Jane Lu Why _You_Re Not Special Doing All The Naughty Things And Why She Faked Having A Job

The Australian Financial Review

The best advice I've received is actually from my then-boyfriend-now-husband

and he tells me, you're not special.

When that business failed, I at first was like, I'm definitely not going to get into fashion again

because I failed and I obviously suck at it.

But then I realised, failing at something is the best crash course in the possible.

Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review

and welcome to 15 Minutes with the BOSS,

a podcast about success and failure and everything in between

and along the way we're hoping to get some great advice from our leaders.

My extra special guest today is Jane Luu, the founder and chief executive officer of the fashion boutique Shopeo.

Hi Jane, how are you?

Good, thanks so much for having me.

Thank you so much for coming in, so nice to meet you.

You too, I'm a big fan of the pod.

Oh, that's very kind of you to say so.

Now Jane, as I said, you're the CEO of Shopeo, an online fashion clothing store

which you set up in 2010 from your parents' garage.

Your sales are more than $100 million a year.

You currently have over 5,000 styles on your website

and you and Shopeo together have more than 4 million followers across your social media platforms.

And I must say, you have been a judge on Shark Tank for the past two seasons.

That's quite busy.

That's correct.

And I feel like, which I wouldn't normally do, that I have to start with some sort of little fashion question.

So what are we all going to be wearing this winter?

You have to teach me something about fashion.

Okay, in terms of colours, brown is back, wine, grey and a lot of like, in terms of suiting,

it's not necessarily the oversized blazers,

but what I'm wearing right now, more of an hourglass blazer.

More of a fitted shape.

Yeah, that 90s, 90s revival.

So it's like really exciting because when I first got into fashion, I'm like, wow, it really is like cyclical.

It's come full circle.

Yeah, it comes full circle.

Excellent. Thank you for that tip.

Now we've only got 15 minutes, so the clock starts right now.

And I'm going to first of all ask you about your morning routine.

What time do you get up? What happens?

Oh, well, I get up around like 8.30.

8.30, okay.

So there's a big social media trend where everyone talks about their five to nine routine.

It's like people getting up at five, making their like green smoothie or whatever,

and then they'll go for their jogs and they'll go maybe for an ice bath or a sauna and blah, blah.

I'm literally like sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, 8.30, wake up, splash my face with water, get a coffee.

I started eating breakfast because I met a nutritionist who told me that I need to eat protein.

And that's my morning routine.

I check my emails and I check my phone and I go on social media and I do all the naughty things that I'm meant to do in the morning.

So first of all, what protein do you have?

Eggs, salmon, just like, just having breakfast.

That's a new thing for you.

Yeah, that's my 20, 25 resolution part of it.

And then you look at all your social media feeds and how long does that take you?

Oh, I use it to wake, like to open up my eyeballs.

Like it actually helps me kickstart my day.

Okay. Yeah.

So what time would you get into the office if you're going into the office?

So before COVID, I used to be that very like in there.

I'll be in there before nine because I want to set a good example.

And then, you know, five days in the office and then I won't leave the office before six o'clock unless I have an event.

But now I think I probably get in around nine thirty ten and I'll leave after five.

I used to be a real like very strict pre-COVID.

And now I'm like, I'm very blase now, also because I've got kids now.

I've got two kids.

So when you say you do all the naughty things, that means you're not eating what fiber for breakfast and you're doing social media.

Yeah, you're not meant to look at your phone the first 30 minutes of waking up.

You may get up and go for some kind of exercise.

I might try though, one day.

To do some exercise.

Yeah.

It's a lot to fit in though, isn't it?

It is.

Especially you've got two young kids.

Exactly.

So my next question is, tell me about something that happened in your career that changed the trajectory of everything that you were doing.

Well, it's actually, so I would have to say it's the moment that I decided to quit my job.

It's actually quite, it feels like being in this office in a suit today.

I'm like, oh, this reminds me of back when I used to work at Ernst & Young and I just decided, you know what, this is not for me.

And I just went, yolo, I'm going to quit my job.

So I had a side hustle at the time running pop-up stores.

So I quit my job to do that.

And I didn't even have the guts to tell my parents that I quit my job.

And then just kept pretending to go to work.

So I would pretend to put on my suit every day.

And then I was just so passionate.

I was so excited about this business.

And then a month later, the business failed.

And then all of a sudden I was unemployed.

I was in debt.

I felt like a failure.

And it was in the middle of the global financial crisis.

So I couldn't get another job.

Also, I didn't know what else to tell my parents.

So I just kept pretending to go to work in the city.

So I had to get the bus into the city with my mom because she also worked in the city.

That made me go, OK, I have to do something about this.

And because I had no other skills, by default, I had to start another fashion business.

And that's when I started Chopo.

And how scary was the whole idea of just quitting your job in the first place and going it on going it alone?

Did you really agonize about it?

I think I must have.

But I think I was just really terrible at my job.

So I used to be an accountant and it's just not for me.

You need to have a lot of attention to detail.

And then I also moved into the corporate finance part of accounting, which everyone kind of sells to you as a sexy part of an accounting firm.

And I found out there's no such thing.

There's no sexy part of any accounting firm.

So I really just didn't like it.

And then I started focusing on the side hustle.

And it got to a point where I'd been working in accounting for three years and I was like, I really don't know what I'm doing.

And I pretty much had to quit as well because I don't like being bad at things.

Yeah, no, fair enough.

So would you recommend to anybody who is thinking about going out on their own to first set up a side hustle just to see if they can do it, if they like it, if they have got the acumen for it?

Yes, I absolutely do not recommend what I did because cash is the bloodline of the business.

Like you need that runway to keep your business going.

So I think you need money to be able to take risks and to test things and keep trying new things.

And if you don't have that, then it's really, really hard to grow your business in this day and age.

So I would say keep your job.

Do it as a side hustle.

Once you get momentum, then try and like pay back hours if you can or take that leap.

But once you have some kind of validation.

Yeah, that's really good advice.

OK, my next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?

The best advice I've received is actually from my then boyfriend, now husband.

And he tells me, you're not special.

And why is that such a good piece of advice?

Because whenever I whinge and I give some excuse about why I can't do something, he's like, well, you're not special.

If other people can do it, then you can too.

So I think that my first strong memory of this is when he actually taught me how to drive.

He was trying to teach me manual.

And I'm like, I can't drive manual.

It's too hard.

He's like, everyone in Europe can drive manual.

What makes you think you're so special?

You know, doing things like public speaking, dealing with problems in business, like trying to move our warehousing to 3P.

I'll be like, oh, my God, this is so complicated.

He's like, well, other people can do it.

You can do it too.

So like he just treats me with a bit of tough love with that.

And it works.

I tell this to other people, but they're just like, I think it's a bit harsh.

But actually, it's really good advice.

So do you think about that in the course of your everyday life, like or every day at work?

Just think you're not so special.

Just get on with it and do it.

Yeah.

And what advice would you give to your younger self?

Stop worrying about what other people think.

As a young female immigrant that immigrated from China when I was eight, I think I really felt very different and self-conscious

and really paid overweight what other people would think and think about me.

And I created a much bigger furor failure.

You know, I think about like never joining the debate team because I was worried about what people would say.

I don't even remember who those people are.

There's people when I started my business that told me like, what do you know about starting a business?

What do you know about fashion?

And, you know, they're actually ironically the first some of the first people that came to me for advice once I made it.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So my advice is like don't worry about what people would say.

On that note, we are going to take a short break, but don't go away.

When we come back, we're going to open our delightful Chatterbox.

Welcome back to 50 Minutes with the Boss.

I am here with Jane Lu, the founder and CEO of Shopo.

Now, Jane, as threatened, this is our section called the Chatterbox.

And here we have a beautifully lo-fi, super lo-fi brown box inside which are about 20 questions.

Now, I'm going to ask you to fish around in the box and pick out some questions and we'll get going.

OK, have a fish.

If you could relive one day in your career, which day would it be and why?

You know how I didn't tell my parents that I quit my job?

Two years later, I finally worked up the confidence to tell them.

And it was looking at around our warehouse.

We probably had half a million dollars in stock and I still had this fear of failure.

So at this point, I was able to tell myself worst case scenario, you fire sale all the product.

You can start a new business or surely some other fashion brand will give you a job because you've got this experience.

And so I felt this confidence to tell my parents.

I took them out to the Centrepoint Tower restaurant.

And when I took them, they're like, wow, this is so iconic.

We've always looked up at the Centrepoint Tower thinking one day it would be nice to eat there.

And so I told them that my business has been going well and that I bought them a car, their first brand new car.

They've only had old secondhand cars and I was going to pay off their mortgage.

Oh, wow. And I had quit my job.

What was the reaction?

They were very happy, but they were definitely very shocked.

They couldn't believe that I quit my job two years ago because they kept thinking it was one year ago.

And they're like, but how could it be two years?

Because you were living at home, you're still going to EY.

I'm like, no, I was pretending to put on the suit.

And they're like, but how did you do it?

Have you always been interested in fashion from when you were very small?

Not at all. I do not have a passion for fashion.

I like clothes.

I like the way clothes can make me feel, make our customers feel.

But I've never had an interest in fashion.

So I only kind of fell into this industry because of that side hustle.

That was another friend's idea.

And when she told me that she wanted to start a pop-up store, stocking emerging brands and selling fashion,

I was like, what do we know about fashion?

Even back at school, I worked in, I worked in a hospital.

I worked at McDonald's. I worked in bars.

I never got into retail.

And it always seemed like fashion was for the elite.

It's like you have to be older, living in the Eastern suburbs with a lot of connections to get into fashion.

But I always do say if you don't have a better idea, we're going with the one that's on the table.

So that's what we went with.

And then when that business failed, I at first was like, I'm definitely not going to retail.

I'm definitely not going to going to get into fashion again because I failed and obviously suck at it.

But then I realized, you know, actually failing at something is the best crash course in the possible.

So that actually learns probably so much more having failed than to have had like, I don't know, minor success.

Oh, that's interesting.

So failure actually has, funnily enough, then led to your subsequent success.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good lesson.

OK, Jay, next question. Have a fish.

How do you make tough decisions?

I like to sound things out with people.

I'm very collaborative in my approach.

And the way I really approach a tough decision is to look at what's the worst case scenario of either case.

And I don't go with that.

Oh, yeah, that's good advice. I see what you mean.

You want to go with the less of those two evils.

And then can you give me perhaps an example of a tough decision that you've had to make?

Probably one of the toughest was back in like a while ago.

We actually we used to have our own warehouse and then we decided we need to move into third party warehouse.

And so we had to make our entire warehousing team redundant.

And that was so tough because that, you know, we were one team at this point and we were young, younger back then as well.

Like these we just hung out every weekend as well.

And I think that was kind of the first time I was like, wow, I have to actually think like a business.

You have to think big picture.

And that's where I would go. OK, worst case scenario of making everyone redundant.

They would feel a bit blindsided.

They would be sad.

I would be sad, but everyone would get paid out as well or they'd be out of the job for a little bit.

And everyone was fine because everyone just went and got other jobs.

But then worst case scenario of not doing that, then the business is going to be stuck at that level of growth.

So at that point, you're kind of looking at a short term versus long term pain.

Good advice. Do you want to have one more fish?

If you could swap jobs with somebody for a week, who would it be and why?

I honestly cannot think of anything else but to like be my own boss and start another business.

So if you sold Shopeo today, what other business would you go into?

I feel like kids clothing, but I feel like it must be hard because no one's done it well.

But it's really hard to find good kids clothes.

Would you do another online venture for kids clothes?

Yeah, I think so, because I think returns will be relatively low compared to adults as well.

So are you one of these people who is constantly coming up with business ideas?

Because you can constantly see gaps in a market that you think, oh, maybe or there's an opportunity here for someone to fill them.

Yeah, I have so many business ideas, but definitely not like I also know I have so many bad ones as well.

So what are some of your top ideas to set up a new business?

So one is the kids clothing. I really I'll give you a really bad idea that I really think.

But someone could do it maybe.

It's disposable coffee cups, but rebranded as cups so you can put alcohol in it.

So it's like and it's called roadies because then it's like you can take it in an Uber.

I don't know if it's legal.

Oh, but you could have a disposable coffee slash.

And you can take it anywhere with you.

But it's actually alcohol in it.

With a little cap on it so that you could just just looks like coffee.

So people don't know that you're having a quiet gin and tonic.

Yeah. And then it's rosé all day.

On that note, Jane, that is the end of the chat box section.

Congratulations. You've made it.

Yay. Thank you.

We now have one last question, which is if you weren't doing your current job, what would you be doing?

So I would be the CEO of another company that I've started.

I would be doing almost the exact same thing, but probably in a different industry.

Kids clothes or maybe alcohol or maybe like a startup studio where you just start up a lot of different little startups and see what happens.

Also, you could be like an incubator for them.

Yeah.

And do you think that if you start up another company, you would do anything differently?

And if so, what would you do differently?

I would start with a lot more systemization and I would probably take more risks earlier on because I feel like every time

that we have taken risks in the past, it's like it has worked out and it's also blown up.

But then with the experience, I should be able to do that better.

If you think you might take more risk earlier on, what sort of risks are you talking about?

Investing more money in, say, a warehouse or taking on more stuff earlier?

Where would you take that risk?

Investing in like product development sooner, hiring a bit sooner and then started running ads sooner.

I mean, it sounds obvious to run ads now, but at the time, I didn't run Google ads for a year and a half.

And when we did, it started doing really well.

Also, trying new social media platforms back then, we were really slow to get on Instagram.

And then we were actually quite slow to get on TikTok.

Looking back, I'm like, Jesus, I'd like to say I'm fast and disruptive, but I would just, I think maybe with your second business,

you're just like, you'll be like, I've done this.

Let's just, let's just go, let's just, let's just go harder and faster.

And that is the bell.

Our 15 minutes is up.

Jane, I've so loved talking to you today.

I really, really love the advice from your husband.

You're not so special, so just get on and do it.

And that's clearly been fantastic advice for you along the way.

I really appreciate the fact that failing at something has really allowed you to have subsequent success.

So that is, I think, really good advice.

I love your attitude of wishing you had taken more risks when you were first setting out.

And in fact, if you did another business, you would probably take on more risk.

And when you're making tough decisions, look at the worst case scenario because then you actually see your downside.

So thank you so much again for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.

Thanks so much for having me.

And thank you to everyone for listening.

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