Ms Tan Peck Ying (Science ’11) is the co-founder and CEO of Blood, a Singapore-based menstrual health company on a mission to normalise periods and make them more manageable. She met her co-founder and husband Mr Caleb Leow (Business ’15) while enrolled in an entrepreneurship module at the National University of Singapore. Both went on to participate in the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme, where Ms Tan witnessed firsthand how curiosity could be the starting point for building something real. The itch to start a business was hard to ignore.
Today, Blood’s products are stocked at over 7,000 retail locations across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia including Guardian, Watsons, NTUC FairPrice, Cold Storage, and 7-Eleven. Its bestselling corn-based sanitary pad, the first of its kind in the world, absorbs liquid three times faster than cotton, and is naturally hypoallergenic.
FROM PSLOVE TO BLOOD
Launched in 2014 as PSLove, the company’s first product was MenstruHeat, a drug-free adhesive heat patch born from Ms Tan’s own struggle with debilitating period pain. Rather than seek outside capital early on, the couple chose to maintain sustainable unit economics and reinvest profits back into the business, a carefully considered approach that allowed them to stay in control of their own trajectory.
The defining move came in 2022: a full rebrand to Blood, and the launch of the world’s first corn-based sanitary pad, designed absorbs liquid three times faster than cotton and naturally hypoallergenic.
“Rebranding our brand was bold, but it would have been risker to continue playing it safe. We saw what we often call “a sea of sameness”; brands portraying women skipping through white lily fields, smiling on their period. That just wasn’t our reality."
“Periods are not blue liquid, they’re not always graceful. They can be messy, inconvenient and uncomfortable, and that’s completely normal. We wanted to build a brand that challenged those norms, to be openly contrarian yet real.”
Friends, investors and retailers were shocked. Some loved it, some didn’t. But as Ms Tan intended, nobody could forget it. “From our brand name to packaging, it sparked conversations. Maybe that’s how speaking about feminine health should have been all along.”
FINDING THE PATH TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH NUS OVERSEAS COLLEGES
Ms Tan’s pivot to entrepreneurship was less a lightning bolt moment and more a gradual reckoning. When studying Biomedical Science at NUS, she somehow felt restless. “I didn’t enjoy the routine of lab work, the repetition and the inability to make things happen the way I wanted to.”
In her final year, she dropped her final year project (FYP) and pursued a business minor instead, a decision that surprised her family and friends, and turned out to be the best one she made in university.
"I am someone who will go out of my way to pursue what I truly enjoy and find meaningful. And for me, that turned out to be entrepreneurship, being able to create meaningful impact at scale and build on my own terms."
Participating in the iLead/NOC Singapore programme and working at NUS Enterprise was where she got immersed in the start-up space.
“I have been connected to many good mentors through the ecosystem. For example, Brian Koh connected us to someone from P&G. Since they are in the consumer space, they know what works in the market, how the distributors work, how to manage exports, and marketing and pricing strategies.”
GIVE TO GAIN, ON HER OWN TERMS
Scaling Blood also meant growing as a leader and a mother, and that has come with real trade-offs. “The most significant sacrifice in the last few years has been time with my kids. When I first became a parent, I honestly didn’t anticipate how challenging it would be. At the same time, the company was growing. My kids were growing. Both needed me in completely different ways. There were definitely seasons where it felt like a constant tug of war.”
However, an investor’s words stayed with her. “You have agency to build your life the way you want. Building the team in such a way that you can grow the business and still feel like engaged, involved parents; that should be the goal.”
She never liked the idea of having to choose between building a company and being present for her children. That discomfort pushed her to redesign how she led the business.
“I needed to build a company that was not dependent on me reacting to every fire or being involved in the day-to-day operations. This pushed me to become the kind of leader I needed to be: more strategic, less reactive, and supported by a team that was strong and dependable.”
“I DON’T THINK OF MYSELF AS A FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR.”
Ms Tan is measured and clear-eyed on the subject of gender. “To me, an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur.” When asked what are her thought on the old idiom that behind every successful man stands a woman, she doesn’t hesitate. “If I were to rewrite that idiom, it wouldn’t be about who stands in front or behind. It would be: ownership and resilience aren’t gendered. Neither is success.”
By choosing to bleed happy and loud, periods today no longer just end sentences. They spark conversations.
This article was first published by NUS Enterprise in Enterprise Sparks. It has been republished with minor edits in accordance with The AlumNUS’ house style.
