Some students at the University of Macau (UM) started their own businesses during their college years. Among these entrepreneurial students, a female student and her team saw business opportunities in her research studies and developed a local skincare brand; another student saw a gap in the local market demand and set up the first retro self-service photo studio in Macao; and a third student turned her hobby into a business and opened a dessert shop. Despite the difficulties of studying and running their businesses at the same time, the students have learned a lot in the process and have enjoyed every minute of it.

Creating a Skincare Brand in Macao

While doing research on the medicinal value of natural products, the team of Wang Zeyu, a master’s student in the Institute of Chinese Medicine (ICMS) of UM, discovered the potential of natural products in the field of cosmetics and developed a face mask brand called ‘March Sea De Mar’. ‘As a student in Macao, I often see that when visitors to Macao buy souvenirs, they buy locally made egg rolls but mostly imported skin care products,’ says Wang. ‘So my team came up with the idea of using Macao’s ocean resources and our technology to create a type of oxygen microneedling patches with micro-alga.’

Almost all team members of the project come from the ICMS, so the entire core development process was done in-house. ‘The ICMS provided us with a very professional platform and abundant natural resources. Our mentor, Prof Wang Ruibing, also offered us a lot of help and support,’ says Wang. ‘We also benefited from the guidance provided by the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of UM.’

‘De Mar’ means ‘sea’ in Portuguese as the team wants the brand to have some Macao flavour. ‘Mar’ can also mean ‘March’ in English, representing their wish for the product to be ‘as beautiful as the spring light of March, which will always shine on the faces of customers’. The team has completed the pre-clinical development process and is now seeking collaboration for clinical trials. The product is expected to become available in the market within the next two years and will be marketed as a special cosmetic handicraft for visitors to Macao. The team also plans to introduce the product to the mainland market via online platforms.

‘After launching this product, we will continue to release other related products in the next five years, with the aim of expanding the entire product line to between 10 and 20 products,’ says Wang. ‘We also hope to have our own shop in Macao within 10 years.’

 

Seizing the Opportunity to Lead the Industry

Iris Lam, a third-year student in the Department of Communication, accidentally walked into a retro self-service photo studio during her visit to mainland China with her friends. With curiosity, she gave it a try and found the experience very interesting, which led her to begin her research on this type of businesses.

‘From my research, I found that this type of photo studios started in South Korea and they are now very popular in mainland China, with many cities having these shops. However, at that time it did not find its way into Macao yet,’ says Lam, who saw the opportunity to introduce this business into Macao. ‘If I were to start one, it would have to be the first one in Macao. That’s what I told myself.’

After much deliberation, she began to work on the project and completed all preparatory work in just one month. In February this year, she launched the first retro self-service photo studio in Macao. As the shop was the first of its kind in the city, it attracted a large number of customers from the very beginning. Today, her shop is up and running and business has been good. So good, in fact, that Lam has opened a larger and more beautiful branch in June.

Lam believes that her studies at UM have been very helpful to her in setting up the shop. ‘I was able to apply what I learned from my courses offered by the Department of Communication in advertising, public relations, and design, to attract more people to the shop,’ says Lam.

When asked how she has managed to juggle her studies and work, she says it is sometimes difficult, but one can always get things done in bits and pieces during spare time. Although she has to commute between school and the shop, the shop’s self-service nature makes it easier for her to manage her time and to spend more time on her studies. She only needs to open and close it and clean it regularly.

‘The experience I’ve gained from starting my own business has been a valuable asset to me. It enables me to adapt to society sooner than others and lays a solid foundation for my future entry into society,’ says Lam.

Hobbies Are the Best Teacher

For Coco Wong, a fresh graduate of secondary education in English in the Faculty of Education, making dessert has been her passion since childhood. Last year, because of the epidemic, she lost her part-time job which she had been doing for a long time. Feeling she had nothing to lose anyway, she decided to take the plunge and turned her hobby into a business by opening a home-made cake shop to share her culinary talent with more people. In the process, she learned from her friends how to do design, how to run social media, and how to perform a host of other tasks she was not familiar with. After consulting the appropriate authorities on the regulations for opening a cake shop, as well as a lot of hard work, she finally opened her own dessert shop.

Although Wong’s college major is not directly related to running a dessert shop, she says the various soft skills she acquired at UM, such as communication skills, have been very useful in running her shop. She adds that it is important to manage her time well, whether she is studying or making desserts. ‘Customers want fresh cakes, so orders have to be fulfilled on the specified delivery day,’ says Wong. ‘But no matter how busy I am making cakes, I still need to stick to my college schedule and finish my assignments on time.’

‘Making desserts is just a hobby. I don’t see it as a career,’ says Wong. ‘I have learned a lot about management in the course of running the shop and I think this experience will be very beneficial to my future career.’ After graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in the FED to enrich herself and to continue exploring her true life goals along the way.