I'm Crystal. An entrepreneur dedicated to helping you create a business and life you love.

Hey!

My name is Crystal Drury

I have been fortunate enough to travel around the world, meet incredible people, and do the things I love on my own terms, and I’d like to share my story with you.

Early Days

My story begins in Hong Kong. I was born into a broken family - my father, an abusive alcoholic, left the day he found out I was an unborn girl.

We lived together as a low income family, my mother - my best friend and support - worked relentlessly to take care of me - So I spent most of my time with my aunt.

Then..

One day, my mother came home and announced that we were moving to the UK. At that time, I didn't fully comprehend what it meant, but soon enough, I experienced my first flight with Virgin Atlantic and landed in London.

I couldn't speak English initially. I attended a primary school where my stepdad was a teacher. Almost all the students there were Caucasian, I was the odd one out.

Despite the language barrier, I would ask my mother to purchase mobile light-up mobile keyrings from Asia form $0.10, and I sold them to my classmate for £2.

Sadly, my business was quickly shut down by the principal, but that experience marked my first taste of capitalism.

My First Business,

While studying full-time, I held three part-time jobs: working at a bar, a poker casino, and a takeaway, where I answered calls. Deep down, I knew I would never achieve freedom by trading my time for money.

It was time to find another way to make money.

My first-ever car park business was born. Through online marketing, I advertised all unused/unmanned student accommodation car parking spaces near me to the public without telling anyone. The proceeds from the car parks alone paid for my entire year of rent.

Despite my parents' wishes for me to become a full-time medical doctor working for the NHS, I realized that was their dream, not mine. However, Asian family values are very strong, so I succumbed and continued with medical school.

Feeling lost pursuing my medical degree, I decided to drop out of the medical field and pursue my dream of having a business.

Very shortly, WAU was born. I entered entrepreneurship full of hopes and dreams, but soon, reality started to settle in, and everything came crashing down.

Dark Days

Unknowingly, we entered started a hardwear electric bike company that require a lot of upfront capital to jump start. Difficult level 8/10 as a first ever business.

We spent all our energy building our main product. We had zero idea of how to run a company, manage a supply chain, do front-end marketing, and, most importantly, run ads. Soon we discovered that a good product without good marketing means you won’t make any sales.

The logical step is the hire a marketing agency to run ads, and we started the old-school way, cold calling leads. The first cold call I made was in the kitchen of our small flat/ office, I could feel sweat dripping down my neck as I was dialling each number on the list whilst my other 2 co-founder, patiently listening at the other side of the wall.

Ring Ring, Hello?

“Not interested, don’t call me back” – Slammed the phone down. Deep breaths. Picked up the phone and dialled the next number. I went in without any preconceived notion or tactic on how to cold call, hence why I could not close anyone on the phone.

Undeterred, I kept calling regardless of how many "no’s" and rejections I got. Then one day, I managed to close a cold lead to give me their credit card for a £3,200 purchase on the first call. I was ecstatic and was hooked.

Turning Point

I continued to call cold leads to practice, adjust my script, then call again. We started to close 80% of the leads on the phone, £2,800+ per call. At the same time we were confident enough to navigate the sea of marketing agencies and chose the one that was going to deliver. This was the turning point in our business.

Within the next 2 months, we proceeded to sell out all the stock we had available with an average order value of £2,800+ and exceeded the six-figure-per-month thresholds in revenue in a short space of time.

Then everything came crashing down again. We started to receive complaints about wait times; our supply chain was not robust enough to meet demand. We needed to raise more money from investors to fuel inventory purchases, and we had to hire more people to manage different departments. It was a never-ending loop of a nightmare.

The pressure was high. We fixed the front end of the business—sales. But we didn’t have the back end of the business, fulfilment, and logistics sorted, which caused a very big backlash. Step by step, we started to reach out to mentors—people who had done it before—to show us how to run a company properly, how to build the structure and manage people.

It was a no-brainer move; having someone to advise you helps avoid potential pitfalls. With proper guidance and structure, our business took off.

Result

Suddenly, we had created something much bigger than me. There was a total of 28 on the team. We proceeded to close deals with multiple UK police forces to use our electric bikes as a main form of transport. We sold thousands of electric bikes to customers all over the world. We had several factories across the UK.

We were featured in Forbes magazine, BBC News, ITV News, Channel 5, Gadget show, and many other channels. With our luck, we received an offer to purchase the company, the IP, trademark, patterns, and technology, along with everything that we had built for a 7-figure sum. 

Today

With a wealth of knowledge in business under my belt, I am now embarking on a new journey to share my stories, knowledge, and experience with those in similar situations as I once was— lost, confused, and stuck in a loop in their business and not sure how to scale their business.

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