We recently connected with Mylinh Phan and have shared our conversation below.
Mylinh, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Growing up on the west coast, boba tea is located every single corner where I lived and it is a part of my after school snack, or place I come to do my homework or hang out with family and friends. Opening this business, I want to share the bubble tea culture to everyone here and I want to bring the fresh tea , fresh boba, a place for everyone to come and spend time with their loved one. My first time moving here, there are not an authentic boba place, and the boba not taste right as how it supported to that why it give me motivation for me step a head and make my dream come true and i did. When I first opened, a lot of customers didn’t know what bubble tea was and It spread out a lot in the last 3 years . We did have a lot of new customers come in everyday and they all enjoyed it. Seeing customers coming, doing their homework, doing their work , and spending time with family and friends everyday makes me really happy. It does turn out like how I want it to and I do have a good relationship with all the customers.
Mylinh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Owning a boba shop is alway been my dream, I graduated with a chemistry major back 2019 at UW and I moved back to south carolina to be close with my parents. As a person who loves bubble tea, I went down to Atlanta every other week to get my bubble fix but it such a long drive from Greenville and the idea pop up in my head that need to do something and bring the authentic tea shop to Greenville to share culture and the taste with the local community in the area but my parents thought it was a risky plan because we dont know if the community like boba as much as where we use to lived. As many bubble tea lovers know bubble tea originated from Taiwan and after doing research and tasting many different brands I choose Ding Tea as my home because when I go their store, I alway smell fresh tea sand boba alway fresh, most their drink sugar is very nature , I don’t have have an after taste or dry throat like many other brand. I also got a chance to go to Taiwan, seeing how fresh tea been picked and importanted straight from the high mountain and all the flavor is concentrated from the real fruit. I spend 14 days for training and it was like a roller coaster because I don’t know the language but I beared with it and I passed my exam .
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Funding is a big issue for me as a new graduate from college. Opening a business request a lot money for construction and supply, I try to look for funding out there but it so hard for a 23 years old, and didnt owned anything that a lot valuable beside my car and I was a nail tech part time during that time. I need so much help from my parents because they do own a house which will be a lot easier but they think it a risky plan because not any of family or relative work as food industrial before and they dont know how to help also, we live in a small town which they afraid alot that it not going to work out and didnt agreed with my idea as first. So many decline letter from loans company, i keep hoping something amazing will happened at the end because I believed God see all the hard work I put on and I didnt give up . My last idea was sell my car to get some money to put down for my plan but my parents, finally changing their mind, they really see how much i really want to this project to run and it encourages them. They agree to be my cosign for loans which is help me a lot . After 6 long months finally end up with the amount i need it.Im really grateful for all the support they gave to me
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
The near dead moment of my life is when the business is about to operate , it happened in April 2020, when the whole state closed down because of quarantine. I was a nail technician during my business under construction to make extra help me pay for the loan and bills payment , the only source of income been shut down. As a first wave of COVID, everyone what so scare and dont know what to do. I didnt have a change to host a grand opening for the shop because we not allow to gathering back then. Most of the staff i hiring is high school and college and they lived with their parents at the time and they parents didnt alow them to work. I was like why all the challenged keep come to me . I was think so much for a whole week while staying at home and i decided to open my door to serve to the community to make some money to pay for all the bills. Open up with no help at first, I have to do everything by myself, I opened for Online order only and no dine-in. I remember i make my first $100 dollar at the day of opening because no one know what happened even till now I have customer come in and ask how long we been open and they didnt know that we existed. Its is sad but im grateful for where I am today. I also able to give back to community , school as much as I can ..But all the hard work pay off, we survive after covid, we have so much support from our local, regular customer. From one to another, our customer keep growing the last 3 years and im so happy about it
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dingteagreenville/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dingteagreenville/