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What does it really take to leave a successful corporate career, launch a food brand and prepare that business for national retail growth?
In this episode of the #Value Podcast, Addition Finance founder Graham Davies sits down with Megan Tan, founder of Yumm Singa, to explore her journey from corporate finance lawyer to food entrepreneur.
Megan shares how missing the flavours of Singapore after moving to the UK eventually inspired her to build a brand around bold Singaporean food. The conversation goes beyond the origin story, however, looking at some of the financial realities that come with turning a great product into a scalable consumer business.
From raising a friends and family round and deciding how much capital to take on, to managing inventory, forecasting cash flow and preparing for a major retail listing, Megan and Graham discuss the decisions founders face when a young food brand begins to gain serious traction.
Meet Megan Tan and Yumm Singa
Before becoming a founder, Megan trained and worked as a corporate lawyer. After moving to the UK, she found herself missing the Singaporean flavours she had grown up with and began recreating them at home.
That personal connection to food eventually revealed what Megan believed was a wider commercial opportunity.
While British shoppers have become increasingly familiar with cuisines and ingredients from across Asia, Megan saw room for Singaporean and Southeast Asian flavours to become much more prominent on UK shelves.
That idea ultimately became Yumm Singa, a Singaporean food brand designed to make those distinctive flavours accessible and easy to enjoy at home.
The current range includes Signature Ginger Chilli, Black Pepper Sauce and Laksa Curry Sauce, bringing inspiration from Singapore's food culture into versatile products suitable for everyday cooking.
The name itself reflects the personality behind the brand. “Yum Sing” references the celebratory Cantonese toast heard at weddings and other celebrations in Singapore — traditionally delivered loudly, enthusiastically and often for as long as everyone's breath allows.
That sense of energy, celebration and togetherness now sits at the heart of Yumm Singa.
Why Leave Corporate Law to Start a Food Business?
For Megan, the move into entrepreneurship wasn't simply about a love of food.
Having come from an industry where productivity is closely connected to time and billable hours, she became fascinated by the ability of a business to create value beyond the hours directly contributed by an individual.
That led her to start learning.
Books, podcasts and conversations with other founders helped her understand everything from product development and distribution to pricing, margins and cash flow. In 2024, she ultimately left the legal profession to pursue the business full-time.
But understanding the theory of business and managing the finances of a growing company are very different challenges.
As Megan explains during the episode, areas such as cash-flow forecasting, budgeting and working-capital management represented an entirely new learning curve.
Why Growing a Food Brand Can Create a Cash-Flow Problem
One of the central topics in this episode is a problem that can catch successful product businesses by surprise: growth consumes cash.
Unlike many service businesses, food and drink brands often need to pay for production well before receiving payment for the products they sell.
A growing brand needs more stock. More stock requires larger production runs. Larger production runs require more cash upfront.
When retailers then operate on extended payment terms, there can be a considerable gap between paying a manufacturer and receiving the cash generated by the eventual sale.
As Graham explains, that means a rapidly growing business can potentially face increasing cash pressure even when sales are moving in the right direction.
This is why understanding working capital becomes particularly important for founders preparing to scale into larger retailers.
Fundraising Lessons From Yumm Singa's First Raise
Megan initially invested significant personal capital into the business before completing a friends and family funding round.
At the time, the company was still pre-revenue.
Looking back, one of Megan's biggest lessons isn't that she raised too little - it's that she potentially would have raised less.
The additional capital gave the business room to experiment, change direction and ultimately develop the Yumm Singa brand that exists today. Megan therefore doesn't regret the decision.
However, she now sees more clearly how an early fundraising round can influence later funding options.
Raising capital isn't simply an exchange of equity for cash. The amount raised, valuation, dilution and timing of each round can all affect the choices available to a founder when the business reaches its next stage.
For founders considering an early friends and family or angel round, Megan's experience highlights the importance of thinking beyond the immediate cash requirement.
Ask not only “How much can we raise?”, but “How much does the business actually need to reach its next meaningful milestone?”
Preparing Yumm Singa for Its Next Stage of Retail Growth
A particularly exciting development discussed in the episode is Yumm Singa's planned listing with Whole Foods Market in Q1 2027.
For Megan, that creates a significant opportunity - but also a new set of financial and operational requirements.
Larger retail distribution can mean bigger and more frequent production runs, increased inventory requirements and additional spending on promotions, displays, sampling, social media and other marketing activity.
That creates an important question:
How much money does a growing food brand actually need to fund a major retail launch?
The starting point, Graham suggests, should be a robust financial model.
Building a Financial Model Before Scaling
Rather than trying to predict one exact outcome, founders can model different scenarios.
For example, Yumm Singa could build one scenario based on particularly strong retail performance and another based on a more conservative sales trajectory.
Those forecasts can then incorporate important operational assumptions such as:
- expected rate of sale;
- retailer payment terms;
- manufacturing lead times;
- minimum production runs;
- inventory requirements;
- marketing and promotional spending;
- operating costs; and
- the timing of future production orders.
For Yumm Singa, manufacturing lead times are currently around five to six weeks. As volumes increase, understanding when another production order needs to be placed — and when the cash is required to pay for it - becomes increasingly important.
A good financial model connects these operational realities to cash.
Rather than discovering that the company is running short of money when the problem arrives, the objective is to identify potential cash requirements six, nine or even twelve months ahead.
Learn more about financial modelling and fractional CFO support from Addition Finance.
How Much Should a Founder Raise?
Once those forecasts are in place, the business can begin estimating how much external capital it actually needs.
Graham suggests modelling the company's projected cash balance over the coming 12–18 months and identifying the lowest point.
That provides a useful starting point for determining the minimum funding requirement.
A contingency can then be added to provide protection if sales, costs or payment timings don't behave exactly as predicted.
The result is a fundraising target grounded in the actual economics and cash requirements of the business rather than an arbitrary number.
Equity vs Debt: How Should a Growing Brand Fund Stock?
Equity isn't the only way to finance growth.
For physical product businesses, Graham argues that using equity solely to finance working capital can be expensive. Every equity round means giving away part of the company, while the underlying requirement may simply be temporary cash tied up in stock or unpaid invoices.
Debt financing can therefore be worth considering.
Megan's background as a finance lawyer makes this an especially interesting part of the discussion. While she's naturally comfortable with the concept of debt financing, she also highlights the founder's concern at the heart of borrowing: what happens if a customer pays late and a debt repayment falls due?
One potential answer is invoice financing.
Where a business has sold to an established retailer and is waiting for an invoice to be paid, invoice finance can potentially help bridge the gap between delivering the goods and receiving payment.
Stock or inventory financing can offer another option for product businesses with significant amounts of capital tied up in goods.
Could a Combination of Debt and Equity Work Better?
Funding doesn't necessarily need to be an either/or decision.
One approach discussed during the episode is combining an invoice financing facility with a smaller equity round.
Debt could help finance the working-capital cycle associated with producing and supplying stock, while equity provides capital for longer-term growth investments such as marketing, team expansion, new products and retail activation.
Matching the type of finance to the purpose of the money can help founders think more strategically about capital.
When Does a Founder Need Better Financial Systems?
Like many early-stage founders, Megan currently manages a remarkable number of functions herself.
Sales, social media, newsletters, finance and accounting all sit on her plate. Logistics has now moved to a third-party logistics provider, but much of the operational knowledge behind the business still lives with Megan.
Inventory management is one example.
At smaller volumes, a founder may be able to keep a surprisingly accurate picture of stock levels in their head. Once retail distribution increases, however, that approach becomes difficult to sustain.
Systems and processes become essential not only for efficiency, but also for reducing the company's reliance on its founder.
The same principle applies to financial forecasting.
Graham's recommendation is simple: keep the financial model updated every month.
Actual performance from the previous month can replace assumptions, while future projections can be adjusted using the latest sales, inventory, retailer and production information.
That creates a rolling view of where the business is heading.
Key Takeaways From This Episode
Megan's story demonstrates how quickly the challenges facing a founder can change.
At the beginning, the priority is developing a product people actually want. Then it becomes branding, distribution and finding customers. Once those pieces begin working, the challenge shifts again towards inventory, cash flow, financing and building the operational infrastructure required for scale.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How Megan moved from corporate law into entrepreneurship and founded Yumm Singa.
- Why she saw an opportunity to bring more Singaporean flavours to UK consumers.
- What she learnt from raising a friends and family funding round while pre-revenue.
- Why raising more money isn't necessarily better for an early-stage business.
- How growth can put pressure on cash flow for food, drink and physical product brands.
- Why financial modelling becomes critical ahead of a major retail launch.
- How founders can use different sales scenarios to forecast their funding requirements.
- Why inventory and retailer payment terms need to be included in cash-flow planning.
- When invoice finance and stock finance could help bridge a working-capital gap.
- Why combining debt and equity may make sense for some rapidly growing brands.
- How better financial and inventory systems can help a business become less dependent on its founder.
- Why founders should aim to identify future cash requirements months before the money is actually needed.
About Yumm Singa
Founded by Megan Tan, Yumm Singa brings the bold and vibrant flavours of Singapore to everyday cooking in the UK.
Its sauce range draws inspiration from Singapore's distinctive food culture while making those flavours straightforward to use at home.
Discover Yumm Singa:
https://www.yummsinga.com/
About Addition Finance
Addition Finance helps growing businesses build stronger financial operations, combining accounting foundations with reporting, forecasting, financial modelling and CFO-level strategic support.
For founders approaching a fundraise, managing rapid growth or trying to understand what their cash position could look like months from now, Addition helps turn financial information into clearer business decisions.
Visit Addition Finance:
https://www.additionfinance.co/
