Little Moons Co-Founder Shares 12-Year Playbook After TikTok Breakout

1 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 19

Vivien Wong said Little Moons' viral TikTok moment came after 12 years of groundwork, not as an instant success, as she outlined lessons for aspiring founders.
At 28, Wong left an £80,000-a-year accounting job after her father's cancer diagnosis and built the mochi ice-cream brand with brother Howard by launching before the product was perfect.
For the first five years, the pair sold mainly to restaurants and cinemas, lived cheaply, and reinvested profits before funding branding and a supermarket push.
A jump from a 5,000 sq ft factory to a 30,000 sq ft site—with rent rising from about £40,000 to £500,000—tested the siblings' risk tolerance and forced clearer workplace boundaries.
Wong said the company's pandemic-era surge only held because years of work on manufacturing, staffing, exports and retail supply had prepared it to absorb sudden demand.