You’ve probably heard of Jane Lu – the woman who stepped into the online shopping game at just the right time and has a $30 million empire to show for it. Her website, Showpo (FKA Show Pony), has gained international success and recognition thanks to an affordable price point and bloody clever marketing. You’ve got to give it to this girl for knowing her audience damn well.
That being said, it wasn’t all cute frocks and rainbows for The Lazy CEO (her words, not mine). This is woman who started a business while lying to her ‘rents about the fact that she’d quit her accounting gig to do so.
“I told them I was on unpaid leave. I was downstairs in my parents’ garage, I remember I’d have to run upstairs because there’s no reception in the garage to take customer service calls. I remember making my mum chuck sickies because we had so many orders, I was like ‘I’m not going to be able to get these orders done in time’,” she told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
She wasn’t quite ready for how quickly things took off, either.
“When we were doing 140,000 dollars, we were doing that many orders a day, it was still in my parents’ garage. I was still driving to the post office, filling up the post box, driving to the next post box because that one was already full. I had a very lean startup approach.”
As part of our brand spankin’ new podcast, Founders University, we spoke with the business powerhouse herself about failing in her first business, sharing revenue figures as a marketing tactic and the importance of social media to her overall business game.
Go on, listen for yourself below / take notes.
