Who would have ever thought that a wrong name choice could dent the reputation of an emerging company? Mas Haryati Baharudin, the founder of Fillea Health and Beauty Sdn Bhd and her husband Muhammad Faizal Mohd, CEO of the company, tell WargaBiz – the long and tragic story of how they lost half a million due to the wrong choice of name for their product.
Faizal claims that their biggest mistake in doing business is not having the proper knowledge to run a business. When they released their first product – a slimming product in capsule form they chose “Kuwus” to market the product.
The Fall of Fillea
They faced the first obstacle when the name “Kuwus” (which means slim in Bahasa Malaysia) was not approved for a trademark. Even Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka (DBP) didn’t approve the name, resulting in their inability to advertise the products on billboards, TV stations, radio stations, and in any printed form.
Realizing that they needed to change the name, they decided to go with “Kuwus Fit” after a year of using the brand “Kuwus”. Unfortunately, they faced the same obstacle. That was the peak of their downfall.
“They raided my office and confiscated all my products”
I still vividly remember when KKM raided my office and confiscated all my products. I begged them not to take my products because, at that time, all the products belonged to my agents. They had paid for them,” Mas Haryati recalled.
The incident happened during MCO, which made them even more frustrated. The factory that manufactured their products had to halt production due to Covid-19 restrictions. By any means, they needed to protect the products.
“If I’m not mistaken, KKM confiscated over 4,000 boxes, and we lost RM500,000. My wife had to go to court, and we were charged an RM20,000 penalty for the accusation of using misleading descriptions on our packaging. It was our mistake for labeling the product as ‘Fat Killer,'” Muhammad Faizal explained.
The importance of having basic knowledge about business
That incident left a big scar on their business journey. They could not afford to tell the truth to agents. Instead, they informed all the agents that they had a problem with product manufacturing, so they had to wait for the next batch.
To resolve this issue, both of them had to dip into their savings and reorder the products, but this time, they switched to Fillea (which carries the meaning of Feel The Fear/Feel The Fail). Due to their stocks being confiscated, they almost lost their car and house.
“We could not afford to pay our car loan and house loan. The bank called us a few times to repossess our car. We did not have the money to pay all our bills. We asked the factory that manufactured our products if we could pay in instalments. I sold all my old clothing to support our life. It was tough, but I needed to be strong because all my agents and staff rely on me – I can’t give up,” Mas said.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
When asked if they had faced other obstacles, Mas jokingly said, “I had tested ‘the real world’. The KKM incident was the biggest obstacle in my business journey. Before that happened, we had dealt with our stockist who cheated us and copied our products. She created the same product as ours, at the same price, and sold it in the market. Imagine that we helped her from zero and that was how she treated us? I was disappointed.”
“If you ask me now, there is nothing left that can break us down. All the obstacles that we have gone through have made us even stronger. We have become more mature in doing business and we have learned from our past mistakes,” she shared.
Fillea: A trusted brand since 2019
Reminiscing about how Fillea Health and Beauty Sdn Bhd was established, Mas said it was in 2019. She shares that previously, she was struggling with her weight. “I like to try and review slimming products. But the downside of consuming slimming products is that you will keep going to the toilet and it affects my work. So I told my husband, “Why is there no one creating slimming products that are not detox?”
Hence, she proposed the idea to her husband and she searched for a lab to create it. Once they came out with the sample, she consumed it to see whether it would make a difference or not. Surprisingly, she lost from 65kg to 48kg.
That was how easily she gained trusted customers to try her product. Through word-of-mouth, Fillea finally created 12 leaders, over 400 agents and 1,000 dropshippers. However, she emphasised that the journey was not smooth all the time.
Steady growth
We started from home, and at that time, it was just my husband and me. We did everything from marketing to packaging to delivering by ourselves. We didn’t have any staff or a proper office to run the business.
Luck was on Mas’s side; in just three months, she made over RM35,000 in sales, and it steadily increased over time. When Faizal saw this healthy growth, he decided to quit his full-time job and help his wife.
Currently, Fillea has launched three products: Fillea Tablet (weight-loss supplement), Fillea Bodyfit, and Fillea Bodycurve (girdle). Faizal disclosed that in the first year alone, they made RM790,000, which jumped to RM1.3 million in the second year, and last year, they made RM2 million. When asked about his target for this year, he confidently said, “We target to hit RM10 million.”
“It is easy to start a business, but to sustain a business is much harder than you think”
Fillea’s steady growth is further proven when they bagged a few awards namely, The BrandLaureate Bumiputera BESTBRANDS Award 2020, Top 500 Consumer Certification Trusted Brand Award 2022, The Best Brand Bumiputera Award 2021 and they are also listed in Britishpedia as one of the Successful People in Malaysia.
Expanding their offerings to neighbouring countries
Sharing about their next move in business, Faizal said they are setting up a leader in Brunei. It’s their biggest wish to expand their offering to neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Brunei.
“We don’t want to focus on supplement products only. Hopefully, we can diversify our products to target a larger group of customers,” adding that they had successfully created a millionaire by selling Fillea.
As an entrepreneur who has been through many obstacles in running a business, Mas shared her tips on how to be a successful entrepreneur: “To be a leader, you need to have the willingness. Willingness to sacrifice no matter what it takes. In order to be successful, you need to sacrifice a lot.”
Faizal, on the other hand, stressed the importance of having the right knowledge. “I always hold on to this philosophy: “We grow as our knowledge grows. Our knowledge determines our income. So seek knowledge.”
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