There are common cliches that accompany the entrepreneurial journey.
One is of the convert. Someone who has scaled the corporate ladder, and found something wanting. Then comes an inner voice, or a dramatic Road to Damascus moment, which changes the course of their career.
For Amy Wong, HBA ’02, EMBA ’14, it was a nagging inner voice that kept getting louder… and louder.
Wong had built a 20-year-long career in marketing and advertising, working in New York and Hong Kong with companies like Lenovo, Ogilvy & Mather, and Saatchi & Saatchi.
But even seasoned marketing professionals have creative blocks. During one of those passages, Wong decided to explore new ways on how to stay creative.
What began as personal introspection slowly developed into something bigger.
Something more meaningful.
Today, Wong is the founder of Dreamwriters, a creative writing and self-publishing platform for young writers and artists. It connects artists from all over the world with young writers, helping to inspire their story writing process.
The platform is built for kids between the ages of 6 to 16, with core users falling between 9-12 years old. "That’s the time when they are more in-depth in their writing. They don’t need as much parental guidance and have had enough life experiences to have things to write about," said Wong.
Part of that inspiration came from her favourite time of the day, winding down by reading picture books to her two young daughters. “It reminded me how much I loved writing and art when I was a kid,” said Wong.
What if I could come up with a platform that can cultivate creativity in others, especially kids, and help ensure that creative fire never dies?
Seeking adventure
After completing her HBA at the Ivey Business School, Wong took the road less travelled. She moved to New York, leaving the familiar confines of Toronto, and embarked on a career in advertising while many of her peers settled into jobs in finance and consulting.
The pay wasn't great, but Wong thought it might provide an environment to stretch and utilize her creative side. What she soon discovered was a highly segment industry. One that did not allow for creativity to flow between silos.
While in New York, Wong took up learning Mandarin but was frustrated by the lack of opportunities to practice and live the language. She threw herself into the deep end again, travelling to Beijing and enrolling in a six-month immersive Mandarin program. Soon after, she made the move to Hong Kong, where she settled into a career at Lenovo.
Things seemed good. Things seemed settled. But a nagging problem gave way to a more nagging solution.
When I got into the working world, even as a Director of Marketing, I had a lot of creative blocks when trying to come up with campaign ideas for various products.
Researching the topic, she found that she wasn't alone. It seemed that creativity for most people was subject to decay; slowly ebbing away as the years go by. This was partly influenced by societal norms, and a fear of failure and risk-taking as professionals grew deeper into their careers.
So was it a lost cause? Wong didn’t want to concede that point. She began planting the seeds for a side project that would eventually become Dreamwriters.
The solution was creative writing, which offered a range of benefits; from stimulating imagination and artistic expression to helping learn how to read and write. Furthermore, it allowed individuals to connect to themselves in a much deeper way.
“When you are writing, you are tapping into yourself, and you are sharing your worldview,” said Wong.
But balancing a full-time job, a young family, and a side project, was becoming a daunting task. Having achieved her goal of becoming a marketing director and managing a team, Wong left Lenovo at the end of January 2020.
I just felt that voice in me was growing. ‘You should really work on it, you should really do it!’ And If I didn’t do this… I’m going to regret it. And I didn’t want to have any regrets.
Once again, Wong was jumping into the deep end, transforming her career into something new.
She became an entrepreneur.
But if she expected all the pieces to fall into place and devote all that extra time to her fledgling business idea, she had to think again.
As COVID-19 took hold of East Asia, it forced kids and parents to study and work from home.
“It made working on my project quite difficult. But I suppose that was a lesson in one way. In entrepreneurship, the timing isn’t always ideal, but you need to figure your way through it,” said Wong.
The story continues
Having committed full-time in February of 2020, Wong has had the opportunity to pitch Dreamwriters at the AmCham Female Founders Start-up Series in Hong Kong. It was her first pitching experience and Dreamwriters made it to the last round.
Soon after, she got wind of the Western Angels’ Demo Day (WADD), a pitch competition and investment opportunity for Western-founded startups.
WADD provides participants with coaching, and educational opportunities to learn what investors look for in startups, how to prepare pitches, present financial information and more.
“I learnt so much about Angel Investing, and doing due diligence,” said Wong.
Dreamwriters was selected as one of the top five pitches and presented to over 200 Western alumni entrepreneurs and investors in April 2021.
Coming into the end of the year, Wong is completing her beta testing phase for the platform, fixing and improving certain elements, and making Dreamwriters stickier for users.
Over the next three months, she hopes to evolve the platform from its minimum viable product stage to something stable and scalable.
Wong hopes to connect the platform directly with consumers, eventually making it available to educators across a variety of markets. She hopes the platform will allow children around the world to share more stories from their distinct imaginations, various life experiences and cultural environments. Wong has a grand vision in mind, but every day and every step is part of that journey.
Cliches aside, how stories conclude in the entrepreneurial world is less certain.
What is certain is that a happy ending for Dreamwriters will have to be penned by its young, creative authors.
