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Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights
From Meta to Taelor AI: How Anya Cheng Is Using AI to Reinvent Fashion for Busy Professionals
00:33:14
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- [00:00]
A
Almost of our customer hate shopping. People ask us all the times like hey, do I have to pick? No, you don't have to pick. So that's where our AI come in. Our AI replacing traditional celebrities, human stylist. So instead of going to the shopping mall, have someone to tour you for a day and spend thousands of dollars, our AI will pick the outfit instantly.
- [00:28]
B
Hey. This episode is brought to you by the outstanding team at Compass Strategic Advisors, your trusted partner in driving strategic growth. Whether it's expanding into new territories, launching products, rebranding or hiring key staff and board members, they offer the expert guidance every step of the way. With a versatile approach and a proven track record, Compass is the go to resource for both startups and established companies looking to scale with confidence. Thanks and show your support for this podcast by sharing some sponsor appreciation. Check these guys out at www.compass-strategic-advisors.com. anya Chang welcome to the look back and our new program called Liftoff which focuses on really exciting startups and you fit that category perfectly.
- [01:10]
A
Hello. Hello, this is Anya from Silicon Valley. Before running a company Tailor AI which we use AI to pick clothes for busy men and send them real clothes for them to rent. But before doing So I have 15 years in big tech companies, most recent at Meta where I help build out for Facebook, Instagram shopping, was head of product for ebay, helped them to launch new business in the US, Latin America, Africa, Asia. Senior director for McDonald's, helped them to build out food delivery business when Uber Eats started and helped Target to build their tech office here in Silicon Valley. I'm excited to share more about AI and what Taylor is doing to help people to avoid laundry.
- [01:54]
B
I love the idea of avoiding laundry. Let's just get that out of the open right away. So you are speaking to somebody who, who understands the, the value proposition right away.
- [02:06]
A
Yeah. So our customers are like you, like busy men who are socially active. You are on shows, on podcasts, or just a salespeople, realtors and recruiters and professors who are meeting people all the time or, or single guys who want to get a date, get a girlfriend, boyfriend. So they need to look good. But they are not into fashion, they don't read gq, open their closet. They have five brands, Nike, Lululemon, Banana Republic. That's about it. And they have been wearing the same thing repeatedly again and again. So they are not interested in technology, not interested in fashion, not interested in AI. But they need to look good and they don't want to think about it. So, so this is where our AI come in. Our AI replacing traditional celebrities, human stylists. So instead of going to the shopping mall, have someone to tour you for a day and spend thousands of dollars. Our AI will pick the outfit instantly. And then from there our human stylists will make final decision, make sure everything's perfect, send it to the customer. Customer get the real clothes to wear for a couple weeks. Once they are done, they return the dirty clothes or buy the one that they love and they get an extra months. No more shopping or laundry.
- [03:22]
B
So what are the unit economics for you? How does it work as a customer and as a business?
- [03:28]
A
Yeah. So the we as a customer, they pay a monthly subscription fee from $70, $100 and they get to wear like 5, 7, 10 clothes per month. And then on top of them, customers tend to buy something we all know like, oh, secondhand market is growing like crazy with tariff. They're growing even faster. But they really hit the market of busy men. Usually they are more like younger teenagers or they are like mom who have a little bit more time, who love to go to thrift store and like treasure hunting. But busy men were never in their target audience before. But. But through this model, it's like almost like lease a car and buy after they're wearing one week or two. They feel like this is so comfortable and looks like new. And it's 50% off from retailer because I'm second person who wear is perfect, they keep it. So we also make money from the they buy the rented clothes. So together we have over $100 in recurring revenue from every single customer. And then for customer, it's like you don't have to pay those like hourly raise $300. Human status. You don't have to go shopping. The best part, you don't have to do laundry. If you travel, you change your address, you ship to the hotel in New York or Miami. Then you get there, wear whole weeks, you return the dirty clothes, you go home without doing laundry and you get to try 300 fashion brands.
- [04:57]
B
That's pretty cool. I love the idea. It also seems like there's a social impact side to it also where we're not wasting a lot of clothing that we don't need or use or like and things sit in our closet or you know, so that sounds refreshing. And I know personally I don't like to shop a lot either. I don't like to waste my time with that stuff. The time I go shopping is when I forgot to pack something. Is that fit most men today. I know I'm not exactly your target demographic probably. But how do they feel about going shopping?
- [05:30]
A
Most of our customer hates shopping. People ask us all the times like hey, do I have to pick? No, you don't have to pick. So different from company like women's rental company that rent the Runway nuly or more which are amazing company like newly, for example 500 million revenue in just five years and 500 revenue per year. And they have been growing like crazy and have 300,000 customers. But all of those women's rental company actually require people to pick. And that was actually why I started a company. When I was using those service. I realized that they are either for people who love fashion company like Stitch Fix or Trunk Club. Who should they style You. But you have to buy, which means you have to decide. It's not just about the money of buying clothes. Means the moment you receive the box, the pressure, the clock start ticking. Decide 24, 48 hours. You have to decide. You have to decide means you have to think about. You have to know, okay, am I going to wear this from few times Am I have. Is there other places that's cheaper? Just a lot of my space to go to it. But then if I don't have to decide like rental company that I can rent instead of buying. But in those women's rental company I have to pick 10,000 garments, spend two hours to pay, which I hated. And that's what I realized Fashion company are designed for people who love fashion. And that's why we start Tailor AI to help people turn out that they are more people like me who are men who hate shopping and laundry. And that's why they use their service.
- [07:07]
B
Right. And give me a little bit of a benchmark. Where are you today? How long have you been in business? Where are you at with how many customers revenue? If you can share that as well.
- [07:17]
A
Yeah. So we started two years ago. We now have over 2 million revenue. And per year we're going pretty fast. We are VC back company. We backed by Berlin Capital, which is early investor of Live Inar and then founded by Ben Ling who was the early executive of Google and Facebook. Backed by Go Water Capital which is the largest consumer tech VC in the world. They are behind the theme backing company like Spotify, Facebook.
- [07:45]
B
What's the name of the company again? I'm sorry?
- [07:47]
A
Go Water Capital. Good Water Capital. Okay, Good water. And then we also backed by the early investor of Nvidia and TSMC and also the founder of YouTube.
- [08:01]
B
Well, that's a lot of name dropping. Anya. Very good. Exciting. Stuff. Let's do a small pivot now about your startup journey. You came over from Taiwan a while ago and somehow landed in this holy trinity of hot companies in the Silicon Valley. How did that happen?
- [08:22]
A
Yeah, it never happened one day. So I came in. 18 years ago. I went to Northwestern University. I got my degree in 2008 right after Lehman Brothers went bankruptcy. There was no job anywhere. I didn't even get any campus recruiting events.
- [08:39]
B
Yeah.
- [08:40]
A
So I will wait outside for different schools, departments. History school, engineering school, my communication school. I wait outside. As soon as other school schools, campus recruiting recruiters came out of building, I will send them my resume. Hello, I'm Anya from another department and this is my resume. Remember, this is Chicago in December, minus 20 degree. So I so will be. But then I didn't get any interview. People say Anya, that's not how you work in the U.S. in the U.S. we do networking. People don't calling people don't ambush people. You're networking network means you have to find someone to refer you. But I didn't know anyone. Oh well that's not true. I knew professors, right? I was a student among the school. So professor doesn't know me, but I know them. So I reach out to different departments again, like history schools, science school, chemistry school. I knock on the door for the professor and say, hey, this is my resume. You, I know you are not hiring, but I know you used to work for this company. And they you have a LinkedIn connection. This guy. And these companies is hiring. And one day a professor say, I don't know, Juanya, I cannot refer you to anyone. But tomorrow I'm hosting an amazing event where Mr. Newman is going to be our speaker. No, this guy is a lady called Peggy. She runs a farmer's magazine company. The professor said, we need more like 20 more students. Can you bring your classmates too? We need to fill all the seats. So I went, I listened to the talk. I have no idea what Paki was talking about because I was really bad in English. But after the event, I went approach her. Heck, it is amazing talk. Here's my resume. Can I talk to your recruiter? She said yes, she contact me. I went on interview, finish interview strong. I love it. It was totally my company. Few weeks went by, I called the recruiter. Hello, I'm Anya. Following up from the interview few weeks ago. She said stop calling me. I was laid off. The recruiter was laid off from the company. So I say okay, since you have nothing to do, you are laid off, right? Do you want to grab a coffee. She said yes, we went out grab a coffee in Starbucks. And she told me everything about the company. Who is decision maker, who is their client, what's going on, what's the challenges? And she also gave me one idea. She said, have you heard of New York and Los Angeles? They are bigger cities in the U.S. bigger city, have more people, more job. With the idea in mind, I went on a two month trip. I find like five different friends. I stay on in different friends cultures every weeks. And I Start Co calling 2000 Northwestern University alone. So I'm an alumni, I'm visiting in town. Can I grab a coffee with you? Tell me more about the industry. And I start doing those information interview. And it worked. I bought newspaper on the street. I found those newspapers say publisher name so and so if you are advertising call this number. So I called different publishers. I was interested in media company at the time so I called different publisher. I ended up met with New York Times, CEO, CNN's VPs and many more. But nobody was hiring of people. So one day people say this is working but you need to go to conference conference. You can meet amazing people like Mr. Newman and hundreds of them. But conference tickets are expensive. I didn't have money. So I call a magazine back in Taiwan. I say hey, there's amazing conference. I can cover the story as a reporter for free. And I call the conference. Hello, I'm a reporter from Taiwan and I get a press ticket.
- [12:18]
B
I love the hustle. I love hustle.
- [12:21]
A
So eventually I after two months I interviewed hundreds of people. I got no job. I went back to Chicago. I was ready to back to Taiwan. But before I went back I realized I learned lots during the journey. So I put together a business plan. I didn't know that means business plan. I just put together a plan through my interview of the those company I and I'd call Paki the farmers magazine company guy person again. Peggy, do you want to know what your competitors are doing and in a business plan? I said this is what they are doing according to your formal employee. I think these are three things you need to do. And in order to do these three things you need someone with a little bit marketing background and ideally just out of college, not very expensive. I happen to know someone, her name is Anya Chen and she asked me would you like to be a contractor? My English were really bad. I didn't know what that mean. I said yes. I went home, I googled I. I didn't know why she want me to be a plumber. But anyway, contractor, contractor. I got a job started as a contractor and start from there work for Sears, Target, McDonald's and eBay and eventually help Meta to launch Facebook Instagram shopping.
- [13:33]
B
How did you move up so quickly on the product side? That seems like it would require a lot of technical skills. Not so much the actual language skills but the actual product skills.
- [13:46]
A
That's usually a misperception for people product itself. It's a lot of things, right? You need to know the business, you need to know the data, you need to know customers, you need to know engineering and product itself. It's not someone who need to coding unless you work for a company who do engineering tool for example. So I think I start my career as a data scientist and I build personalizing advertising and then the website team say hey Anya, you help every single ad to be personalized. Can you help us to be every single page to be personalized? So I joined the team, I became product manager and then as I'm doing better and better, I became product manager's boss. I became the product lead for the whole team. So I started leading us UI designers, engineers and then continue the journey from non technical company like Sears and Target become tech company like ebay and Meta. So just like you learn one thing and you pivot to another. Like Sears was a retailer, so join Target, still retailer Target. I was leading building a tech office in Silicon Valley. So McDonald want me to do the same for them. McDonald I led globally including Africa and Latin America. And when I joined ebay they want someone who have both Latin America and Africa experience. So just like one thing lead to the other and eventually here I am.
- [15:16]
B
Great to dispel some of those notions of what's required to step into a job. I think your lessons of meeting with a recruiter on her way out like you took a negative situation and turned it into a positive is always something to be gained in almost every exchange with somebody. And it seems like you really understand that. Where did you get that DNA? Passion, understanding of, of. Of. Of hustle, of drive?
- [15:47]
A
I think so. One thing people tend to ask me like oh, would you recommend people like being really ambushing people and hustling? I said, looking back, I think the only reason that I am I didn't give up was because I was using something I know. For example, people will say that's crazy. You wait outside, ambush your recruiter. For me, that was easy. I was a reporter before.
- [16:10]
B
I don't think that's easy.
- [16:11]
A
I know.
- [16:11]
B
No, I think it's.
- [16:13]
A
But this is Something that I know well, people will say wow, you go to an in, become a reporter for a conference to get a free ticket. I was a reporter before. Covering a story is easy. People say oh, you bought newspaper on the street and you calling those CEOs, that's crazy. But I was again I was a reporter before there was something that I know. So I think the reason I didn't give up was I use something that I am good at. But you probably different from me. You are, you have something that you are really good at that I'm not good at. So because using your strengths, you then you are not afraid. When you are not afraid, you are willing to try one more time. And that try one more time is what keep you going. And eventually you see the light in a tunnel. And seeing the light in the tunnel, even though you haven't achieved yet, is what help you to continue instead of giving up.
- [17:01]
B
Yeah, it's a combination just facing your fears and realizing that you have a power there. Don't suppress it, don't hide it, put it out front, go leverage it.
- [17:10]
A
Yeah, like Apple and Google's. Apple's amazing company, but their phone are very, very different. Right. Kareem and LeBron, both amazing basketball player, but they are very, very different. So I'm sure you can find what your superpower is.
- [17:24]
B
I might need some help on it. Can you help me with that?
- [17:27]
A
Let's start with your outfit then. How about that?
- [17:30]
B
I might need that. I like the fact you turn it back to Taylor. But before we go there, I'm kind of curious. So you've worked at some of these big companies at least for a period of time. How has that helped you as you start your own company? Because there's lots of things you can learn at targeted Facebook and ebay. Right. But there's also the idea that you're at a startup and that those things that work at those bigger companies don't necessarily apply as you do in a startup. It's almost like the opposite of playbook.
- [18:04]
A
Yeah. I think one thing that very applicable was the logic. In big company, everyone's really smart and everyone has amazing proud background. Everyone is from Harvard, mit, et cetera. So nobody believe in each other's idea. Idea is cheap. You can have idea, I have idea. Why I have to listen to your idea. If I listen to your idea, you might get promotion. I'm not getting getting it, so I'm not going to buy in that. However, people learn how to convince each other with logic, with a solid logic. What does it mean in those company they call it like strategic framework which sounds very cool. And I spend like six months figure out what does that mean? Turn out there was just a way to communicate to help people understand how you think and then convincing them the thought process is logical. For example, you own a fruit stand, we sell strawberry and watermelon. So you say hey, we should put the watermelon outside of a store because it's heavier. You reduce thief, we can increase revenue. And your intern come to you say I disagree Mr. Newman. I think we should put watermelon right next to the refrigerator inside because in the refrigerator we sell juice. Watermelon juice is higher margin. Now take a step back. Who are, what are they? What are they disagree with? Both of them agree the goal is increase revenue. They also agree. But then both of them have, they have a different strategy. One is reduce defi. The other one is increased margin. And of course the tactic is one putting watermelon outside, one putting inside. So you peel the onions of understanding what are you arguing about? I think that's really, really helpful because once you get into startup you are dealing with people really with diverse background. Investor from Germany is very different from Brazil and Chicago to Silicon Valleys. Or for you, when you hire employee you can no longer only get from those IVD schools. So you have employee coming from the food industries and also the manufacturing industry and many more. So you have to use the logic to convince them. But first just tell them I think this is a great idea and I think there's something very, very helpful still being a startup founder, right?
- [20:28]
B
When you look at what you're trying to build, are you thinking about adding people to your team from larger companies or do you like people that have that startup grind mentality that you started with?
- [20:46]
A
I think it really depends on what you are trying to do and what the role is for example and then. But I think what's really important is because in startup you cannot attract people only using cash. You don't have enough cash. Right. So most of startup have that problem. So then you have to see what else can you deliver for the person. And you need to find a person who value about those things. So for example now we have Zohair Karu was on our team. He was a chief data officer at ebay. He was my old boss so we hired him Liyao AI. He has been working for all those big company head of the technology and CD banks and many more. So he led over 600 people per company. But he's. He never been doing Something he. He's a really a builder. He like to teach, he like to see come scenes coming through very Although he was a McKinsey guy who really good in trilogy. So we enable the opportunity and he. He love teaching and he love coaching and we help him together on getting his book in which is a working in progress to be published in the near future. And we offer a speaking engagement opportunity which he helped promote the company and we promote him so then he can get his book launch. Right. So it's a lot of thinking on what else can I help you or for junior person they might really care that hey they want to learn from me who was a head of product. They want to learn what product manager looks like where for people who haven't been involved in AI company they feel like building a portfolio with AI company is really valuable for their resume. So you just have to find something outside of more than money that you can offer and finding opportunity to help each other.
- [22:33]
B
How many people are you now?
- [22:35]
A
We have about 10 people full time and some part timers. Yeah.
- [22:38]
B
How hard is it to recruit in this environment to get the right person?
- [22:43]
A
It's never easy for the great people. But Luckily I have 15 years in big tech companies before I know plenty of people. So most of people were my old colleague. We work together, we love to working with friends. While my co founder she used to work for a pre IPO company. They run largest full operation for airlines and Starbucks retailer. So she also bring a whole bunch of her connections. So a lot of our employees were just all colleagues who we worked together before.
- [23:13]
B
You spent a lot of time with data but it seems like LLMs were just getting going about the same time as Taylor was. How have you found AI as a. As a way to strengthen the business?
- [23:28]
A
Yeah, so we found that it's totally in the core of our business because for our customer we are not just a closing company. Our customers don't care about clothing and don't care about looking good. They care looking good so that they can get a job, get a day, close the deal for them we are buying a chance of succeed. They are buying an executive assistant. They are buying the gauge guy behind the superhero. They are not just buying clothes but therefore for them service is really big part of our business and service require human if you don't have AI and because of that then we have strong AI to help them. They feel simple online quiz. They tell us their high end way which we don't always use because they tend to think they are taller and thinner so we ask them all the question like go to your closet, pick your favorite outfit, tell me what's, what's the size there? Tell me what's your fit issue, Tell me your goals. You want to look younger, stand out or fit ins or what's your goal? And then we also help them to see some picture like this light. They can also upload their photo. And then from there our AI do the thing and you ask a really great question is that oh, everyone can use ChatGPT. How would you differentiate? That's a great question. So we build our own proprietary data module. So for example, our customer provide feedback every other week wanting to make sure their next shipment is better. For example, we know customers true preference. For example, when I was working for Target, people buy something or not. It's not because you like it, it's because how much is it? If anything, at 90% off, you will buy it. You will be disappeared. So the data were polluted by the pricing. But in model, because it's membership like your Netflix show. You watch your show, it's not because it's on discount. You watch a show because you like it. So we know the customer's preference. We are rental company, so we know the true quality of garment better than anyone else. We know how many times it's really doable for each brand, each style. We also know future trends. We partner with 300 fashion brand. They are designing something for the future. And AI only know the past. And we put this together as a module sitting on top of LLM. So as OpenAI grow, we also grow, but we always one step ahead.
- [25:52]
B
Tell me something I don't know about how you're using AI that would surprise me.
- [25:59]
A
I think what we do use is we use AI to combine with humans and then we make an automatic flywheel for growth. We just won American Marketing Association's award worst marketer of the year because we get 10 million impression for free from ChatGPT. How we start with human thinking about, okay, what people were searching for differently on ChatGPT versus on Google. And then we feel these initial questions that we think people will ask. We feel we write down the answers from our human stylist. We use AI to augment the content. And then we send this into customer's hand along with our shipments. They pair this item with another item, become a styling. No. But as customer renting the item, they also immediately for my feedback because they want to make sure next shipment is better. And the feedback loop come back to our algorithm for the content. We now Serve the content to our website. It become part of detail page content which in the past you need copywriter to write those things. And now you generating SEO traffic coming to a site and all of these together. Human AI. Human AI, Human AI were automate automates through entire cycle. So it became a flywheel to generate free traffic for the company.
- [27:20]
B
I love it. Free traffic is a beautiful thing. Hey, let me ask you, we're winding up a little bit here, but I'm curious. You've had so many great experiences, so many different companies. What's been your favorite moment or two As a young professional?
- [27:37]
A
I think a favorite moment is always when you see you really solve a customer's issue. Like last week, we have a customer. His criteria is, I want outfit to win a case at court. I'm getting divorced. He said, I need to fight for my two children and I don't care what I wear as long as I win the case. So then I can have my children. That's it. And then we help him achieve it. So they didn't say I want to wear bruise or blazers or whatever. He said, if you help me to dress to win the case. And so it happened a lot. And we have customers, of course they say, hey, I'm ready to pop the question. I shouldn't need something, say I do for the office.
- [28:19]
B
So again, you really wrap your passion around the product and those moments that happen on a regular basis as opposed to focusing on things like, oh, we ship the product, do we raise a round of funding, which are important milestones for building a company. But I always admire the entrepreneur that goes back to the customer experience the success, the, that moment of, of wow, I'm really, I'm really having an impact here with what we're doing.
- [28:47]
A
Yeah. And also I think the other thing is that people may not know about this from the front, but in fact, today 30% of clothes go directly from factory to landfill, generating 10% of carbon emissions, 20% of polluted water. So instead of burning down those inventory, we work with hundreds of brands, we help them monetize their assets inventory, and we feed the data back to them on the customer feedback. Because no one want them to keep producing junk, so they don't want it either. So we tell them, hey, you just need two more inches on your sleeve. Now we can sell to a lot more customer. And they send us their upcoming latest collection that's not yet live in production, send it on the platform again and rent it out and get feedback before they mass producting it. So we Become this feedback loop like for SS inventory they enter the market and customer can get amazing brand from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, UK with also latest collection that's not yet live in their country. While we also have help fashion brand to reduce the waste so then they can do better job next year.
- [29:57]
B
Anya, that's fantastic. Let me ask you, we talked early on about how this podcast looks to really help the younger entrepreneurs. What lesson would you share with the folks who are listening that are thinking about starting their own company? Maybe they're at Facebook or Target today or another company and they just think, you know they have an idea, they have something that's burning in a hole inside them.
- [30:21]
A
I would say start early. Getting involved. One thing I regret, I wish I do more is when I was in big tech company I never thought I would became a founder. I know I love zero to one business which I always do. But I always thought of starting a company is for rich parents, kids and it's not really for me. So I never thought of getting involved. But then I realized I see a lot of my friends, they are even install like college kids. Even our intern became our investor investor. So by being investors or being advisors or freelancers, you get involved early and you see how people run those things and you start building connections. The industry here, it's kind of big and also small. Like people knows people, people refer people. Most of VC or angel like invest in deals, they're referred by another investor, another founder. So I would say involve early. It's super easy. Like people go to crowdfunding, spend $100, you become investors. People talk to a startup, most of startup take 25,000 or about, that's it. Then you became an angel investor and once you became an investor you will get invited to a lot of closed door salons and meetings. You start meeting with amazing founder, amazing investors and you know how people are running these things and you can decide what kind of company you want to build, what kind of co founder you want to get, what kind of investors money you want to gain in the future. So involve early is super low effort but you just got to step out of your regular day to day and start getting involved.
- [31:53]
B
What a great place to end. Thank you so much for sharing all of this great experience and insight. I tell you, I really believe in Taylor now more than ever. Do you want to share? I'll share it in the show notes, the website and your specials of the day. I am excited to see where this business goes. I know it's going to be exciting ride.
- [32:13]
A
Yeah. If you like to get involved to be our investors partners we work with dating site, fitness center schools, we sell B2B deal to cooperate as an employee gift and purse for holidays. So if you want to get involved partnering with us email me. My email is Anya A n y ailer AI that's a n y a at T a e l o r a I and for people who are holidays coming the best gift is saving time and help people to look great and dress the part. So use a code podcast gift P o d c a s t g I f t podcast gift for 10% off gift card on the website Taylor style. That's T A E l o r s t y l e wow.
- [33:01]
B
This is an entrepreneur being an entrepreneur folks. You heard it from Tanya. Thanks for sharing all the great information and for joining us here on Liftoff.
- [33:09]
A
Thank you so much. This is Anya from Taylor AI.