logistics to the actual beauty services that her salon was offering.

“I didn’t have time to focus on the strategy, the growth of the company, understanding the market better, understanding the competitors around. And yeah, that really affected the growth of the business.”

Mistake #4

Another miscalculation she made was underestimating the capital requirements that setting up a company needed.

Being overly optimistic, Tammy spent huge amounts of money on her stocks and renovation, not taking into account that something as disruptive as a pandemic would happen.

Mistake #5

The situation drained the entrepreneur of her savings, and she took out a loan to keep her company going.

However, instead of using the loan to pay off ongoing expenses, she should have spent it on something that could have helped to boost sales or generate income instead, Tammy learned.

“Right now, I really [regret] taking a loan, it was so easy cause it was a solution that was just placed in front of me. And I just had to take that money and pay off everything. I had to find other sources of income to pay off the loan, which I’m still doing right now.

[…]

Now, looking back, I should have let it go at that point of time, because I can always start all over again.”

Mistake #6

Next, Tammy undervalued her services and products, giving her friends and customers so many freebies that she was almost “doing charity”.

“I always think okay, if I gave my customer this free item, and this free treatment, my customer is going to be very very happy and the customer is going to share it with all her friends and I will have more customers but no, that’s just the very optimistic me thinking.”

She also started doing sales and discounts, to the extent that people would only start buying stuff during sales.

Mistake #7

The entrepreneur didn’t draw a salary as well, as she thought that it would be better to put the money into the business and grow it.

All in all, it was not a sustainable business, but Tammy made the mistake of thinking—and acting—like it would be growing constantly.

Mistake #8

The last mistake she listed in the video was expanding too quickly.

“So many times when we are running a business, we have good months and bad months. And if you have like three or four consecutive months that are great, you will want to expand,” Tammy explains.

“Sometimes this kind of growth is temporary,” she cautions, advising other business owners out there to “observe and be patient” before proceeding.

New outlets also come with a lot more work and problems, so it’s better to not rush into expansion, the influencer adds.

The bottomline

To end off her video, Tammy peels back the glitzy exterior of being self-employed:

“People think that you know, you’re your own boss, everything is like OTOT (own time own target), but people don’t see the other side of it. The hardships, the strain in friendships, relationships, and unfortunately for myself financially as well.”

Although a successful business venture might rake in the cash, there’s also a good risk that you can lose huge amounts if it doesn’t work out.

The entrepreneur says that she has “a lot more to share,” but will keep it for another video.

Tammy’s caption also hints at a change of her role in her business, stating that she’s “learning to let go of something for a better opportunity”.

As it is, her site is currently having a moving out sale, with an announcement that they will be shifting their operations to S Aesthetics Clinic from June 1.

You can watch her video here:

 

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Top image via Ohsofickle/Instagram