Hello.

Public Culture was founded in 2013 by lifelong friends, Melissa Tai and Tina Tan. Although we were pretty good students in school, we quickly realised we didn’t like playing by industry rules at work. We didn’t appreciate the bureaucracy, the unnecessary overheads, the bloated processes, the segregation between “creatives” and everyone else. So we developed an alternative.

We have championed small businesses our entire careers — we were even commissioned to develop three issues of a publication exploring the art of growing a small business. As small business owners ourselves, we get that running your own company takes grit, sweat, heart, hope, soul. Your work very quickly becomes your whole life.

Today, we are a lean team of five women with many different skills. Some of us are methodical and analytical; some of us are more experimental and playful. But we all are grounded by the same few things: Hard work. Innate curiosity. Courage, and sometimes sheer bullheadedness. Trust and friendship above all.