Ep 141: Inheriting a 100-year-old family business | Fong (Co-Owner, Tong Heng)
Sponsor: Descript - an AI-enabled software that makes it possible to edit weekly videos efficiently because it transcribes a 1.5 hour interview in 1 minute - and allows all editing to be done via the transcript! To find out more: https://www.descript.com/?lmref=sjT9JA
*
It’s not every day that you get to inherit a 100-year-old family business, but that’s exactly what Fong Wai Kheng has done.
Fong is the fourth generation of his family to run Tong Heng - Singapore’s top confectionary shop most known for its trademark 💎 diamond-shaped egg tarts.
Ask pretty much any Singaporean (I did), and it feels like 99% of them will have heard, eaten and love those egg tarts!
So of course, I got curious.
And asked Fong if he’d be up for a STIMY interview!
After all, family businesses are tricky.
There is:
🍿 The legacy you’ve inherited & must now maintain
🍿 The relationships you need to navigate (you can’t split family/work)
🍿 The challenge of keeping your brand relevant (a huge issue for Tong Heng at one point until they went through a massive rebranding exercise)
🍿 All the ups and downs of keeping a business alive.
A business that first came about because of Fong’s great-grandfather who fled China in 1901 (end of Qing Dynasty) to work as a coolie in Singapore.
His great-grandfather eventually earned enough to start his own pushcart coffee business but… the local “gangs” came around for protection money.
The great-grandfather had none, but promised to have the money ready next time.
Unfortunately, the gangsters won’t hear of it.
And proceeded to beat him up.
Or at least, they tried too.
Because what they didn’t know was that Fong’s great-grandfather had been trained in martial arts by the soldiers in the Qing Court (+ he was also 1.87m tall!).
So Fong’s great-grandfather beat up those gangsters instead. 🤣
News spread.
The community gathered and gifted him with a pistol before appointing him as its protector!!
Want to know what happened thereafter? 😏
You’ll just have to listen to this STIMY episode with Fong to find out.
Highlights:
- 2:54 Childhood
- 5:00 Expectations in joining the family business?
- 6:32 Have you had enough fun?
- 10:26 100-year-old confectionary shop - the origins of Tong Heng
- 12:22 Tong Heng’s trademark egg tarts
- 14:22 Gangs & protection money
- 14:44 Martial arts
- 16:50 After the war
- 17:55 His two aunts
- 20:24 Pulling a surprise
- 25:06 A new shop
- 27:38 Cracking thousands of eggs?!
- 29:40 Massive rebranding exercise to appeal to the Gen Zs & Gen Alphas
- 33:23 Tension in the family?
- 34:41 Going viral
- 35:00 Branding decisions behind Tong Heng’s trademark yellow packaging
- 36:15 Tong Heng’s faithful customers - the grandmother & her grandson
- 37:30 The future & staying in their own lane
- 39:35 Advice for other family business owners?
🌟 Special thanks to Limpeh Studios for making this recording possible! If you want to do any studio recordings while in Singapore, be sure to check out: https://www.hepmil.com/limpehstudios
📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/141
🍿 YouTube: https://youtu.be/kSXxRHrWWas
💌 Weekly STIMY Newsletter on the art of storytelling + building your personal brand (+snippets of STIMY behind-the-scenes): https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062
✍🏻 Leave a review on STIMY: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/so-this-is-my-why/id1521191442
