Melbourne friends out of work during the pandemic launch viral business

Melbourne friends Jenny Li and Pam Yip were understandably worried when they lost their jobs during the pandemic.

For Pam, 28, she had established her own digital marketing company having left the corporate world behind five years earlier.

This work taught her a lot about what it takes to both launch a business and promote it digitally, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic.

"When hospitality closes and having no foot traffic, pretty much Instagram and Facebook is important and the only thing that is borderless, with no five-kilometre restrictions," she tells 9Honey.

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Jenny was working as an optometrist in a shopping centre when the pandemic hit. She'd been a fan of bubble tea, purchasing her drink of choice for an average of $6 per serving.

It was 2020 and, facing career uncertainty, Pam began thinking of launching her own business and asked her new friend Jenny to join her.

It's called Bubble Tea Club, and members subscribe to receive bubble tea packs in a range of flavours with awesome accessories to go along with it. It's delicious and fun and a fraction of the price of bubble tea beverages bought ready-made from outlets.

"We launched and four days later we went viral," Jenny says.

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"I've always been building online communities," Pam says. "When Instagram first came out the first community I accidentally built was around my dog. I ended up with 14,000 followers on Instagram."

She also started a food blog and found she enjoyed the process of building an online community.

Jenny had only experienced Instagram as a personal user before Bubble Tea Club began.

"You can definitely see how important it [social media] is for businesses because social media is our biggest revenue stream," she explains. "I'm learning a lot more about how algorithms work and how tagging works and how to use Facebook Marketing and Instagram Marketing. It's so important and it's only growing more and more."

While Pam and Jenny are self-taught, with Pam learning "over 10 years and posting photos of my dog" Instagram and Facebook have now launched the Instagram and Facebook Academy to teach others to promote their work through the social media platforms. Registrations for the academy are open now.

For those who haven't experienced the deliciousness that is bubble tea, Pam explains it's a drink that originated in Taiwan that comes with tapioca and boba "balls" of flavour floating in it which adds a chewy texture.

"We source our ingredients from Taiwan and we package them into a five-pack, a 10 pack, 20 pack," Jenny explains. "And it's really easy to make. If you can make tea, you can make bubble teas.

"For example, if you just boil the kettle and make a normal cup of tea, after you add in the syrup you pretty much have your bubble tea and if you want it to have toppings you add them in," she continues. "We also sell coconut jellies. So there's a range of different flavours and we have over one thousand different combinations that you can make it with."

The digital community that has grown around Bubble Tea Club regularly shares their latest flavour combinations with eachother.

"Every single day we see a new concoction," she says.

They say you can either try sucking the balls and jellies up through the straw as you drink the beverage or save them until the end.

"All of them [the bubble teas) come with the straws that the balls fit through," Pam explains.

In addition to their Instagram community, Bubble Tea Club has its own website and TikTok channel.

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"Social media also allowed us to show everyone how to make it," Pam says. "And because of social media there are lots of social groups. So people are posting themselves receiving the drink, making the drink and sharing how good it tastes.

"Social media made us really visible and they got to learn about it from the comfort of their homes," she continues, adding that it can be "intimidating" to ask basic product questions in store.

Bubble Tea Club started with the most common flavours including taro milk tea, original milk tea, honeydew, brown sugar and mango fruit tea.

They then got to work creating their own flavours.

"Those are really popular as well," Pam says.

When it comes to their own favourite flavour Pam and Jenny say it's "always changing".

"We're actually doing a tasting right now, new flavours that are launching for Christmas," Pam says. "That's actually our favourite flavour but we can't say it."

Although Jenny says grapefruit tea with grapefruit jelly is one she loves at the moment.

To assist with the astronomical growth of their business, Pam and Jenny now employ 30 people and have plans to expand overseas including in the US.

While their internet savvy and strong friendship and working relationship both contributed to their huge success, so too has the fact they both personally love bubble tea.

"I think it is one of the most important aspects," Jenny says of marketing a product they personally love. "It's so much easier to convince someone about your product when you actually truly do love it."

"And you also understand the 'pain points'," Pam says, adding that for her that was always the cost of a single-serve of the beverage from stores.

Instagram Australia is launching the first Instagram Academy, an exclusive accelerator program for young female entrepreneurs under the age of 25 who are ready to take their business to the next level. Applications are now open to be selected in the "25 Under 25" who'll participate in the Instagram Academy, in partnership with Are Media. 

Register for Instagram Academy to find out more.