Making Money with K-pop

Read on as we discuss with Livia Soh, a teenager who made a business out of love for her favourite K-Pop idols.

Story by: Jeraine Ong

Pictures by: Livia Soh

If you are a K-pop fan, you’ve probably already heard of cupsleeve events, or even attended a few yourself.

For those who aren't aware, a cupsleeve event originated from South Korea, gathering fans of an idol fanbase to celebrate the idol’s birthday, anniversary or achievement.

Livia Soh, 19, is an avid K-pop stan, and the founder of Pvrple, a blog shop selling unofficial K-pop merchandise like t-shirts, tote bags and hats. She also plays a major part in organising various K-pop cupsleeve events.

Her Instagram page, @pvrpleco has garnered over 1,700 followers. Pvrple also has its very own website selling original merchandise that Livia designed herself.

Starting Out

Livia did not start out with a business mindset. Rather, it was her father who kick-started the idea by buying her an iPad.

“I tried drawing some things on Procreate and I thought it would be cool to print them on something, so I went onto Taobao to find someone to print out my designs.”

To her surprise, people wanted to purchase them. “I continued because there was an appeal, and I genuinely enjoyed it as well,” she mentions.

Organising Cupsleeve Events

As Pvrple gained more recognition, Livia also started participating in organising cupsleeve events.

“I have to think about the concept, design, decoration and the expected crowd. I will also prepare fanpacks to recover the cost of hosting the event. Probably around 500 freebies and 200 fanpacks,” she says.

“It’s honestly quite a back-breaking process. From the designing to the event stage, it takes around a month to prepare,” Livia recalls.

Organising cupsleeve events are extremely common nowadays, and practically anyone can do it.

“With social media, there is a lot of information online that you can get if you are interested in organising an event. Unlike five or 10 years ago, where it was harder for fans to organise such large-scale events,” she says.

Struggles

“It was tiring mentally and tough physically,” recounts Livia.

To prep for an event, she would sleep at 6am and wake up at 8am continuously for days before it took place. Sometimes, she would even forego sleep as she needed to finish packing her fanpacks.

Furthermore, with social media, it has been difficult for Livia to figure out the best way to market Pvrple. “Things keep changing so I always need to keep up with trends,” she says.

As a student, Livia also struggles to juggle both business and school. “I barely had any free time. It was either school or this,” said the polytechnic student.

Impact

As challenging as it may get, setting up Pvrple has changed Livia’s life.

Managing her business and organising cupsleeve events can get stressful as she always has to be aware of the most recent K-pop news and comebacks. Yet, being able to connect with others constantly reminds her of why she loves K-pop in the first place.

“It’s so cool to see people using my merchandise on the streets and it really blows my mind that I can also reach out to fans worldwide as well,” she says excitedly.