- Jane Lu is the CEO and founder of Showpo, an Australian online fashion retailer.
- To start his early career, he quit his job as an accountant, which failed, and started Shopo a month later.
- He was able to repay his parents for the sacrifice he made and called it "the best feeling."
I used to be a lousy accountant, but now I'm the CEO and founder of Showpo, an online fashion store.
When I was young, I worked as an accountant at a Big 4 company. I romanticized corporate life, was good at math, and obsessed with money. So I worked in accounting and corporate finance for three years before I realized I was bad and I absolutely hated it.
I was somehow forced to believe that a corporate job was the only way to secure a job, but my job seemed more like a rumor than a certainty. I know I can't go on like this for the rest of my life.
I decided to start my own business but I couldn't tell my parents
My first job was pop-up fashion shops in bars. I was afraid to quit because I was afraid of failing, even though I was terrible at my job and probably still had a volcano, it made things a little easier.
I thought I was being ridiculous when I told my friends I quit. None of us know anyone who has successfully started a business.
And I couldn't imagine telling my parents. They left everything – their families, their jobs, everything they knew in China – to emigrate to Australia for the future. It meant job security for them. I grew up quite academically, got good grades in school and made a career in accounting after high school.
How can I tell them I threw it all away? I couldn't, so I couldn't.
I still pretended to work, but the charade didn't last long.
I still pretended to go to work every day. It was very difficult because I still live at home and my mother works in the city, so we took the bus to work together.
Every day I had to get up early, get dressed and ride the city bus to a pretend job. Luckily, after six months I was able to walk again, so I didn't have to follow the bronze band for long.
But my business failed. I had a business partner who had lost faith in what we were doing and didn't have the confidence to do it himself. I lost the $10,000 I had invested adding to my previous debt.
At the time it seemed like a huge waste of time and money. I was humiliated. But then I realized that it taught me more than business courses or college degrees; The most important lesson is that if a business model doesn't work, there won't be enough interest or hard work to sustain it.
A month later, the idea for Showpo was born
At first, I really didn't want to start another fashion retail business, but of course the idea for Showpo (and later Showpony) came over a glass of wine and a dinner with my partner at the time. We are both excited about the idea of opening an online fashion store.
Then I went home and immediately started working on the site using a very simple drag and drop template. I also set up social media accounts and organized our first photo shoot. Within a week we were selling our product live online to our model friends via Facebook messages.
The business thrives because we already use social media.
Looking back, it's clear that the mistakes we made at our startup have made me a better entrepreneur. I have become more comfortable with websites and creating social media accounts. We did this at a time when large traditional retailers were very reluctant to use social media, which gave us a huge advantage in reaching customers where others couldn't and at a lower cost.
For other developers, I'd like to share some tips I learned while building Showpo:
- Be nimble and always check and repeat as you go. In business, anything is at risk, so take a step.
- Have a well-defined niche and you will stick with the original. Don't start branching out until you are successful in your niche.
- Don't just buy customers; Stick with them Converting an existing customer into a sale is much easier than a new one.
- Don't enter into long-term contracts – be as flexible as possible. If Covid has taught us anything, it's that things can change at any moment. Fluidity and flexibility are key.
- Find a network of other entrepreneurs. Otherwise, it can be lonely and you can learn a lot from others.
After years, I finally told my parents
A year and a half after Showpo, I told my parents they weren't paying me to move from working at a fashion company. Finally, seeing that business was going well, they agreed.
When they turned two, I took them to Father's Day dinner and told them I had bought a car (my first new car) and was paying off the mortgage. It was the best feeling: a refugee's dream.
It's such a classic story: your parents gave up everything and worked their ass off to give you a better future. It was a wonderful feeling for me to see her determination and hard work pay off, when I thought I had lost everything at such a young age.
I am very lucky to be where I am now. I love that I have created a career and life that I enjoy every day; This is success for me.
For anyone considering starting their own business, do it when it's not yet affordable and learn as you go, if you're too comfortable it's too late and everyone else is doing it. And don't be afraid of failure; If you've never failed, you don't try new things or take risks.
