Seven years ago in 2018, two former primary school classmates, weary of their corporate jobs, started exploring the idea of entrepreneurship. Amelia Lee was an investment banker and Aileen Seah was a civil servant. Both were in the last year of their twenties.
Lee, whose husband is a doctor, was looking for something more meaningful to do. “He’d come home and tell me what surgeries he’d done. On the other hand, I was like, ‘I played with my Excel sheet a hundred times, a thousand times’,” she said.
The friends began exploring the possibility of acquiring a traditional business with no succession plan, where founders were either without heirs or looking to move on. This was an idea Lee had encountered in the United States while doing her Master of Business Administration.
After considering everything from tau huay (beancurd) production to funeral services, Lee and Seah stumbled upon Chiropractic Singapore, a small chain of three chiropractic clinics whose founder was looking to sell and move back to America.
Seah was then in the last trimester of pregnancy and suffered from pains and aches because of the pressure her baby put on her pelvis and supportive pelvic tissue.
Her immediate thought about chiropractic treatment: “It sounded like something only expats would do,” Seah laughed. Chiropractors treat neuromusculoskeletal disorders, particularly through spinal adjustments to improve alignment and relieve pain.
Seah’s first session changed her mind. “It really took a lot of pressure off my pelvis, and it helped me walk better,” she told CNA Women.
That’s how the two friends ended up buying the business in 2019.
