“I was pumping & doing photoshoots at the same time” – Drea Chong On Launching Good Addition 5 Months Postpartum

From influencer to fashion entrepreneur, Andrea Chong (known as Drea Chong) has built her brand, Good Addition, from the ground up—while keeping motherhood refreshingly real. She talks about balancing business, parenting without the pressure, and how hands-on learning has been key to her success.

Andrea Chong—aka Drea Chong—wears many hats: fashion entrepreneur, content creator, and mum of two. But if there’s one thing she doesn’t do, it’s stress over unrealistic parenting expectations. She’s all about balance. Screen time? It’s fine. Snacks? Go for it, as long as there’s a mix of the good stuff. For Andrea, parenting is less about perfection and more about finding what works—somewhere between structure and spontaneity.

That same practical, grounded approach extends to her business, Good Addition. In 2022, while pregnant with her second child, Andrea launched the label with her co-founder Joan Chang—giving birth just five months before the brand officially launched. Since then, she’s been hands-on in every part of the process, from e-commerce to logistics and everything in between.

Now, with Good Addition’s New Bahru store getting a more permanent facelift, Andrea shares what it’s like to grow a business while raising two young kids—and why doing it all doesn’t have to mean doing it perfectly.

Read our past That Mama interviews here.

Were you always interested in fashion?

Yes. Growing up, my parents had a fashion label in a department store. I grew up understanding the retail side of things. I used to help out with my parents’ stores and their booths. It never really occurred to me that I would have a career in fashion. Everything just gradually happened for a reason.

The content creation part came first, of course. I’ve been doing content creation for almost 12 years now, and through that experience, I was quite innovative with a lot of things. For example, I went to brands and said, “Why don’t I curate what you buy for the wholesale markets? We could do an influencer collab,” and that had never been done before. Then, we did more innovative things like bringing the collections overseas to shoot and putting my name on it, like, “This is something that Drea Chong would front”. Then it became, “Drea Chong would design it.”

Then I collaborated with Tinsel Rack, The Closet Lover, Superga, and Love, Bonito—honestly, I learnt everything from every single brand. And through all these years of experience, I decided to start Good Addition. But I would not have started Good Addition earlier on in my content creation journey.

I think all these experiences led me to accumulate a lot of, not just design knowledge, but commercial knowledge. And I also feel like you don’t need a design background to start a fashion label. Ultimately–honestly–in this business, the design portion only takes up 10% – 15% of my time. There are so many more things involved in the fashion business. There’s marketing, logistics, e-commerce, graphic design elements, retail experience—all these make up the 100% of the entire experience.

Do you remember your first fashion collaboration?

It was probably with The Tinsel Rack or The Closet Lover. This was almost 10 years ago. But back then I wasn’t involved in the production know-how. I told the founders, “I want this dress in this sort of material in this sort of colour, could you do something for me?”

It was only with Love Bonito that I started sketching and understanding measurements and production know-how. I think it was my experience with Love, Bonito—they’re such a big brand—that taught me a lot about structure and discipline when it comes to managing your team and managing timelines.

Going back to your parents being from the fashion industry, what would you say are some things you picked up from them?

I was so young, about 7 or 8 years old, so I wasn’t involved in the business side of things. But what I enjoyed about my experience with my parents was that they allowed me to serve customers. Haha. They allowed me to be a cashier. I also understood that the retail experience was very important, like talking to customers and making sure you’re packing things nicely.

How did you meet your business partner Joan Chang?

Joan is a hotelier and property developer. We met about 10 years ago through Lloyd’s Inn. Her family owns Lloyd’s Inn and back then Lloyd’s Inn was doing a whole revamp. She reached out to me on an influencer basis to promote the hotel. We clicked from there and kept in touch throughout the years.

What I appreciated was her business sense and acumen. She is also very disciplined about time, and that’s something I have to learn from her. Initially, she came to me with a business idea but we didn’t land on that. Then after that, I came back to her with a business idea which was Good Addition and then we jumped into this together.

Was Good Addition always something you had at the back of your mind, especially when doing all those fashion collaborations?

It wasn’t at the back of my mind until the Love, Bonito collaboration. After Love, Bonito I thought “What next?” Love, Bonito is the pinnacle of local brands, so I thought, “Where can I go from here?” And I do think that the next step would then be to have my own brand.

Was it intimidating launching into that and starting something from scratch?

Of course, because you’re spending your own money, and it is a lot of money. I don’t know. Looking back, I was quite a risk-taker. I was not hesitant about spending that amount of money to get this brand going. And I feel like that’s the way with entrepreneurs.

But now obviously if I had that same amount of money again, I would be a bit more careful with what I spend it on. Whereas when the brand was in its nascent stage, I would just do, do, do. Kind of like your first kid. With the first kid, you just buy all the strollers, baby bottles and car seats. But with the second kid, it’s like, do we really need all that?

Would you consider the brand your third child?

Yeah, the brand is really my third kid. Then obviously sometimes with motherhood, I do have to catch myself, “Maybe you need to stop for a while and spend time with the kids.”

For example, from Sunday to Thursday, I was in Bali for a photoshoot, and then when I came back on Thursday I was like, okay, I can’t go back to the office. Today is a day for my kids. Then on Friday, I’m working again. And then Saturday and Sunday obviously, I try my best to be with them. Or if I need to run errands, they will follow me.

You’ve put a lot of passion and yourself into Good Addition. In terms of feeling the pressure or risks, has that ever felt overwhelming?

Of course. But the pressure is good pressure. I’ve always felt this even in my content creation years. There must be a good amount of pressure for you to always want to be better. It shouldn’t be bad pressure. But in terms of feeling the competition, honestly, I would say no. I feel that every brand is in its lane. And there’s always capacity for more brands to come into Singapore.

I think a lot of people get this misconception. Or, after I started my label, it’s like, “Oh, let’s not work with Drea because she owns her own fashion label.” And I don’t appreciate that competitiveness in this industry because everybody’s in their lane. There’s a market for people who buy from Far East Plaza, a market for people who buy from Bugis Street, ION Orchard—you know, there’s just so many different types of shopping personalities.

Something you’re known for is being very hands-on with the business and having learnt a lot of things by yourself. What would you say is the driving factor to keep learning and innovating?

I feel like that is really the mantra that I have in life, that is to always keep learning. The moment you stop learning and stop progressing, then that’s when you and your brand stop progressing as well. So, I had to learn so many things like Shopify, e-commerce and logistics … these are not the fancy sides of the business.

And a lot of people think that when you work in fashion it’s all about wearing new clothes, fashion shows, selling trendy clothes, but actually a lot of it is done on the backend, a lot of analytics. For me, it’s, if I take the time to learn these processes, it will actually improve my business.

So even though I do not like it; for example, I do not like dealing with logistics—and last year I really had to step up in terms of overhauling our logistics process. And, after taking over, I realised that I managed to improve our processes so much. So yeah, when it comes to warehousing and packing as much as my time should not be there–my time should be more on business strategy and design–as a business owner, I need to be involved in every aspect.

I want to go back to your pregnancy. During that time, you were about five months pregnant when you were launching the brand.

When I was coming up with the brand, I was in the early stages of pregnancy. And then I gave birth in May, and the brand launched in October. This was my second pregnancy.

You must’ve been extremely busy juggling the pregnancy and launching the brand. Did the pregnancy make things any more difficult?

I think somehow I just managed to make things work. I didn’t get to enjoy the four-month luxury of maternity leave that everyone gets. I was pumping and doing photoshoots at the same time. After I pumped, I would Grab Deliver the milk back home because my baby would only drink my milk and not formula.

Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

In hindsight, I would have spent more time with my second son. I really don’t remember his newborn stages, which is so sad. I feel sad that I don’t really remember much of his infant stage because I was so busy working. I was there, but I was just going through the motions. I didn’t cherish the breastfeeding moments. I didn’t cherish the crawling moments, the walking moments, as much as my firstborn. I think with my firstborn I was really present with him.

What was keeping you from delaying the launch of Good Addition?

I think we couldn’t delay it at that stage. By then it was almost a year into this and what I had learnt was strict deadlines and timelines. I couldn’t just launch when I wanted. We really needed to stick to a schedule. I think if you keep on delaying stuff, it will never kick off.

During that time did you deal with mum guilt?

Of course! I deal with mum guilt all the time. But the thing is, I am quite self-aware. So the moment I know that I’ve been away or if I’ve been really working too much, I’ll just tell myself, “Hey, stop it. You need to spend time with your children.” The good thing about us is that we don’t work on weekends, as a company—unless it’s maybe peak periods. So everybody gets their downtime and their family time. To me, that’s really so important.

My weekends are completely for my children. We also end work a little bit earlier as a company; we end around 5pm to 5.30pm because I want to go home to my kids, and I don’t want to have a meeting at 5pm. I just want to go back home to my kids and potentially bring them to the playground, bring them to the beach for a while and then have dinner—that’s important to me.

How would you describe your parenting style?

I think I’m quite a relaxed mum, quite a chill mum. Honestly, TV time and iPad time to me is fine. I mean, we watched so much TV growing up, and our parents didn’t even say anything. I think honestly parents nowadays, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Because everybody is saying, “No screen time” we need to go, “Okay, no screen time.” I feel like screen time can also be beneficial to them.

And also I think back to my days when I used to watch MTV non-stop. I don’t think it was a detriment to me in my upbringing. In fact, I think watching MTV has helped me in my creative processes today when I think about 90s fashion and music and how that inspires Good Addition. That is really a pivotal part of Good Addition. When you go to our stores you will notice that we play a lot of 90s R&B and 90s music from female singers.

So I think my parenting style is a mix of relaxed and disciplined. Obviously with bedtime, at 8pm, everybody must go to bed. But if for example, they end up sleeping at 10pm on days when we need to head out, then sure, no problem. I think a lot of people are doing the “no sugar” diet, I’m not like that. I’m actually like, do whatever, the keropok and all that, as long as it’s a balanced diet. At the end of the day, if you eat snacks, you should also eat fruits and yoghurt and smoothies.

So it’s all about balance. I feel like we get a lot of peer pressure as parents now, with gentle parenting, how you talk to your kids, and all that. When your kids are having a meltdown, do you wait for them to finish their meltdown or do you go, “Hey, stop it right now.” So it’s a mix of that. There are times to discipline and there are times to be the understanding mum. It really is a balance. I don’t think we can be gentle parents all the time, because as parents we need to enforce discipline.

You’re very strict when it comes to your business, so did you expect yourself to be a chill parent?

Yeah, I think so. Initially, I felt a lot of peer pressure with my first son. You know, baby-led weaning, don’t co-sleep, do sleep training at night … and I felt that made me very miserable. So I’ll do what works for me. I’m not going to sleep train because that’s not what I want to do. I like to co-sleep, so I’ll co-sleep. I even co-sleep with them to this day, and I have my reasons for that.

Baby-led weaning didn’t work for us; it was very stressful going through it. So if you want to feed your child, go ahead and feed your child with a spoon—whatever makes your day work. So I try not to be too concerned about these things.

What are some of your favourite family rituals?

On weekdays, I try to leave work by 5.30pm and be home by 6pm. Then probably bring them to the beach. We live really close to the beach so that beach time is really important to us. Bedtime, bath time—those are my times with the kids. I do it all myself, so even my helper will know not to touch bath time and bedtime unless I’m not at home. So those are my weekday rituals.

On weekends we try to keep it flexible. I could put them in some classes, but also I’m not like the “class mum”. I try to expose them to different things. So we could be doing soccer classes one weekend or for a few weekends; we could also be doing art classes for some weekends; swimming classes; or have more chill days where we just go to the beach. So every weekend I am doing something with them that touches different creativity points and explorer points in them.

Being in a mixed-race family, has it been intentional to bring them up with both Chinese and Malay culture?

So the boys study Chinese in school. I don’t speak Chinese to them at home. We’ll sing Mandarin songs but, it’s not intentional language exposure.

Whereas Malay is. My in-laws are very heavily involved in my children’s lives. My in-laws help me with my kids a lot. They speak mostly Malay at home, so the kids naturally pick that up. So the kids understand English, Malay and Chinese but they converse in English. In terms of understanding what my in-laws have to say in Malay, they totally get it.

With running a business, content creation, and parenthood on your plate, are you very strict with your time and do you ever get a break?

Weirdly enough, my way of decompressing is actually by going to work. And the way for me to decompress from work is to go back to my children. So I think both are aligned. I’m not the mum that needs “me-time”. I don’t get a lot of personal satisfaction from me-time. So I’d rather be doing something either with kids or at work.

Tell me a little bit about your Excel sheets and your Google calendar.

I live my life by Sheets and by my Calendar. Even in work settings, there’s a Sheet for everything. There’s a Sheet for budgeting, clothing—actually a lot of people think in fashion, a lot of it is like, pretty clothes and all that. But actually, my team and I are on Excel and slides 90% of the time, just to do the numbers, work out the cost price, the margins, you know.

My calendar is also very important. My husband and I are both busy individuals. So, we kind of diary things for each other. And we must block out the specific time, weeks in advance. Because he’s also working non-stop, and he works more than me.

Do you have Excel sheets for home life as well?

Yes! I have a Drive for all the important family documents. So I’ve scanned them all. So whenever my husband asks, “Do you have our IC? Do you have our birth cert?” I’m like, “Here you go, just check the Drive!”

So you’re the main manager of the household?

Yeah, especially with insurance policies. How do you keep track of what’s your coverage, when’s your expiry date, when must you pay? All these are trackable on our Google Sheets.

I always tell my husband, “If I die, just refer to this Drive.” Very handy. Maybe I should create an “Andrea’s Passwords” so I can put it into that Drive. So that if I die, my husband can refer to that list and operate his life as usual. Because, without me, who will tell him? But knowing my husband, he will lose the Drive link, and then he will be like, “What is the Google Drive link?” and then he will never be able to access that Google Drive ever again.

Finally, what are you currently working on and what are your plans for the future?

There’s always going to be new collections. We launch a new collection every one to two months. There’s the New Bahru store refresh. But also, now with the brand up and running, a lot of my goals this year is to really improve internally rather than externally. So improving our processes, workflow, setting up systems so that it’s a more disciplined structure.

As much as people thrive on the flexibility of working from home and doing what they want, I do think that a team needs to have structure to perform best. And what is important to me also is that you cannot just improve outwardly; you must also improve inwardly as a business. So even things like, our store refresh, it’s improving the customer experience. Or, it’s going to our factories and improving the quality and the fit. All these will lend itself to a better brand experience as a whole.

Andrea shares that Good Addition often drops new collections every couple of months–and they tend to sell out quickly. Stay up to date at @goodaddition for their latest buildable essentials and keep up with Andrea’s personal adventures at @dreachong.

Read our past That Mama interviews here.