Hi everyone! It gives me great pleasure to be writing my first Founders Update since moving to our new country, Singapore! Buddy Bites has now been up and running here for 10 weeks and it has been an incredibly exciting launch so far!
Whilst it was hard to leave Hong Kong after 10 wonderful years there, everything about Singapore has made it so easy to relax into life here and since Emily, Nacho & Nala arrived (thanks again to Jenny at Relopaws for making the dog transport so seamless for our two), it has felt very much like home….if home was constantly hot!
After arriving here, the top priority was finding our first shelter partner. We actually got in touch with several before setting up here, but we heard back immediately from SOSD (Save Our Street Dogs) and have partnered with them as our first shelter. Our arrival in Singapore was timely as it coincided with their 10th Anniversary Dinner which we gladly sponsored with sample bags for all guests and a year’s free Buddy Bites to the winner of the raffle. Very cleverly, they also brought puppies along and I was roughly two drinks away from taking one home with me to join the family! It was a great success though and a fantastic kick off to our partnership, celebrating 10 years of amazing work, saving abandoned pups across Singapore.
After month one we were able to donate 200kg of food to SOSD and after month two, we donated 400kg!!! This will cover their 60 shelter dogs completely every month but we also pledged to cover their Jurong island dogs so we have a way to go yet before we can add our second shelter, but we are so happy to be able to donate so much, so soon.
Magdalene from the SOSD team was kind enough to send us this quote, “Immensely grateful for the kindness and support of Buddy Bites to donate to our shelter monthly. Very thankful that we have Buddy Bites as our partner.”
We have already lined up shelter number two, but we need to keep going to cover SOSD off completely and then we will look forward to expanding to 2 Singapore shelters – watch this space!
One of the key factors to such a strong start in Singers, was that I was one of many relocating from Hong Kong to Singapore this summer and we had an influx of HK Buddy Biters who were signing up upon arrival and spreading the word – it was incredible to hear from people who had been told about us before we’d even started advertising, simply word of mouth. So, to those HK faithful…. thank you very very much!! We are so glad to be looking after you here now too. Ryan in Hong Kong is a little less pleased with you, but you can ignore him now.
Another key factor in Singapore being off to the races is our first hire here – Laura. When I mentioned to a Singapore based friend that we were going to be setting up here and I was looking to hire someone, he suggested his wife as “she is completely nuts about dogs and works in Digital Marketing/Social Media”……seeing as these were the only two points Ryan and I had listed on the Job Description, it was a very easy decision, from our side anyway! Laura has been a phenomenal addition to the team, getting involved in absolutely everything, taking complete ownership of our social media accounts…. pointing out to Ryan and I how useless we are on Instagram….. (we now aim our dog puns at LinkedIn instead where she can’t stop us. Take THAT, Laura!) ….being ever present at all the pop up events we have been part of and, generally, making my life easier..… which I’m all about! How we have got so lucky in every one of our hires in HK and Singapore, I have no idea.
Every day is something new, weird and wonderful with Buddy Bites. Emily has stopped asking me about my days as she leaves for the office as she can’t quite believe I get to call this ‘work’. A fine example would be a couple of weeks ago telling her I was off to ‘Wag & Wild’, a dog-friendly water park, to discuss sponsorship…. ”Of course you get to take the dogs to meetings”. Yes, yes I do! Incidentally, our banner is now on display at Wag & Wild and I would recommend a visit to anyone in Singapore who’s pup loves the water – lots of fun!
A very exciting first few months and can’t wait to see Buddy Bites continue to grow here. Thanks to all that have made this possible!
- Chris
