Making a difference, a planner at a time

BDJ Beauty Box fair

Second of 2 parts

We continue with our interview with Belle de Jour planner founder Darlyn Ty.

Q: You have launched the BDJ Beauty Box. Is this your response to the seasonality of your planner business?

A: We launched BDJ Box, our online beauty discovery service for women, in our desire to help our 30,000 plus members to explore their own definitions of beauty. Feeling beautiful and relating it to confidence has been an increasing concern of our members.

As we researched more, we felt we were in the perfect position to provide this beauty discovery service. Bellas trust us, and brands trust us.

More than anything we want to preserve is our community vision to tangibly help our Bellas to live life to the fullest.

Our BDJ Planner helps on day to day basis on planning schedules and tasks.

BDJ Box helps on a weekly and    monthly basis for articles and tips, and of course product discovery.  BDJ Events help on a monthly basis by providing resource speakers to learn from, as well as an opportunity to build new networks of friends in the BDJ Community.

Q: Why should women subscribe to the BDJ Beauty Box instead of other similar sampling programs?

A: We’re currently the only homegrown beauty box brand that releases a box monthly. Our BDJ Box provides triple the value of the subscription price, to encourage the Bellas to just experiment and try. We believe with BDJ Box, you can unbox your own beauty. You can only figure out what you really want, when you try out new things. We have the best brands that trust our community of almost 10 years.

Darlyn Ty

For our brand partners, with our growing community of Bellas, aside from our traditional and nontraditional media partners and bloggers, we uniquely generate buzz by real women. This is important, as we believe in giving regular women a voice. We hope brands would look to them as powerful and personal ambassadors especially to their direct circles of family and friends.

Q: You have impressed many by winning the Mansmith Young Market Masters Awards (YMMA) in 2009, together with Mang Inasal’s Injap Sia and Bibingkinitan’s Richard Sanz. Each one of you went on to win the Agora Awards one year after another, with you as the youngest Agora entrepreneurship winner, what’s next for Darlyn Ty?

A: Our dream is really grow our community of empower Filipinas that would help inspire each other to tangibly live life to the fullest. Imagine a Filipina community that is unafraid to pursue their dreams and passions, a community that takes time to help the less fortunate, a community that takes care of their own families without abandoning their own ambitions and potential, a community that will be foundation of influence in improving the culture and deepening the values that would make a better Philippines.

Q: You have an interesting story to tell—over a decade ago, you lived in Singapore for a couple of months but failed to land a job you want. You were an honor student but didn’t make it in the CPA board. You were hired but didn’t finish the J&J management trainee program. Yet you are very successful now. What can you share with young people about rising from disappointments and being resilient?

A: Life really makes more sense backwards. I believe all those things that didn’t happen according to my own plan, were meant to happen. I believe God was training me for bigger things.

Ever since college, when I was still completing my degree in Business Administration and Accountancy degree in UP, I felt the greatest lesson Accounting gave me—was learning to fail. It was in accounting exams that I learned to fail, as the whole batch would fail, study again and again, then succeed.

I was on top of the world when I graduated. I was arrogant; I took on reviewing for the CPA Board and working a full time job in a multinational.  I spent 12 hours in the office, another 4 hours travelling (back and forth) during weekdays, and then weekends another 12 hours for review for a whole of six months. When I missed the CPA passing mark by one subject, I felt God was playing with me. It was, I believe for the first time, that I learned to ask myself—why do I want to pass the boards, why do I want to be in a multinational company.

It was the start of an awakening of sorts in terms of what kind of work I wanted to do, what kind of life I wanted to live. It’s when I started Belle de Jour Power Planner. It was a very personal project for me, to get me out of the frustration I had with myself. It was my dream that I was tangibly growing step by step. I was designing a planner for my future self, with all the dreams and goals I was going to juggle. Slowly, it became a reality.

What I’d love to share with young people rising from disappointments is just to never stop believing in yourself. Life is really difficult, no matter how good you are (or think you are). Life may not hit you hard now, but it will. When it happens, just push on, keep moving forward, even with tiny steps. It is when it’s darkest, you will see the light. (Josiah Go is chair of marketing training firm Mansmith and Fielders Inc. For complete interview, log on to www.josiahgo.com. Also, the BDJ Beauty Bootcamp is slated on June 7, 2015, details at ilovebdj.com.)