Business Rants; Are We Doing Too Much? Or Is It Just Nice?

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing too much for SoapLab, like too many things at one go.
But when looking back; i wonder if we really did that🫣

Beginning-Just Raw Material & Classes

So when SoapLab started; the whole idea of starting it was because I was closing down my pharmacy and I had a lot of raw material supplies left over.

And because I was pregnant, there was no way that I could go back to work because obviously nobody’s going to employ someone who’s going to take lots of leave later, right?

So what I did was, I started selling all these raw material online and I started teaching class just in order to make sure that people understood how to use the raw material.

It was something simple and the whole idea was just to have a little bit of income to cover back whatever losses that I did in my pharmacy and as well as a little bit more extra so that I could hire a nanny for my unborn baby.

Everything was fine and somehow, thank God, SoapLab took off and I never really needed to go back to working full-time in the hospital.

So that was in 2013–2014 and everything was fine until 2020.

Soaplab was a raw material supplier + teacher for DIY products

COVID- Ready Made Products

Then when COVID happened, we couldn’t have any physical classes anymore.

Tried to pivot to online classes but it didn’t took off that well:( 

On top of that, we couldn’t get raw materials from outside of Malaysia. So we were stuck! 

And so in order to keep SoapLab Floating, I started making ready-made products.

It started with simple products but over the years, I’ve come up with so many formulations and now we even have our own medical grade cosmetics. Thats been doing quite well over the years.

Manufacturing 

Then we started having OEM customers; which until 2020 we could outsource to a friends factory; but coz of covid; order were taking longer to process.

And so we got our own OEM factory in 2021 and we started doing manufacturing as well.

Thats doing well as well after initial hiccups. 

Current Dilemma 

So now that we are in 2026, and I have all these things available; we have ready-made, we have raw materials, we have classes, we have manufacturing 

sometimes I feel like we are overstretching ourself

Wanna stop; dono what to stop coz everything has its place.

 
And so all I can do now is just continue as is and just go with the flow.

Its interesting to look back and see the journey from 2014.

From just trying to survive to this..

Sikit sikit, lama-lama jadi bukit..

Looking at this; on a site note: If you are in a position to start something new; dont overthink; just do it💪🏼 thats how i started. 

But be ready for this dilemma as a business owner.. yes or no; do or not, continue or stop.. its never ending mental torture🤭

But at the end of the day; i would still choose this over and over again..

❤️Nisha