June 3, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Anya Cheng, the unstoppable founder of Taelor.Style, an AI-driven clothing rental service for busy men who hate laundry and love looking sharp. From handing out resumes outside campus buildings to building a company that merges sustainability, tech, and style, Anya's journey is equal parts inspiring, resourceful, and, honestly, a little wild. If you’ve ever felt like giving up, this one will give you a tailored kick of motivation.
Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, be sure to check out SoloSuite Intro!
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Episode Transcript
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Carly Ries (00:00):
Ever feel like you're doing everything and
(00:02):
still getting nowhere? AnyaCheng gets it. She went from
sleeping on couches and handingout business cards at conference
exits to raising millions andlaunching an AI powered fashion
company that's changing the gamefor busy men and the planet. In
this episode, you'll hear howshe used her reporter roots to
land her first job, tested astartup idea with zero product,
(00:22):
and found success by embracingher strengths. It's part startup
story, part survival guide, and100% inspiration for
solopreneurs ready to bet onthemselves.
You're listening to the AspiringSolopreneur, the podcast for
those just taking the bold stepor even just thinking about
taking that step into the worldof solo entrepreneurship. My
(00:46):
name is Carly Ries, and mycohost, Joe Rando, and I are
your guides to navigating thiscrazy but awesome journey as a
company of one. We take pride inbeing part of LifeStarr, a
digital hub dedicated to allaspects of solopreneur that has
empowered and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
(01:08):
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you.
So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
(01:29):
alone. Oh, Anya, we are soexcited to have you on the show
today because you have such aunique business that you run
that I feel like is very timelyin the age of AI. I just love
speaking with entrepreneursabout an outside of the box
idea, and you have definitelydone that. So first of all,
(01:51):
welcome to the show.
We are so happy to have you.
Anya Cheng (01:54):
Hello. This is Anya Cheng from Silicon Valley. I'm
running a company tailored. Wehelp busy men to get ready for
their day and also help theissue that 30% of clothes go
directly from factory tolandfill.
So we help to resolve thatsustainability issue too. And
before starting the company, Iwas fifteen years in big tech
companies before, most recent atMeta, where I helped build out
(02:17):
Facebook, Instagram shopping.Was at eBay as the head of
product, helped them to buildnew business in The US, new
market in Latin America, Africa,Asia. Was a senior director at
McDonald's, helped them build afood delivery business globally
when Uber just started, andhelped Target to build its tech
office here in Silicon Valley.I'm excited to share more.
Carly Ries (02:35):
Well, you have quite the resume. But I like, it's
nice because solopreneurs, like,everybody starts somewhere. And
you started somewhere, butyou've made quite the name for
yourself, whether it was in anyof those companies that you just
mentioned or for Taylor's style,which is so incredible. But I
think when people are startingfrom the beginning, they wanna
(02:56):
hear a success story like you.They wanna hear from where you
started.
So you have described thatarriving in The US with limited
English at first was kind of abarrier, but it gave you that
resilience. it made you pushforward and there was a steep
learning curve, but you overcameit. Can you talk about just some
(03:17):
of those obstacles you facedwhen you were getting started?
Just because I think it's sorelatable for so many
solopreneurs out there.
Anya Cheng (03:24):
Yeah. Sure. Sure. I came to The US in 2008.
And I graduated in 2008 fromNorthwestern University in a
master degree. And before that,I was a reporter back in Taiwan.
So I unfortunately graduated in2008 when Lehman Brothers went
bankruptcy. So there was no jobanywhere. I wasn't even get into
(03:46):
campus recordings from my ownschool.
So I will wait outside forbecause the different school
have their own campusrecruiting. Right? Engineering
school, history school, lawschool, medical school. So I'll
wait outside for every school inthe buildings. And as soon as
the reporter, the hiring managercame out, If looks like
reporter, I will give them myresume.
And people say that's crazybecause I actually didn't get
(04:09):
any interview from that crazyambush anyway. But I think
looking back was because therewas something I knew how to do.
I was a reporter before. Sothere was a hope that carried me
continue to try again. And thetry again thing allowed me to
continue to try and eventuallysucceed.
So after the ambushy, I wasn'tsuccessful. People say, you
(04:31):
should networking. Networking isbest way to find a job. But I
didn't know anyone. Oh, well,that's not true.
I was a student. I kinda knewevery single professor. So I
will knock on the door of everyprofessor and I give him my
resume. And one day there was aprofessor say, I don't know you.
I cannot refer you to any job.
But tomorrow, I'm hosting theevent. You can come talk. Hear
(04:54):
about the talk. And by the way,bring more students. We need
more, we need less empty seats.
Bring them. So I went there. Italked to the speaker. Her name
is Peggy. She own a farmersmagazine company for farmers.
So I said, this is amazing talk.This is my resume. She said,
okay. Great. I will refer you toour recruiter.
(05:15):
So I got on the interview. Thejob was perfect. It was an
amazing company with somemarketing role, which is perfect
for my background. No onefollow-up with me. For a couple
of weeks, I follow-up with therecruiter.
She said, stop calling me. I gotlaid off. Even the hiring
manager, the recruiter got laidoff. So I said, oh, since you
have nothing to do, do you wannacome out for a coffee? So we
(05:38):
grabbed a coffee.
She told me a lot about thecompany, about the audience,
their challenges. She also gaveme an idea that, have you heard
of New York? New York and LA arebigger city than Chicago. Bigger
city have more people have morejob. So with that idea in mind,
I print out 2,000 alumni fromthe school.
I start going on the trip forthose two cities and I stay on
(05:59):
different friends' houses, thecouches every few days and I
start cold calling those alumni.I even bought the newspaper on
the street because it says thepublisher name, he also say if
you want to advertise, call thisnumber. And at that time, I was
very interested in working formedia company. So I bought all
the newspaper from thenewsstand. I start calling each
(06:20):
of them.
And for some reason, I did meetwith New York Times CEO, CN's
VP. I guess they thought I'm anadvertiser, so I called their
number. So they met with me. butno one was hiring. It was a
little bit working becausepeople do talk to me.
So I thought I need to gosomewhere that I can meet a lot
more people, not one by one.Conference. But conference are
(06:43):
very expensive. So I call amagazine company back in Taiwan.
I say, hey, do you want me tocover this amazing conference
for free?
They say, oh, yeah. Soundsgreat. So I call the conference.
Hey. I'm a reporter from Taiwan.
I wanna press tickets. So then Igot in a conference. Again,
people say, you are crazy. Howdid you come up with this? But I
(07:03):
think my only job before thatwas a reporter.
That's the only thing I knew. SoI'm sure people who are
listening, you have somethingthat you know, And that's your
strengths. People will thinkthat's crazy using that skill
set, but you won't think thatway because you are really good.
So eventually, I met with a lotof people for two months, but no
one gave me any job. I went backto Chicago.
(07:25):
I was ready to give up and packback to Taiwan. Suddenly, had an
idea. Remember the recruiter whogot laid off? She told me a lot
about the company. So I learneda lot from other company who are
their competitors.
Those ideas can be used for thecompany. So I went, interviewed
the audience who are farmers. Iopened the magazine. I start
calling of advertiser who aretheir advertiser. So I put
(07:49):
together a business plan.
This is what New York Times isdoing. This is what your
recruiter told me you guysshould be doing. This is what
your audience and youradvertisers say. And I put
together a business plan Ipitched to Paki, the CEO of a
company. She asked me onequestions.
Would you like to be acontractor? My English were
really bad. I didn't know whatcontractor means. So I say yes.
(08:12):
I went home.
I Google contractor and didn'tknow why she want me to be a
plumber. But the contractor isthere. I got my first job in The
US.
Carly Ries (08:23):
You know what I love about that is that solopreneurs,
they think they put theirbusiness out there and then they
think people will come or theyget discouraged and so they just
go through like the regularmarketing tactics, regular sales
approaches. You thought sooutside of the box for all of
that. And I just think it's soinspiring to hear because I
(08:44):
think it can be applied to thesolopreneur journey as well when
you're trying to get clients,trying to find customers. Think
of other ways you can getexposure rather than just the
traditional methods. So that'sso fun.
I love that story. But topiggyback off of that, so you
were people were saying you havecrazy ideas, but one of your
maybe crazy ideas was Taylor andyour new company. But some
(09:09):
people have some really uniqueideas and they don't get that
traction. So what is youradvice, I would say, for how to
test a business idea from thebeginning? And what kind of
benchmarks should people watchfrom the start?
Anya Cheng (09:25):
Yeah. So I started Taylor when it was the idea that
when I was working for Meta oneBay, I was only few female
immigrant leaders over there. Iled large technology team. I
didn't came from techbackground. I was the marketing
girl.
But I worked my way up overtime, become head of product and
(09:47):
leading large teams. So I felt alittle bit impostor syndrome and
I started, well, I wanna lookgreat. I'm thinking if I'm
freaking out, but peopleshouldn't find out that I'm
freaking out, at least thatlooks like boss. So I tried some
subscription boxes like StitchFix, but you have to buy from
every single shipment. And Itried some rental companies,
Rent the Runway, Newly by UrbanOutfitters, who are which are
(10:09):
both public company with millionof users.
And also tries that company thatare more a woman's rental
company, but all of them requireyou to browsing through
thousands of garments. And therewas a moment that I realized
most of fashion companies arefor people who are into fashion,
not for people like me who justwant to get ready for the day
and be successful.
Joe Rando (10:29):
That's why you went after men. I was wondering why
you're targeting men with thiswhen when you could target women
who are much more interested infashion. But now I understand.
It's like you wanna get peoplethat don't wanna deal with it,
and I get it.
Anya Cheng (10:42):
Yeah. So we were thinking like, who else think
like me who hate shopping, whohate laundry, but need to look
good. Sales guy, recruiter,pastor, professor, single guy
who are not into fashion. Theyonly know five brands.
They only have the same stuff intheir closet. They have been
wearing the same thing in thelast ten years, but they
(11:02):
actually need to do good. To geta job, get a date, close a deal.
So that's why Taylor was more.
Joe Rando (11:08):
That's not me by the way. I am none of those. Oh,
well.
Anya Cheng (11:15):
Yeah. For people who hate laundry, here
Joe Rando (11:18):
I do hate laundry. So I got that one.
Anya Cheng (11:22):
Yeah. And for people who travel too, like, sometimes
with monthly fee, we style them.So say if they travel, they can
change your address, and we willship the package to say New York
or Florida. So then they gothere, they wear the clothes for
a couple of weeks. Once they aredone, they return the dirty
clothes, put into returnenvelope.
(11:44):
They can buy something if theywant to. It's huge discounted
because it's secondhand butstill like new. And then they
can or they could go home andwithout doing any laundry or
shop shopping. And when they gothome, the new packaging has
arrived. It's little bit likeNetflix for outfit.
So for people, they canconstantly try something
different and pair byprofessional stylist and AI. But
(12:06):
at the same time, they help tosolve the environment issue
instead of burning thoseclothes, the clothes find a new
home. So in terms of how westarted, we start with what we
call minimum viable product,which is just a landing page. We
pay $10 on Shopify. We set ideasover there and say, have an
email box.
Say, if you are interested, sendus your email to get on the
(12:27):
waitlist. It was right beforeThanksgiving and we launched the
website and we don't thinkanyone will find out the
website. By the time I wasasking someone email me. He say,
hey, I'm on the waitlist. Canyou bump me up?
I thought he's a scam. Like, wewere nobody. Who is going to
wanting to get on the waitlistand bump up the spot? So I
(12:48):
ignore him. Right beforeChristmas, the guy called me.
Somehow he connect me onLinkedIn. I accepted. He saw my
phone number. He called me. Hesaid, I'm a real estate agent.
My name is Michael. I reallylike your stuff. I have you on
waitlist for two months. Youmust be really popular. That's
why I'm still not get on yet.
We were nobody. We just didn'thave a starter service yet. So
(13:10):
he said, I really like the blueshirt on your website homepage.
Can you send that to me? Wechecked.
We realized he's a real guy. Sowe went to department store,
bought whole bunch of stuff, putinto the box in the post office,
ship it out to him, and hebecame our first customer. So
from there, we found out therewere actually around hundred
people on the wait list throughwe find we posted everywhere,
(13:33):
and then from there, we servedthe hundred of them, and we
learned.
Joe Rando (13:38):
So how did those hundred people find you? What
did you do to get noticed by ahundred people probably more
than a hundred people if you gota hundred signed up?
Anya Cheng (13:47):
We're just posting in multiple groups and like pass
along to different places. It'snot that hard for a hundred
only. It's probably not thathard. Even people just put their
email.
They don't even pay yet at thetime. Right? So then we start
outreach back, say, hey, you areinterested. Would you like to
try? but the goal for thehundred is not that much.
(14:09):
The goal for the hundred isabout learning. Like, we learn
what people really want. Becausein order to build a business, we
will need some outsideinvestors. But if you don't know
what you're going to need themoney for, then you cannot build
a great business story orbusiness plans to have people to
give you the money. So for thehundred people simply just for
(14:31):
us to learn, like we've chargedthem pretty cheap, they have a
price of what we have now.
Now we are serving the $79 andthat time is even way much less.
So for them, it's just more forus to learn about what they are
looking for.
Joe Rando (14:44):
But you really proved the concept by advertising the
product without having theproduct. And then kind of kludge
what we say, kludge together aproduct to satisfy some of the
demand, and then but you knew.And that's such a great lesson
because, you know, that'ssomething I wish I had learned
twenty years ago, to do thatinstead of, you know, build it
(15:07):
out and get it all done and thenshow the world, and then you go,
oh, we didn't hit it right, Andwe gotta change
Anya Cheng (15:14):
One thing I found very helpful was a retesting
with customers because inbeginning we thought a lot, I
hope you have a business planasking successful entrepreneur,
but end up what we found was thebest way just testing. And then
also sometimes best way just youjust want opportunity lead to on
the other. Like for example, howdo we get our first supplier? So
(15:37):
we thought that it would begreat to get on the WWD, which
is a trade publication in thefashion industry. If we get on,
there should be plenty ofsupplier.
So I went to a conference herein the Bay Area Tech Quanch. I
was trying to get on the news.So I wait outside of newsroom.
As soon as the reporter came outagain, I give him my business
(15:57):
card. It's time, not resume.
The business card is time. And Iactually met with the reporter
here, WWD reporter. But Ifollowed up a few times. She
never get back to me. Andeventually she got back to me
and said, please stop emailingme.
I'm not interested in the story.So I move on. A month after, she
emailed me back. She said, I'mstill not interested in the
(16:18):
story. But for some reason, mycolleague actually very
interested in the story.
So I'm connecting you two. Wehad a great interview for Orban
Howard. The reporter really getsit. He was so excited about the
idea. Tomorrow, he's going to beon homepage. Nothing came out.
For a couple months, the storynever came out. We went out of
startup competition. We won theWest Coast championships, And we
(16:41):
will move on to Chicago final.
It's a startup competitionhosted by University of Chicago,
where I was an alum. But I'malso teaching at Northwestern
University. So I thought it willbe an interesting story if
Northwestern University faculty,me, actually win the University
of Chicago startup competitionbecause those two are rivalry
(17:01):
school. So but meanwhile, I careabout the news unless it's a
student publication. So I callednewspaper of the Northwestern
University.
I say, hey, we might actuallywin the rivalry school's
championship as a faculty. Sothe newspaper, student newspaper
publish it. If the bar isn'tthat high, it's a student
newspaper. And somehow localChicago local ABC News picked up
(17:25):
a story from the studentnewspaper, and they invite me to
be on the morning show. Afterthe morning show come out, I
took the news clip.
I sent to the WWD reporter. Isay, hey, you may wanna use this
to convince your boss because Iremember you like the story for
some reason, never came out. Youcan use this to convince your
supervisor. And the next day,the news came out. And from that
(17:47):
news, we got the first supplierfrom Canada.
He did sell the news and hereached out to us and became our
first supplier. It was one, wegot two, eventually now we have
300.
Joe Rando (17:57):
And basically the lesson here is tenacity pays. I
mean, that's what we're hearing.
Carly Ries (18:05):
The lesson here is if I ever need to get anything
done, I'm calling Anya. Is thereal lesson. Okay. So I want us
to go back because AI is a bigpart of your business, and I
kinda wanna ask a chicken andthe egg question. And that's for
solopreneurs who want tointegrate AI into their
(18:26):
business, do you think it's bestto start with a fully human
service first and then layer itin?
Or start with tech first andthen do the the human side or do
it all together?
Anya Cheng (18:38):
I think it's more either way. I think some of the
best things will probably bringme still AI was human in the
loop. But I don't think anyonehas answered, but now that
people use it in multiple wayand you can think which one
works best for you. One is thatpeople we have well, I just need
to speak in the CMO conference.And on the panel, two people
(18:59):
actually have totally oppositepoints of view.
I think both of them make sense,but totally different. One
person say, you know, I reallythink AI is going to replace all
of the specialists. Because ifyou specialize in something, AI
is the specialty person. If youtake example for our stylist,
then AI actually have is millionstylist knowledge behind
(19:23):
replacing the stylist, which weare offering to the customer
today. And the speakers say,because if you are generalist so
that you can give the high levelstrategy while you know what
needs to be done veryspecifically, you have AI to do
so.
While the other speakers say, Ithink it's the opposite. It's
(19:45):
more of if you are a specialist,you actually do it mostly
yourself. But then when it'smore general, which is not very
deep and does not require reallydeep knowledge, then this is
where your AI come in. So Ithink both probably right, you
probably need some general ideafrom yourself where you can
leverage AI to help you. Butthen also if you are a
(20:06):
specialist yourself really knowvery well how to use a tool, you
can use a tool still make surethe result is perfect and more
productivity.
So I don't think either one isthe only way to go. But one
thing I think everyone shouldknow is that the era of AI is
all about unique data. So usingproductivity tool is something
(20:29):
simple like over time, you justwill be like using Google,
everybody know how to use itusing Gmail. So I think the true
number one thing that event willhelp you really stand out is do
you have something very uniquedata that you have and no one
else have.
Joe Rando (20:44):
That you can train the AI with that unique data.
Anya Cheng (20:47):
Yeah. Because building agent, AI agent is
going to be a lot easier. Justlike building website, today you
pay $10 Shopify, you can build awebsite. The same thing, soon
the AI agent is going to be soeasy. As long as you bring your
unique data that no one elsehas, then you are the king.
For example, at Taylor, we knowcustomer's true preference.
(21:07):
Customer pay a monthly fee. Sowhen they are picking the
clothes, our stylist pick theclothes, but we stay at
collaborations, then it'sactually what they truly like,
not because impacted by thediscount. They think of if you
buy something from the store,usually what you buy or not is
not because you like it only.It's also because the discount
rate.
(21:28):
Right? But differently, when youwatch Netflix show, which show
you watch has nothing to do withthe discount. We already pay the
monthly fee. The same for us.When you wear the clothes is
what you really like.
Also, we are monthlysubscription. So you can stop
anytime, but most of ourcustomers find it better and
better every month because theAI knows you better and better.
(21:49):
We also have human stylists whowork side by side with you to
make sure AI pick your perfectoutfit. So then human stylists
know you better as well. So weget feedback right away.
And those are unique feedbackthat other people may not get.
We also have human stylists thatclaim to their knowledge and not
know how. We also know thefuture because we work with over
(22:10):
300 brand and AI only know thepast and not the future. But we
work with those brand. They aredesigning collection two years
down the road.
We wash our clothes. So it'srental. we wash your clothes,
send to other people. So we knowthe true quality of a garment
better than the fashion brandbecause after they outsource to
multiple manufacturers,sometimes they don't even know
the true quality of theirgarment. And we also combine. we
(22:34):
bought two companies, they haveten years of styling data.
So we combine all of theseunique data into large language
model and become the goal thingsand that is differentiating
ourselves for others.
Carly Ries (22:45):
One, you're one of those fascinating people I've
ever met. I am loving thisconversation so much, but I
wanna circle back with somethingyou said earlier because you
were talking about theenvironment. And for
solopreneurs, they do wanna beprofitable, but they're also
very values driven. So whatlessons from your sustainability
mission would you could youshare about aligning purpose and
(23:06):
profit from day one?
Anya Cheng (23:08):
Yeah. So for example, what we found was that
we are in a business of slowfashions. So fast fashion means
you buy something that theyproduce really quickly after
capturing the trend, but thenthe clothes can only be wear for
a few times because in order tomake it so fast, has to be not
very durable. And what we foundthat how we make money is that
people, number one, rent theclothes because they pay monthly
(23:31):
fee, say, dollars 79 or $100they get to wear 10 clothes per
month. And every time thegarment being rented, we
actually make money.
So from the get go, we onlysource high quality clothes. It
could be very well known in TheUS or it could be the number one
brand in Italy. It's a very highquality brand, but it's not yet
(23:52):
available in The US. So for us,we make money because with high
quality garment, you can rentmore times. We also make more
money because with a highquality garment after people
wear, they still feel supercomfortable, so they tend to buy
it.
So we make money from both ofsubscription and also when they
buy the clothes and align withsustainability because it's more
(24:14):
durable. Or for example, today,30% of the clothes get burned
from factory directly tolandfill because it's really
hard to predict the inventoryneeded. It results in 10% of
carbon emission, 20% of pollutedwater in the world. Fashion is
the not the one off, is the mostpolluted industry in the world
(24:35):
alongside constructions. Soinstead of burning those
clothes, now we help them fromTurkey or Italy or Paris or
Japan.
They find a new home here in TheUS because we style those , and
then we help those busy men totry those new outfit and they
get to know new brand. So Ithink you should think about
(24:55):
look at your unique economy,where is your spend and where
you make money. In our case, ourspend is the shipping cost, is
the laundry cost, is theinventory cost, and our money is
the subscription boxes ofmonthly fee $70 or $100 and also
the money when people buybranded clothes. And we can
(25:15):
align with sustainabilitybecause if we get those brands
who are not well known but highquality, the cost of inventory
is lower. And we can make moremoney because if you rent more
times, it's high quality, sothen we make more money from
subscriptions.
Carly Ries (25:32):
It just it all sounds like such a well oiled
machine at this point, and Iknow it wasn't always that case.
And you've actually describedthe founder's journey as a
lonely path and why mentorshipand peer groups and all that are
so important. So what practicaladvice do you have for
solopreneurs to build thatsupport network early on?
Anya Cheng (25:55):
Yeah. I found that I'm still learning as well even
today. I think most of people,especially solopreneurs, you are
trying you always say goodthings. Right? You really
actually share the strugglingfor people because you always
want people to think that youare the best person that people
should come to you for coachingand consulting and service.
But I think number one, I thinkpeople who are a little bit
(26:19):
ahead of you is always helpful.Like, and you may not always get
that, but then I think start bybeing the persons and you open
opportunity. For example, Irecently met with a lot of few
entrepreneurs who just started.So I start helping them on, hey,
I'm having this investormeeting. If you come like half
an hour after, which is whenwe're about ending the meeting,
(26:41):
I will connect you, introduceyou in the coffee shop.
And if the investor is notleaving, you might get the
opportunity to have anotherconversation right there. And by
doing so, because for me, it'sjust very simple like, hey, you
guys shoot me and and bye if youguys can continue conversation.
But for the entrepreneur is hugebeneficial. Right? Because now
(27:02):
he can just come show out there.
Now he meet with an importantinvestor. So after the
conversation, that entrepreneuractually became our investor
because he say, I want you toalways remember me and always
open those doors for me. And Iknow being just an angel
investor for $20,000 a reallysmall amount, now I can buy this
(27:22):
opportunity for next seven yearswhen I'm running a business. So
sometimes you just find theperson just a little bit ahead
of you or being the personthat's ahead of others, you
might see opportunities as itactually came out. For example,
although we are not soloentrepreneur because we do raise
(27:42):
money, but how we raise moneywas that I reach out to a
professor back to my school, andthat professor connects someone
who is another entrepreneur tome.
In that conversation, I wassupposed to ask the entrepreneur
to refer his investor to me, butI forgot. I was just genuinely
(28:03):
curious about his business. heowns security camera business. I
used to work for Facebook. Wehelp launch a Facebook
connectivity in Africa.
So I connect a whole bunch ofbodyguard at the time to him.
And few weeks after, he circledback to me. I said, Anya, thank
you so much for those amazingleads of a client. How can I
(28:23):
help you? And what was thereason that you reached out at
the beginning?
I said, ah, I forgot that I wastrying to ask you for investor
connections. So he connect me tohis investor and in half an
hour, we raised $2,000,000. So Ithink just sometimes it's quite
obvious there when you're notlooking and the best way to
(28:44):
build this in a support or in anetwork, you just start by
thinking how can I help?
Joe Rando (28:48):
Great advice.
Carly Ries (28:50):
It is. And I just at this point don't know when you
sleep. You seem like a very busyperson and you seem just so
driven that I have to imagineyou have your off days as
everybody does. So what pushesyou to keep going during those
off days? What's your why?
And how can solopreneurs findthat why to have the drive like
(29:11):
you have? Because it is soinspirational.
Anya Cheng (29:14):
I think you should know that people are like, when
we are looking at social media,people only post good things.
Right? So every time when yousee that, imagine what's behind
and using the story. Forexample, last year, you probably
I didn't post it, but if I postit, it will be a picture where I
(29:35):
host a whole a champagne in abusiness class airplane. And the
headline will be such an amazingtrip in New York.
I learned so much and meet withamazing, the founder of a little
public company and these largestconsumer investor VCs out there.
Cheers saying, go, Taylor. Butthe real story behind I didn't
(29:56):
post it. But the real storybehind was that we were looking
for supply investors in NewYork. I booked a conference over
there.
I try to save money. So I'm 42years old. I stay in my friend's
couch and you it's New York. Soit's on the First Floor. So I
can hear the next door's karaokegoing on.
I can hear people walking by.And obviously, three hours
(30:19):
different here in San Francisco.I pretty much couldn't sleep
until like 04:00 because it'sthree time hour different. And
also people walking by, theoutside was really loud, noisy
in New York. And New York's isfull of old houses.
So I can hear people upstairswalking over and flash the
toilets. So I pretty muchcouldn't sleep. It was a hundred
(30:39):
degree. It was heat waved in themorning because in order to save
money, my friend live insuburbs, so I have to go to the
city. And once I go to a city,he's going to all day activity,
including conference in theevening.
So I carry this littleconference pop up banners with a
whole bunch of other like reallyheavy like flyers and giveaway
stuff and with giant backpackwith my computer because my
(31:02):
meeting have a meetings callcome out with my high heel go
on, was a hundred degree. I runto the railroad. And then as
soon as I about get on thetrain, I asked the person, hey.
This is going to Manhattan.Right?
They said, no. It's on the otherside of the railroad. So then I
(31:22):
got off there and quickly runover. You know you have to go
upstairs and go all the way theother side. So I already see the
train coming with my high heeland I my nose start bleeding
because it was heat wave wasvery dry.
I stopped bleeding. Eventually,I get on the train.
then get on the train, trainstopped because the heat wave,
(31:43):
so somehow the electricity wentoff, have an issue. So I was
stuck on the train for twohours. Eventually, almost three
hours, I arrived in New Jersey.
When I got into the restaurant,the person was late for another
hour, we wait there. Soon whenhe arrived, somehow out of
electricity because heat waveagain. So it was in the dark. We
(32:04):
have the candles right next tous. We had a conversation.
On the way back, because heatwave again, so the train
actually stopped us. He saidhe's coming. I was waiting on
the platform for two hours. Thetrain never come. Eventually
come back to the conference, Iwas so tired and hungry.
I realized the ticket I boughtwas a cheaper ticket that I
(32:24):
cannot get in to eat dinner. SoI have to wait outside because I
want to network with people whoare eating dinners there. So I
wait outside with my businesscard. As soon as people walk out
the conference of the dinnerroom, I give them my business
card. Hello.
I'm Anya. And for that, I didlike three days. On the day
three, I got into a lunchmeeting, which I didn't have
(32:49):
time to eat lunch because it wasonly meal that I can get in in a
conference. So I was trying touse my all of my time to
networking with everybody, getas many business cards as
possible. I remember they servelobster and fried rice.
I grabbed the fried rice becauseI think who has time for
lobster? But as soon as Igrabbed the fried rice, someone
came by. I started networking.So after networking done, backed
(33:13):
to my seat. I realized the mealis ended.
So but luckily, the lady next tome actually saved me some fried
rice. I was very appreciative. Iput the fried rice into the to
go box, and I was ready to headto a airport. It was 4PM. So I
head to airport, heat wave,electricity went off.
So I wait for two and a halfhours to checking my baggage. By
(33:36):
the time my turn, the flight wasgone. So they say you have to
wait again for another two hoursto rebook your flight, which is
another line. I wait for anothertwo hours and my turn, they say
you have to rebuy the wholeflight ticket. Suddenly, I was
totally meltdown.
I start crying as I don't havemoney to buy the ticket again.
(33:59):
And the flight attendant say,okay, how about this? You can
come tomorrow at 3AM. If you canget in, there's only chance is a
06:00 flight, which is onlyflight still have a little bit
opening. If you stand by early,you might have a chance to get
on the tickets.
So by the time that she told methat it was already 10PM, I
(34:22):
still have the to go box of thefried rice in my hands. So I
called my friend and going, canI go back to your living room?
So he said yes. I took the Uberback there. It was 11PM.
My first meal of day of theirfried rice. And next after just
two hours leave, 3AM, I wentback to the airport. I was the
last person got in the standbyticket, and the only ticket left
(34:47):
was a business class, so theygave it to me. There was a real
story behind the jumping guys ofa business class.
Joe Rando (34:53):
You didn't post that on Instagram.
Anya Cheng (34:56):
Yeah. I think most people's life. But when you see
people's life, amazing lifethere, there's a real story
behind for every entrepreneur,solo entrepreneur, or every
successful story. People justdon't share it.
For example, at that time, Ididn't feel ready to share it. I
feel like I'm struggling. Whatgood am I to sharing? People
just want to laugh at me or Ihave nothing to teach. I'm not
(35:18):
successful yet.
So I didn't post it. But if Ipost it, you will be the
champagne guys with a biscuitclass.
Carly Ries (35:24):
So what keeps you going? Like why did you keep
doing that? What is that northstar that you're like, it's all
worth it? What is your why?
Anya Cheng (35:32):
I think that it's something that I feel that I'm
using my strengths, so then Iwilling to try again. Like the
same story back on the jobsearch and because I was a
reporter, so waiting outsidewasn't too hard. So I can try
one more time. Because I was areporter, so covering a
conference story wasn't toohard. I was a reporter, so
buying newspaper and co callingthose publisher just like
(35:55):
reporter asking for new sourcewasn't too hard.
So when I think of my strengths,then I'm not afraid. I think
your strengths will be differentfrom mine. You might be like,
I'm the best person who knows alot logistics. So if I thinking
about how the best optimizing mytime, I do better. Or I'm just a
person who have connection withwhatever oil industry or farmer
(36:19):
industry because my I grew up inthis neighborhood.
Why? But everyone has thisunique superpower in you from
your connection, from yourknowledge or your previous
experience. And if you use yourstrengths, you are willing to
try one more time. And it's likethe chicken inside the egg. If
you try one time, two times,three times, after 49 times, you
(36:40):
crack.
But in fact, you don't knowwhich time actually crack it to
help the following time. Youonly know that, should I only do
the forty ninth time? Probablynot because you probably
previous few times help oneventually crack out of the egg.
But you don't know. So just tryone more time.
But when you try, think aboutwhat you are good at. Because if
(37:00):
you are good at, you are notafraid. When you are not afraid,
you feel like there's light inthe tunnel. You have the courage
to try again.
Joe Rando (37:09):
You know, there's an old saying that people love to
attribute to Albert Einstein,which is the definition of
insanity is doing the same thingover and over again and
expecting a different result.And yet in business, what you
just said, you keep trying andtrying and trying and trying. My
wife is a child therapist. Shesaid, you know, the only way to
(37:30):
rewire a child's brain is tokeep doing the same thing over
and over till it rewire. So Ithink I don't know that Albert
actually said that, but I thinkthat we have dispelled that myth
of that being the definition ofinsanity.
That you gotta keep trying andbanging away, hitting your head
against the wall until it gives.
Carly Ries (37:48):
Well, Anya, you've been so motivational today. I
have no doubt that this episodewill help solopreneurs keep
chipping away and finding thatsuccess of their own. So we have
to ask, what is your favoritequote about success?
Anya Cheng (38:00):
I think leverage you as friends so that you don't
give up.
Carly Ries (38:05):
Oh, that's a good one. Well, where can people
learn more about you, more aboutTaylor? Anything you wanna
share?
Anya Cheng (38:13):
Yeah. So give you a try, how use Taylor to save your
time and looks great,confidence, ready for your day.
And don't worry about laundry orshopping. Focus on your solo
business. Focus on your clients,your suppliers, and resources,
and whatever your next big idea.
So go on taelor.style. And usethe code podcast 25, p o d c a s
(38:40):
t 25 to get 25% off first month.And if you wanna partner with
us, we are always looking forambassadors. We have matchmaker,
career coach, life coach,fitness center coach, school
centers are our partners.
If you wanna partner with us, wehelp to co marketing your
(39:01):
business and our service alsomight be helpful for your
clients or people who aresurrounding you. So reach out to
me at Anya, that'sanya@taelor.ai we'd love to work
with you.
Carly Ries (39:15):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so so much for coming
on the show today. I thoroughlyenjoyed this episode. And
listeners, thank you so much fortuning in. As always, leave that
five star review.
But for real this time, at,like, every other time,
subscribe on your favoriteplatform, including YouTube, and
we will see you next time on theaspiring solopreneur. You may be
(39:39):
going solo in business, but thatdoesn't mean you're alone. In
fact, millions of people are inyour shoes, running a one person
business and figuring it out asthey go. So why not connect with
them and learn from each other'ssuccesses and failures? At
LifeStarr, we're creating a oneperson business community where
you can go to meet and getadvice from other solopreneurs.
Be sure to join in on theconversations at
(40:00):
community.lifestarr.com.
Ever feel like you're doing everything and
(00:02):
still getting nowhere? AnyaCheng gets it. She went from
sleeping on couches and handingout business cards at conference
exits to raising millions andlaunching an AI powered fashion
company that's changing the gamefor busy men and the planet. In
this episode, you'll hear howshe used her reporter roots to
land her first job, tested astartup idea with zero product,
(00:22):
and found success by embracingher strengths. It's part startup
story, part survival guide, and100% inspiration for
solopreneurs ready to bet onthemselves.
You're listening to the AspiringSolopreneur, the podcast for
those just taking the bold stepor even just thinking about
taking that step into the worldof solo entrepreneurship. My
(00:46):
name is Carly Ries, and mycohost, Joe Rando, and I are
your guides to navigating thiscrazy but awesome journey as a
company of one. We take pride inbeing part of LifeStarr, a
digital hub dedicated to allaspects of solopreneur that has
empowered and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
(01:08):
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you.
So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
(01:29):
alone. Oh, Anya, we are soexcited to have you on the show
today because you have such aunique business that you run
that I feel like is very timelyin the age of AI. I just love
speaking with entrepreneursabout an outside of the box
idea, and you have definitelydone that. So first of all,
(01:51):
welcome to the show.
We are so happy to have you.
Anya Cheng (01:54):
Hello. This is Anya Cheng from Silicon Valley. I'm
running a company tailored. Wehelp busy men to get ready for
their day and also help theissue that 30% of clothes go
directly from factory tolandfill.
So we help to resolve thatsustainability issue too. And
before starting the company, Iwas fifteen years in big tech
companies before, most recent atMeta, where I helped build out
(02:17):
Facebook, Instagram shopping.Was at eBay as the head of
product, helped them to buildnew business in The US, new
market in Latin America, Africa,Asia. Was a senior director at
McDonald's, helped them build afood delivery business globally
when Uber just started, andhelped Target to build its tech
office here in Silicon Valley.I'm excited to share more.
Carly Ries (02:35):
Well, you have quite the resume. But I like, it's
nice because solopreneurs, like,everybody starts somewhere. And
you started somewhere, butyou've made quite the name for
yourself, whether it was in anyof those companies that you just
mentioned or for Taylor's style,which is so incredible. But I
think when people are startingfrom the beginning, they wanna
(02:56):
hear a success story like you.They wanna hear from where you
started.
So you have described thatarriving in The US with limited
English at first was kind of abarrier, but it gave you that
resilience. it made you pushforward and there was a steep
learning curve, but you overcameit. Can you talk about just some
(03:17):
of those obstacles you facedwhen you were getting started?
Just because I think it's sorelatable for so many
solopreneurs out there.
Anya Cheng (03:24):
Yeah. Sure. Sure. I came to The US in 2008.
And I graduated in 2008 fromNorthwestern University in a
master degree. And before that,I was a reporter back in Taiwan.
So I unfortunately graduated in2008 when Lehman Brothers went
bankruptcy. So there was no jobanywhere. I wasn't even get into
(03:46):
campus recordings from my ownschool.
So I will wait outside forbecause the different school
have their own campusrecruiting. Right? Engineering
school, history school, lawschool, medical school. So I'll
wait outside for every school inthe buildings. And as soon as
the reporter, the hiring managercame out, If looks like
reporter, I will give them myresume.
And people say that's crazybecause I actually didn't get
(04:09):
any interview from that crazyambush anyway. But I think
looking back was because therewas something I knew how to do.
I was a reporter before. Sothere was a hope that carried me
continue to try again. And thetry again thing allowed me to
continue to try and eventuallysucceed.
So after the ambushy, I wasn'tsuccessful. People say, you
(04:31):
should networking. Networking isbest way to find a job. But I
didn't know anyone. Oh, well,that's not true.
I was a student. I kinda knewevery single professor. So I
will knock on the door of everyprofessor and I give him my
resume. And one day there was aprofessor say, I don't know you.
I cannot refer you to any job.
But tomorrow, I'm hosting theevent. You can come talk. Hear
(04:54):
about the talk. And by the way,bring more students. We need
more, we need less empty seats.
Bring them. So I went there. Italked to the speaker. Her name
is Peggy. She own a farmersmagazine company for farmers.
So I said, this is amazing talk.This is my resume. She said,
okay. Great. I will refer you toour recruiter.
(05:15):
So I got on the interview. Thejob was perfect. It was an
amazing company with somemarketing role, which is perfect
for my background. No onefollow-up with me. For a couple
of weeks, I follow-up with therecruiter.
She said, stop calling me. I gotlaid off. Even the hiring
manager, the recruiter got laidoff. So I said, oh, since you
have nothing to do, do you wannacome out for a coffee? So we
(05:38):
grabbed a coffee.
She told me a lot about thecompany, about the audience,
their challenges. She also gaveme an idea that, have you heard
of New York? New York and LA arebigger city than Chicago. Bigger
city have more people have morejob. So with that idea in mind,
I print out 2,000 alumni fromthe school.
I start going on the trip forthose two cities and I stay on
(05:59):
different friends' houses, thecouches every few days and I
start cold calling those alumni.I even bought the newspaper on
the street because it says thepublisher name, he also say if
you want to advertise, call thisnumber. And at that time, I was
very interested in working formedia company. So I bought all
the newspaper from thenewsstand. I start calling each
(06:20):
of them.
And for some reason, I did meetwith New York Times CEO, CN's
VP. I guess they thought I'm anadvertiser, so I called their
number. So they met with me. butno one was hiring. It was a
little bit working becausepeople do talk to me.
So I thought I need to gosomewhere that I can meet a lot
more people, not one by one.Conference. But conference are
(06:43):
very expensive. So I call amagazine company back in Taiwan.
I say, hey, do you want me tocover this amazing conference
for free?
They say, oh, yeah. Soundsgreat. So I call the conference.
Hey. I'm a reporter from Taiwan.
I wanna press tickets. So then Igot in a conference. Again,
people say, you are crazy. Howdid you come up with this? But I
(07:03):
think my only job before thatwas a reporter.
That's the only thing I knew. SoI'm sure people who are
listening, you have somethingthat you know, And that's your
strengths. People will thinkthat's crazy using that skill
set, but you won't think thatway because you are really good.
So eventually, I met with a lotof people for two months, but no
one gave me any job. I went backto Chicago.
(07:25):
I was ready to give up and packback to Taiwan. Suddenly, had an
idea. Remember the recruiter whogot laid off? She told me a lot
about the company. So I learneda lot from other company who are
their competitors.
Those ideas can be used for thecompany. So I went, interviewed
the audience who are farmers. Iopened the magazine. I start
calling of advertiser who aretheir advertiser. So I put
(07:49):
together a business plan.
This is what New York Times isdoing. This is what your
recruiter told me you guysshould be doing. This is what
your audience and youradvertisers say. And I put
together a business plan Ipitched to Paki, the CEO of a
company. She asked me onequestions.
Would you like to be acontractor? My English were
really bad. I didn't know whatcontractor means. So I say yes.
(08:12):
I went home.
I Google contractor and didn'tknow why she want me to be a
plumber. But the contractor isthere. I got my first job in The
US.
Carly Ries (08:23):
You know what I love about that is that solopreneurs,
they think they put theirbusiness out there and then they
think people will come or theyget discouraged and so they just
go through like the regularmarketing tactics, regular sales
approaches. You thought sooutside of the box for all of
that. And I just think it's soinspiring to hear because I
(08:44):
think it can be applied to thesolopreneur journey as well when
you're trying to get clients,trying to find customers. Think
of other ways you can getexposure rather than just the
traditional methods. So that'sso fun.
I love that story. But topiggyback off of that, so you
were people were saying you havecrazy ideas, but one of your
maybe crazy ideas was Taylor andyour new company. But some
(09:09):
people have some really uniqueideas and they don't get that
traction. So what is youradvice, I would say, for how to
test a business idea from thebeginning? And what kind of
benchmarks should people watchfrom the start?
Anya Cheng (09:25):
Yeah. So I started Taylor when it was the idea that
when I was working for Meta oneBay, I was only few female
immigrant leaders over there. Iled large technology team. I
didn't came from techbackground. I was the marketing
girl.
But I worked my way up overtime, become head of product and
(09:47):
leading large teams. So I felt alittle bit impostor syndrome and
I started, well, I wanna lookgreat. I'm thinking if I'm
freaking out, but peopleshouldn't find out that I'm
freaking out, at least thatlooks like boss. So I tried some
subscription boxes like StitchFix, but you have to buy from
every single shipment. And Itried some rental companies,
Rent the Runway, Newly by UrbanOutfitters, who are which are
(10:09):
both public company with millionof users.
And also tries that company thatare more a woman's rental
company, but all of them requireyou to browsing through
thousands of garments. And therewas a moment that I realized
most of fashion companies arefor people who are into fashion,
not for people like me who justwant to get ready for the day
and be successful.
Joe Rando (10:29):
That's why you went after men. I was wondering why
you're targeting men with thiswhen when you could target women
who are much more interested infashion. But now I understand.
It's like you wanna get peoplethat don't wanna deal with it,
and I get it.
Anya Cheng (10:42):
Yeah. So we were thinking like, who else think
like me who hate shopping, whohate laundry, but need to look
good. Sales guy, recruiter,pastor, professor, single guy
who are not into fashion. Theyonly know five brands.
They only have the same stuff intheir closet. They have been
wearing the same thing in thelast ten years, but they
(11:02):
actually need to do good. To geta job, get a date, close a deal.
So that's why Taylor was more.
Joe Rando (11:08):
That's not me by the way. I am none of those. Oh,
well.
Anya Cheng (11:15):
Yeah. For people who hate laundry, here
Joe Rando (11:18):
I do hate laundry. So I got that one.
Anya Cheng (11:22):
Yeah. And for people who travel too, like, sometimes
with monthly fee, we style them.So say if they travel, they can
change your address, and we willship the package to say New York
or Florida. So then they gothere, they wear the clothes for
a couple of weeks. Once they aredone, they return the dirty
clothes, put into returnenvelope.
(11:44):
They can buy something if theywant to. It's huge discounted
because it's secondhand butstill like new. And then they
can or they could go home andwithout doing any laundry or
shop shopping. And when they gothome, the new packaging has
arrived. It's little bit likeNetflix for outfit.
So for people, they canconstantly try something
different and pair byprofessional stylist and AI. But
(12:06):
at the same time, they help tosolve the environment issue
instead of burning thoseclothes, the clothes find a new
home. So in terms of how westarted, we start with what we
call minimum viable product,which is just a landing page. We
pay $10 on Shopify. We set ideasover there and say, have an
email box.
Say, if you are interested, sendus your email to get on the
(12:27):
waitlist. It was right beforeThanksgiving and we launched the
website and we don't thinkanyone will find out the
website. By the time I wasasking someone email me. He say,
hey, I'm on the waitlist. Canyou bump me up?
I thought he's a scam. Like, wewere nobody. Who is going to
wanting to get on the waitlistand bump up the spot? So I
(12:48):
ignore him. Right beforeChristmas, the guy called me.
Somehow he connect me onLinkedIn. I accepted. He saw my
phone number. He called me. Hesaid, I'm a real estate agent.
My name is Michael. I reallylike your stuff. I have you on
waitlist for two months. Youmust be really popular. That's
why I'm still not get on yet.
We were nobody. We just didn'thave a starter service yet. So
(13:10):
he said, I really like the blueshirt on your website homepage.
Can you send that to me? Wechecked.
We realized he's a real guy. Sowe went to department store,
bought whole bunch of stuff, putinto the box in the post office,
ship it out to him, and hebecame our first customer. So
from there, we found out therewere actually around hundred
people on the wait list throughwe find we posted everywhere,
(13:33):
and then from there, we servedthe hundred of them, and we
learned.
Joe Rando (13:38):
So how did those hundred people find you? What
did you do to get noticed by ahundred people probably more
than a hundred people if you gota hundred signed up?
Anya Cheng (13:47):
We're just posting in multiple groups and like pass
along to different places. It'snot that hard for a hundred
only. It's probably not thathard. Even people just put their
email.
They don't even pay yet at thetime. Right? So then we start
outreach back, say, hey, you areinterested. Would you like to
try? but the goal for thehundred is not that much.
(14:09):
The goal for the hundred isabout learning. Like, we learn
what people really want. Becausein order to build a business, we
will need some outsideinvestors. But if you don't know
what you're going to need themoney for, then you cannot build
a great business story orbusiness plans to have people to
give you the money. So for thehundred people simply just for
(14:31):
us to learn, like we've chargedthem pretty cheap, they have a
price of what we have now.
Now we are serving the $79 andthat time is even way much less.
So for them, it's just more forus to learn about what they are
looking for.
Joe Rando (14:44):
But you really proved the concept by advertising the
product without having theproduct. And then kind of kludge
what we say, kludge together aproduct to satisfy some of the
demand, and then but you knew.And that's such a great lesson
because, you know, that'ssomething I wish I had learned
twenty years ago, to do thatinstead of, you know, build it
(15:07):
out and get it all done and thenshow the world, and then you go,
oh, we didn't hit it right, Andwe gotta change
Anya Cheng (15:14):
One thing I found very helpful was a retesting
with customers because inbeginning we thought a lot, I
hope you have a business planasking successful entrepreneur,
but end up what we found was thebest way just testing. And then
also sometimes best way just youjust want opportunity lead to on
the other. Like for example, howdo we get our first supplier? So
(15:37):
we thought that it would begreat to get on the WWD, which
is a trade publication in thefashion industry. If we get on,
there should be plenty ofsupplier.
So I went to a conference herein the Bay Area Tech Quanch. I
was trying to get on the news.So I wait outside of newsroom.
As soon as the reporter came outagain, I give him my business
(15:57):
card. It's time, not resume.
The business card is time. And Iactually met with the reporter
here, WWD reporter. But Ifollowed up a few times. She
never get back to me. Andeventually she got back to me
and said, please stop emailingme.
I'm not interested in the story.So I move on. A month after, she
emailed me back. She said, I'mstill not interested in the
(16:18):
story. But for some reason, mycolleague actually very
interested in the story.
So I'm connecting you two. Wehad a great interview for Orban
Howard. The reporter really getsit. He was so excited about the
idea. Tomorrow, he's going to beon homepage. Nothing came out.
For a couple months, the storynever came out. We went out of
startup competition. We won theWest Coast championships, And we
(16:41):
will move on to Chicago final.
It's a startup competitionhosted by University of Chicago,
where I was an alum. But I'malso teaching at Northwestern
University. So I thought it willbe an interesting story if
Northwestern University faculty,me, actually win the University
of Chicago startup competitionbecause those two are rivalry
(17:01):
school. So but meanwhile, I careabout the news unless it's a
student publication. So I callednewspaper of the Northwestern
University.
I say, hey, we might actuallywin the rivalry school's
championship as a faculty. Sothe newspaper, student newspaper
publish it. If the bar isn'tthat high, it's a student
newspaper. And somehow localChicago local ABC News picked up
(17:25):
a story from the studentnewspaper, and they invite me to
be on the morning show. Afterthe morning show come out, I
took the news clip.
I sent to the WWD reporter. Isay, hey, you may wanna use this
to convince your boss because Iremember you like the story for
some reason, never came out. Youcan use this to convince your
supervisor. And the next day,the news came out. And from that
(17:47):
news, we got the first supplierfrom Canada.
He did sell the news and hereached out to us and became our
first supplier. It was one, wegot two, eventually now we have
300.
Joe Rando (17:57):
And basically the lesson here is tenacity pays. I
mean, that's what we're hearing.
Carly Ries (18:05):
The lesson here is if I ever need to get anything
done, I'm calling Anya. Is thereal lesson. Okay. So I want us
to go back because AI is a bigpart of your business, and I
kinda wanna ask a chicken andthe egg question. And that's for
solopreneurs who want tointegrate AI into their
(18:26):
business, do you think it's bestto start with a fully human
service first and then layer itin?
Or start with tech first andthen do the the human side or do
it all together?
Anya Cheng (18:38):
I think it's more either way. I think some of the
best things will probably bringme still AI was human in the
loop. But I don't think anyonehas answered, but now that
people use it in multiple wayand you can think which one
works best for you. One is thatpeople we have well, I just need
to speak in the CMO conference.And on the panel, two people
(18:59):
actually have totally oppositepoints of view.
I think both of them make sense,but totally different. One
person say, you know, I reallythink AI is going to replace all
of the specialists. Because ifyou specialize in something, AI
is the specialty person. If youtake example for our stylist,
then AI actually have is millionstylist knowledge behind
(19:23):
replacing the stylist, which weare offering to the customer
today. And the speakers say,because if you are generalist so
that you can give the high levelstrategy while you know what
needs to be done veryspecifically, you have AI to do
so.
While the other speakers say, Ithink it's the opposite. It's
(19:45):
more of if you are a specialist,you actually do it mostly
yourself. But then when it'smore general, which is not very
deep and does not require reallydeep knowledge, then this is
where your AI come in. So Ithink both probably right, you
probably need some general ideafrom yourself where you can
leverage AI to help you. Butthen also if you are a
(20:06):
specialist yourself really knowvery well how to use a tool, you
can use a tool still make surethe result is perfect and more
productivity.
So I don't think either one isthe only way to go. But one
thing I think everyone shouldknow is that the era of AI is
all about unique data. So usingproductivity tool is something
(20:29):
simple like over time, you justwill be like using Google,
everybody know how to use itusing Gmail. So I think the true
number one thing that event willhelp you really stand out is do
you have something very uniquedata that you have and no one
else have.
Joe Rando (20:44):
That you can train the AI with that unique data.
Anya Cheng (20:47):
Yeah. Because building agent, AI agent is
going to be a lot easier. Justlike building website, today you
pay $10 Shopify, you can build awebsite. The same thing, soon
the AI agent is going to be soeasy. As long as you bring your
unique data that no one elsehas, then you are the king.
For example, at Taylor, we knowcustomer's true preference.
(21:07):
Customer pay a monthly fee. Sowhen they are picking the
clothes, our stylist pick theclothes, but we stay at
collaborations, then it'sactually what they truly like,
not because impacted by thediscount. They think of if you
buy something from the store,usually what you buy or not is
not because you like it only.It's also because the discount
rate.
(21:28):
Right? But differently, when youwatch Netflix show, which show
you watch has nothing to do withthe discount. We already pay the
monthly fee. The same for us.When you wear the clothes is
what you really like.
Also, we are monthlysubscription. So you can stop
anytime, but most of ourcustomers find it better and
better every month because theAI knows you better and better.
(21:49):
We also have human stylists whowork side by side with you to
make sure AI pick your perfectoutfit. So then human stylists
know you better as well. So weget feedback right away.
And those are unique feedbackthat other people may not get.
We also have human stylists thatclaim to their knowledge and not
know how. We also know thefuture because we work with over
(22:10):
300 brand and AI only know thepast and not the future. But we
work with those brand. They aredesigning collection two years
down the road.
We wash our clothes. So it'srental. we wash your clothes,
send to other people. So we knowthe true quality of a garment
better than the fashion brandbecause after they outsource to
multiple manufacturers,sometimes they don't even know
the true quality of theirgarment. And we also combine. we
(22:34):
bought two companies, they haveten years of styling data.
So we combine all of theseunique data into large language
model and become the goal thingsand that is differentiating
ourselves for others.
Carly Ries (22:45):
One, you're one of those fascinating people I've
ever met. I am loving thisconversation so much, but I
wanna circle back with somethingyou said earlier because you
were talking about theenvironment. And for
solopreneurs, they do wanna beprofitable, but they're also
very values driven. So whatlessons from your sustainability
mission would you could youshare about aligning purpose and
(23:06):
profit from day one?
Anya Cheng (23:08):
Yeah. So for example, what we found was that
we are in a business of slowfashions. So fast fashion means
you buy something that theyproduce really quickly after
capturing the trend, but thenthe clothes can only be wear for
a few times because in order tomake it so fast, has to be not
very durable. And what we foundthat how we make money is that
people, number one, rent theclothes because they pay monthly
(23:31):
fee, say, dollars 79 or $100they get to wear 10 clothes per
month. And every time thegarment being rented, we
actually make money.
So from the get go, we onlysource high quality clothes. It
could be very well known in TheUS or it could be the number one
brand in Italy. It's a very highquality brand, but it's not yet
(23:52):
available in The US. So for us,we make money because with high
quality garment, you can rentmore times. We also make more
money because with a highquality garment after people
wear, they still feel supercomfortable, so they tend to buy
it.
So we make money from both ofsubscription and also when they
buy the clothes and align withsustainability because it's more
(24:14):
durable. Or for example, today,30% of the clothes get burned
from factory directly tolandfill because it's really
hard to predict the inventoryneeded. It results in 10% of
carbon emission, 20% of pollutedwater in the world. Fashion is
the not the one off, is the mostpolluted industry in the world
(24:35):
alongside constructions. Soinstead of burning those
clothes, now we help them fromTurkey or Italy or Paris or
Japan.
They find a new home here in TheUS because we style those , and
then we help those busy men totry those new outfit and they
get to know new brand. So Ithink you should think about
(24:55):
look at your unique economy,where is your spend and where
you make money. In our case, ourspend is the shipping cost, is
the laundry cost, is theinventory cost, and our money is
the subscription boxes ofmonthly fee $70 or $100 and also
the money when people buybranded clothes. And we can
(25:15):
align with sustainabilitybecause if we get those brands
who are not well known but highquality, the cost of inventory
is lower. And we can make moremoney because if you rent more
times, it's high quality, sothen we make more money from
subscriptions.
Carly Ries (25:32):
It just it all sounds like such a well oiled
machine at this point, and Iknow it wasn't always that case.
And you've actually describedthe founder's journey as a
lonely path and why mentorshipand peer groups and all that are
so important. So what practicaladvice do you have for
solopreneurs to build thatsupport network early on?
Anya Cheng (25:55):
Yeah. I found that I'm still learning as well even
today. I think most of people,especially solopreneurs, you are
trying you always say goodthings. Right? You really
actually share the strugglingfor people because you always
want people to think that youare the best person that people
should come to you for coachingand consulting and service.
But I think number one, I thinkpeople who are a little bit
(26:19):
ahead of you is always helpful.Like, and you may not always get
that, but then I think start bybeing the persons and you open
opportunity. For example, Irecently met with a lot of few
entrepreneurs who just started.So I start helping them on, hey,
I'm having this investormeeting. If you come like half
an hour after, which is whenwe're about ending the meeting,
(26:41):
I will connect you, introduceyou in the coffee shop.
And if the investor is notleaving, you might get the
opportunity to have anotherconversation right there. And by
doing so, because for me, it'sjust very simple like, hey, you
guys shoot me and and bye if youguys can continue conversation.
But for the entrepreneur is hugebeneficial. Right? Because now
(27:02):
he can just come show out there.
Now he meet with an importantinvestor. So after the
conversation, that entrepreneuractually became our investor
because he say, I want you toalways remember me and always
open those doors for me. And Iknow being just an angel
investor for $20,000 a reallysmall amount, now I can buy this
(27:22):
opportunity for next seven yearswhen I'm running a business. So
sometimes you just find theperson just a little bit ahead
of you or being the personthat's ahead of others, you
might see opportunities as itactually came out. For example,
although we are not soloentrepreneur because we do raise
(27:42):
money, but how we raise moneywas that I reach out to a
professor back to my school, andthat professor connects someone
who is another entrepreneur tome.
In that conversation, I wassupposed to ask the entrepreneur
to refer his investor to me, butI forgot. I was just genuinely
(28:03):
curious about his business. heowns security camera business. I
used to work for Facebook. Wehelp launch a Facebook
connectivity in Africa.
So I connect a whole bunch ofbodyguard at the time to him.
And few weeks after, he circledback to me. I said, Anya, thank
you so much for those amazingleads of a client. How can I
(28:23):
help you? And what was thereason that you reached out at
the beginning?
I said, ah, I forgot that I wastrying to ask you for investor
connections. So he connect me tohis investor and in half an
hour, we raised $2,000,000. So Ithink just sometimes it's quite
obvious there when you're notlooking and the best way to
(28:44):
build this in a support or in anetwork, you just start by
thinking how can I help?
Joe Rando (28:48):
Great advice.
Carly Ries (28:50):
It is. And I just at this point don't know when you
sleep. You seem like a very busyperson and you seem just so
driven that I have to imagineyou have your off days as
everybody does. So what pushesyou to keep going during those
off days? What's your why?
And how can solopreneurs findthat why to have the drive like
(29:11):
you have? Because it is soinspirational.
Anya Cheng (29:14):
I think you should know that people are like, when
we are looking at social media,people only post good things.
Right? So every time when yousee that, imagine what's behind
and using the story. Forexample, last year, you probably
I didn't post it, but if I postit, it will be a picture where I
(29:35):
host a whole a champagne in abusiness class airplane. And the
headline will be such an amazingtrip in New York.
I learned so much and meet withamazing, the founder of a little
public company and these largestconsumer investor VCs out there.
Cheers saying, go, Taylor. Butthe real story behind I didn't
(29:56):
post it. But the real storybehind was that we were looking
for supply investors in NewYork. I booked a conference over
there.
I try to save money. So I'm 42years old. I stay in my friend's
couch and you it's New York. Soit's on the First Floor. So I
can hear the next door's karaokegoing on.
I can hear people walking by.And obviously, three hours
(30:19):
different here in San Francisco.I pretty much couldn't sleep
until like 04:00 because it'sthree time hour different. And
also people walking by, theoutside was really loud, noisy
in New York. And New York's isfull of old houses.
So I can hear people upstairswalking over and flash the
toilets. So I pretty muchcouldn't sleep. It was a hundred
(30:39):
degree. It was heat waved in themorning because in order to save
money, my friend live insuburbs, so I have to go to the
city. And once I go to a city,he's going to all day activity,
including conference in theevening.
So I carry this littleconference pop up banners with a
whole bunch of other like reallyheavy like flyers and giveaway
stuff and with giant backpackwith my computer because my
(31:02):
meeting have a meetings callcome out with my high heel go
on, was a hundred degree. I runto the railroad. And then as
soon as I about get on thetrain, I asked the person, hey.
This is going to Manhattan.Right?
They said, no. It's on the otherside of the railroad. So then I
(31:22):
got off there and quickly runover. You know you have to go
upstairs and go all the way theother side. So I already see the
train coming with my high heeland I my nose start bleeding
because it was heat wave wasvery dry.
I stopped bleeding. Eventually,I get on the train.
then get on the train, trainstopped because the heat wave,
(31:43):
so somehow the electricity wentoff, have an issue. So I was
stuck on the train for twohours. Eventually, almost three
hours, I arrived in New Jersey.
When I got into the restaurant,the person was late for another
hour, we wait there. Soon whenhe arrived, somehow out of
electricity because heat waveagain. So it was in the dark. We
(32:04):
have the candles right next tous. We had a conversation.
On the way back, because heatwave again, so the train
actually stopped us. He saidhe's coming. I was waiting on
the platform for two hours. Thetrain never come. Eventually
come back to the conference, Iwas so tired and hungry.
I realized the ticket I boughtwas a cheaper ticket that I
(32:24):
cannot get in to eat dinner. SoI have to wait outside because I
want to network with people whoare eating dinners there. So I
wait outside with my businesscard. As soon as people walk out
the conference of the dinnerroom, I give them my business
card. Hello.
I'm Anya. And for that, I didlike three days. On the day
three, I got into a lunchmeeting, which I didn't have
(32:49):
time to eat lunch because it wasonly meal that I can get in in a
conference. So I was trying touse my all of my time to
networking with everybody, getas many business cards as
possible. I remember they servelobster and fried rice.
I grabbed the fried rice becauseI think who has time for
lobster? But as soon as Igrabbed the fried rice, someone
came by. I started networking.So after networking done, backed
(33:13):
to my seat. I realized the mealis ended.
So but luckily, the lady next tome actually saved me some fried
rice. I was very appreciative. Iput the fried rice into the to
go box, and I was ready to headto a airport. It was 4PM. So I
head to airport, heat wave,electricity went off.
So I wait for two and a halfhours to checking my baggage. By
(33:36):
the time my turn, the flight wasgone. So they say you have to
wait again for another two hoursto rebook your flight, which is
another line. I wait for anothertwo hours and my turn, they say
you have to rebuy the wholeflight ticket. Suddenly, I was
totally meltdown.
I start crying as I don't havemoney to buy the ticket again.
(33:59):
And the flight attendant say,okay, how about this? You can
come tomorrow at 3AM. If you canget in, there's only chance is a
06:00 flight, which is onlyflight still have a little bit
opening. If you stand by early,you might have a chance to get
on the tickets.
So by the time that she told methat it was already 10PM, I
(34:22):
still have the to go box of thefried rice in my hands. So I
called my friend and going, canI go back to your living room?
So he said yes. I took the Uberback there. It was 11PM.
My first meal of day of theirfried rice. And next after just
two hours leave, 3AM, I wentback to the airport. I was the
last person got in the standbyticket, and the only ticket left
(34:47):
was a business class, so theygave it to me. There was a real
story behind the jumping guys ofa business class.
Joe Rando (34:53):
You didn't post that on Instagram.
Anya Cheng (34:56):
Yeah. I think most people's life. But when you see
people's life, amazing lifethere, there's a real story
behind for every entrepreneur,solo entrepreneur, or every
successful story. People justdon't share it.
For example, at that time, Ididn't feel ready to share it. I
feel like I'm struggling. Whatgood am I to sharing? People
just want to laugh at me or Ihave nothing to teach. I'm not
(35:18):
successful yet.
So I didn't post it. But if Ipost it, you will be the
champagne guys with a biscuitclass.
Carly Ries (35:24):
So what keeps you going? Like why did you keep
doing that? What is that northstar that you're like, it's all
worth it? What is your why?
Anya Cheng (35:32):
I think that it's something that I feel that I'm
using my strengths, so then Iwilling to try again. Like the
same story back on the jobsearch and because I was a
reporter, so waiting outsidewasn't too hard. So I can try
one more time. Because I was areporter, so covering a
conference story wasn't toohard. I was a reporter, so
buying newspaper and co callingthose publisher just like
(35:55):
reporter asking for new sourcewasn't too hard.
So when I think of my strengths,then I'm not afraid. I think
your strengths will be differentfrom mine. You might be like,
I'm the best person who knows alot logistics. So if I thinking
about how the best optimizing mytime, I do better. Or I'm just a
person who have connection withwhatever oil industry or farmer
(36:19):
industry because my I grew up inthis neighborhood.
Why? But everyone has thisunique superpower in you from
your connection, from yourknowledge or your previous
experience. And if you use yourstrengths, you are willing to
try one more time. And it's likethe chicken inside the egg. If
you try one time, two times,three times, after 49 times, you
(36:40):
crack.
But in fact, you don't knowwhich time actually crack it to
help the following time. Youonly know that, should I only do
the forty ninth time? Probablynot because you probably
previous few times help oneventually crack out of the egg.
But you don't know. So just tryone more time.
But when you try, think aboutwhat you are good at. Because if
(37:00):
you are good at, you are notafraid. When you are not afraid,
you feel like there's light inthe tunnel. You have the courage
to try again.
Joe Rando (37:09):
You know, there's an old saying that people love to
attribute to Albert Einstein,which is the definition of
insanity is doing the same thingover and over again and
expecting a different result.And yet in business, what you
just said, you keep trying andtrying and trying and trying. My
wife is a child therapist. Shesaid, you know, the only way to
(37:30):
rewire a child's brain is tokeep doing the same thing over
and over till it rewire. So Ithink I don't know that Albert
actually said that, but I thinkthat we have dispelled that myth
of that being the definition ofinsanity.
That you gotta keep trying andbanging away, hitting your head
against the wall until it gives.
Carly Ries (37:48):
Well, Anya, you've been so motivational today. I
have no doubt that this episodewill help solopreneurs keep
chipping away and finding thatsuccess of their own. So we have
to ask, what is your favoritequote about success?
Anya Cheng (38:00):
I think leverage you as friends so that you don't
give up.
Carly Ries (38:05):
Oh, that's a good one. Well, where can people
learn more about you, more aboutTaylor? Anything you wanna
share?
Anya Cheng (38:13):
Yeah. So give you a try, how use Taylor to save your
time and looks great,confidence, ready for your day.
And don't worry about laundry orshopping. Focus on your solo
business. Focus on your clients,your suppliers, and resources,
and whatever your next big idea.
So go on taelor.style. And usethe code podcast 25, p o d c a s
(38:40):
t 25 to get 25% off first month.And if you wanna partner with
us, we are always looking forambassadors. We have matchmaker,
career coach, life coach,fitness center coach, school
centers are our partners.
If you wanna partner with us, wehelp to co marketing your
(39:01):
business and our service alsomight be helpful for your
clients or people who aresurrounding you. So reach out to
me at Anya, that'sanya@taelor.ai we'd love to work
with you.
Carly Ries (39:15):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so so much for coming
on the show today. I thoroughlyenjoyed this episode. And
listeners, thank you so much fortuning in. As always, leave that
five star review.
But for real this time, at,like, every other time,
subscribe on your favoriteplatform, including YouTube, and
we will see you next time on theaspiring solopreneur. You may be
(39:39):
going solo in business, but thatdoesn't mean you're alone. In
fact, millions of people are inyour shoes, running a one person
business and figuring it out asthey go. So why not connect with
them and learn from each other'ssuccesses and failures? At
LifeStarr, we're creating a oneperson business community where
you can go to meet and getadvice from other solopreneurs.
Be sure to join in on theconversations at
(40:00):
community.lifestarr.com.
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