Episode 32 – Quanda Ong – Gnome & Bow – What If a Bag Could Tell a Story?

Quanda Ong studied Economics and Marketing at Singapore Management University…which feels like a far cry from fashion and leather goods. Yet, he is also the founder and CEO of Gnome & Bow, the world’s first storytelling bags and wallets.  The idea is that the Gnome & Bow bags can become a new medium for storytelling.  The Gnome represents ‘fantasy’ and ‘storytelling’ and the bow (tie) represents classic design.  There is a bit of a whimsical feel to the brand that guides the design philosophy. The journey to founding Gnome & Bow was not a straight line…it never is.  Quanda’s first job out of school was a marketing role at a Private Bank.  While he remained there for two and a half years, Quanda knew this was not for him…and a year into it, he started thinking about what his real passion was. He had been considering for a while to start his own fashion brand…and bags began to be something he obsessed about.  He noticed the stitching, the lining and all of the little details.  At some point, his father encouraged him to start his own business. In the true sense of an entrepreneur, he noticed while he was working at the bank that when he wanted to buy a bag for himself, he could not find one that jumped out at him.  He decided it was time to solve his own problem and turn it into a business. Quanda did not want to start just any bag company.  He wanted to build something that was unique and scalable at the same time.  Besides the extreme attention to detail, he created a design philosophy that uses classic stories with an added twist to create unique products.  Gnome & Bow now operates in 8 countries.  Listen to Quanda tell the story of the storytelling bag company and how he uses innovative technology to scale and create a frictionless experience for his clients both offline and online.

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