Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Selling Confidence, Not Clothes; Building Taelor.ai with Anya Cheng
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In this episode of Unpacked with Ron Harvey, host Ron Harvey sits down with Anya Cheng, founder and CEO of Taelor AI, the AI-powered styling and clothing rental service that helps busy men look sharp without shopping, laundry, or guesswork. Before launching Taelor, Anya led product at Meta building Facebook and Instagram shopping, served as head of product at eBay, was a senior director at McDonald's building its global food delivery business, and helped Target build its Silicon Valley tech office. A Northwestern University marketing graduate and University of Chicago alum originally from Taiwan, she is also a two-time TED speaker.
Anya shares the hard-won lessons behind building a startup and the mindset shifts that carried her from immigrant job seeker with no network to Silicon Valley CEO. Her story is a candid look at failure, resilience, and figuring out what customers are really buying.
In this conversation, you will hear:
- Why she bet on herself and left corporate life to solve a problem she lived every day
- The $100,000 pitch competition she lost, and why memorizing answers cost her the win
- How leaning on your existing strengths keeps you going when you want to give up
- Why Taelor sells confidence and peace of mind, not clothes
- How agile thinking and real customer feedback beat guessing what people want
- The sustainability crisis in fashion and how rental data reshapes what brands produce
- Why your proprietary data and know-how are your real advantage in the age of AI
Whether you are an entrepreneur, a leader, or someone rethinking your next chapter, this episode is packed with practical wisdom on confidence, customer focus, and building a business that solves a problem people actually have.
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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this podc...
Welcome And Why Leadership Matters
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Unpack Podcast with your host, Leadership Consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now, to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
SPEAKER_02Well, good afternoon, everyone. This is Ron Harvey. Excited to be here once again with Unpack with Ron Harvey, where you know everything we talk about is leadership and people and success and entrepreneurs. And I'm always excited that we bring guests from around the world with all backgrounds to be able to add value to our audience globally. And so excited, you know, once again to have you joining us. I won't go into who I am because I always try to leave space for our guests to share. You'll hear me talk about us at the end of it, but I want to make space in room and invite Anya, um, who's coming from the West Coast with us today, different time zones. So she's with us. I want to move out the way and invite her to the microphone and let her introduce herself, and then we will jump into the Ron Harvey way of questions of how do we get good information from our guests.
SPEAKER_00Hello,
Meet Anya Chien Of Taylor AI
SPEAKER_00hello. Hi, Ron. Hi everyone. This is Anya Chien from Silicon Valley. Um now I'm a CEO of Taylor AI. We offer AI stylus to help busy men to look good, while also offer closing rentals so they don't need you to have to buy any clothes or do any laundries anymore. Before starting the company Taylor AI, I was a Meta, where I helped build our Facebook, Instagram, shopping, was a head of product for eBay, helped them launch a new business in the US, Latin America, Africa, Asia. Was a senior director at McDonald's, helped them to build our food delivery business globally when Uber E just started, and helped Target to build their tech office here in Silicon Valley. I'm excited to share more.
SPEAKER_02I'm excited. Every time you hear Silicon Valley, it's like the AI world, the technology world, you know, that's y'all got that kind of brand that comes with when you say Silicon Valley automatically technology, and I think people are learning a lot from you.
From Impostor Syndrome To Startup
SPEAKER_02When you think on your all, I mean, you talked about the different places where you've spent time investing in other organizations. What was the moment that you realized you wanted to bet on yourself and start your own company? What what where did that happen? And and share, can you share that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, of course. Um, the idea actually starting from my time at eBay and Meta, where I was a few female leaders uh that didn't come who didn't come from technology, like tech like coding background, but the Lee Lodge Technology product. So I felt a little bit impossible syndrome. I want to look great so then people know one can find out that I'm freaking out every day. Uh so I tried some subscription boxes like Stitch Fix, but you have to buy from every single shipment, and I hate the moment that I have to decide. So I started renting clothes. I rent clothes from company like Render Runway or Newly, which has 500 million revenue per year and 40,000 customers every month. But all of those rental options require me to pick. Spend hours browsing, browsing, browsing, and picking. And it was a hard moment that hit me. Hey, fashion company has designed for people who are into fashion. They are not designing for people like me who just want to get ready for the day and be successful, get a job, get a day, close a deal. I don't care what I wear as long as I look presentable for the location. So I start doing research. Who else think like me? Very functional, practical, don't care about fashion, but have to look good. Turn out that there are a lot of single man, sales professional, executive, manager, pastor, professors, recruiters, and people who are people facing but need to look good and not want to read GQ. And turn out that Taylor is more. So we offer AI stylists, just like personal shopper, but then we also offer closing rental. So like $100 per month, they can wear 10 clothes for months. They don't have to do any shopping on laundry anymore.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
The Emotional Whiplash Of Founding
SPEAKER_02So so you you shared a lot about how you got into it, um, and and how you found it. Usually find a problem you got them, you can solve it. You're probably not the only one with that problem. Um, what have you learned most about your role and what you do now that you enjoy the most? What have you learned about yourself as a leader or business owner, entrepreneur? What have you learned most that you enjoy that you're actually enjoying?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so uh I enjoy my time in corporate and also being a startup founder. I think being an entrepreneur, the most different thing is that if I look back to my corporate career career for the last 10 years, they were up and down. So I won Webby awards and 30 different awards. I also at some point hating my colleagues, and they are all they were always up and down. But if I look back for the last 10 years, the level of the most happiness moment and the saddest moment, the frustrated moment, now looking back at startup life, it happened all in the last 10 months. It just in a very short period of time, you get very high or very different up and down. And also when I was in big corporations at Meta eBay, for example, I felt like, oh, every team is different. In fact, after I started my own company being an entrepreneur, I realized that in big corporations, a lot of my colleagues, we all think slightly. We all train by understanding how to do the roadmap, OKR, Squams, and all of our trainings are very, very systematic. We know how to communicate our thoughts. We have a similar logic of solving problems, but then becoming a startup founder, I start meeting people who are fashion designers, who are blue-collar workers in our warehouse. Also, our next meeting, maybe meeting with, I just met with a CEO of Noseface, and then I met with a founder of YouTube who is our now investors. And you just you meet very variety of people who came from very different backgrounds, nationally and globally, and from all kinds of different industries. So I started realizing that I was living in a bubble, and actually I and of course it comes with frustration sometimes, like, hey, you don't know how to do OKR. This is how all hands are supposed to run. But at the same time, you bring a lot more learnings. Oh, this is how you think versus how the big corporation people think. So I think I really enjoy those times as well.
SPEAKER_02Wow, wow.
Losing A $100,000 Prize
SPEAKER_02What was the most valuable lesson? I know you raised money, you've done great, but what was the most valuable lesson you think you've learned or mistake you made as a founder that you learned something from?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, I would say I'll share stories of how I lost a hundred thousand dollars reward.
SPEAKER_02Did you say a hundred thousand?
SPEAKER_00A hundred thousand dollar award. So uh when I just started Taylor, we went on a startup competition, and um, of course, that um I as a kind of as a Northwestern University graduate and University of Chicago alums, we are like good students. So, in order to prepare for a startup competition pitch, I decided to find four more judges, 42 of them. So I researched, I found four more judges, I asked them, can I do a practice interview for the pitch with you? I did. I did 43 times of them. So when I went on the stage and I gave a competition uh to the uh in the competition event, I when I gave my pitch speech, the pitch events, uh my pitch was perfect. But right after the pitch, the judge asked me questions. I was stunned. I couldn't answer anything. Wasn't because I don't know the answer, I knew every single answer of the question. But I wasn't trying to answer the question because in my head, I was thinking uh this question, practice judge number two asked me this, and he told me the better answer should be saying this way, which I put down in the appendix number two. And the answer was, what? I was almost like the student with the open book exam. I spent all of my time in finding the answer, verse write down the answer, and I never tried to sit down and cool down and be present and just answer the question myself. I didn't believe I could answer the question. That's why I lost. And after the competition, I realized people don't want a CEO who can memorize and script. People want a CEO who can think, have an opinion, and can bring the team with her visions and go through the next chapter of the company. So, of course, we lost a competition which was $100,000. And but after that, I learned and I started trying to pick up my confidence. And hey, even though I'm a new founder, I have 15 years career in big corporations. So I start trusting myself, and then of course, later on we won plenty of award from different competitions, but it's all because of mindset change.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I mean, I love the story because it talks about how do you grow from failure? Um, and and and as much as most of us don't want to fail, we learn a lot when it happens. Um, can you can you unpack how important it was for you? I mean, you said something that's super important, regardless of what industry and as an entrepreneur, believing in yourself. And nobody wants someone that can memorize an answer, they want someone that can be present. Can you speak more to how valuable that's been to you and your organization?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's really valuable, but I a lot of people ask me like how like hey, um, it's Crochet. I know, believe me yourself. I know woman has imposed syndromes. Like what tell me more? What? So I want to share a story and I would share about like people like, wow, you are very brave and confident. Tell me how you did it. And I will tell you in the end, like how I actually did it.
Confidence Built Through Relentless Networking
SPEAKER_00So um it was time back to 2008 when I graduated from Northwestern University with a master's degree in marketing. Before the degree, I only have one job, which was a reporter back in Asia. And so it was, you people might remember 2008. It was right after Lehman Brother went bankruptcy. Yes. There was no job anywhere for any even campus recruiting. I couldn't get any interview. So I decided, hmm, maybe I will, I couldn't get an interview from my school, the communication marketing school. But every school has recruiters coming in. So I waited outside the building from the engineering school, the history school, the political material science schools, MBA schools, all of the you know the school department have campus recruiting. So I wait outside. As soon as the recruiter came out, I gave them my resume. Of course, it didn't work. Ampush recruiter didn't work. People told me that you you know, Anya, this is not working here in the US. In the US, you need to do networking. Networking means you find someone who trusts you and refer you to someone, and I was like, I don't know anyone in the US.
SPEAKER_02Like I'm in trouble.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, but uh in fact, no, I do know someone who I know all of the professors in school. They don't know me, but I know them, right? So I knock on the door for different departments, professor. It was before COVID, people were in the office, and as soon as I enter the room, I say, Hey professor, you don't know me. I'm from the marketing school, but I check on your LinkedIn, you use work for this company, and I see they are hiring. I know you still keep connect with this person on LinkedIn who still works there. Here's my resume. It didn't work. So one day there was a professor, his name is Epac, he's from journalism school. He said, Hey, Anya, I don't know, do I cannot refer to you to anyone? But I'm going to host an event tomorrow. There will be three speakers, and I need 10 more students sitting in the room. Can you bring them and you can listen to the talk? I was like, okay. So I brought 10 students sitting there. My English was really bad because I'm originally from Taiwan. And at the time, 20 years ago, I was just landing in the US. I did not understand anything. But after the talk, I went to the speaker. Hi, Packy. She's a farmer's magazine and salon owners magazine, like trade publication CEO. I said, Hi, Packy, great job. I didn't really understand what she was talking about, but great job on the talk. Here's my resume. So Packy said, Hey, um, we are actually hiring a marketer for our company. I don't know if you are good, but I will send your resume to our HR. So I got an interview. When I walk out of the magazine company, I saw the magazine covers on the wall. It was a long aisle. I feel like this is my job. It was a media company. I was a reporter, worked for a media company before. Yeah, they are looking for a marketer. I have a master's degree in marketing. This is my job. Few weeks after I follow up with the HR. Hi, how did it go? The HR said, Hey, stop calling me. Her name is Lauren. Stop calling me. I was laid off. Lauren, the HR was laid off from the company. So I said, Hey, Lauren, you have nothing to do. Do you want to grab a coffee? She said, Yeah. So we had a coffee in the Starbucks right next next to a railroad station. It was dun-dun-dun. The train went by. And she told me a lot about the company. Who is the decision maker? What's the challenge for the company? What's going on? And she told me a simple tip. Anya, have you heard of New York and LA? They are bigger city and bigger city has more jobs. So with that idea in mind, I decided to went on New York and LA for one month each and start meeting who I print out 2,000 Northwestern University alums. Again, I know them, they don't know me. And I start cooking each one of them. Hey, I am a new graduate school from student from your school. Can I meet you for coffee? So I met with hundreds of people, and I was one day I was rejected again. I walked out of a building from uh New York to an office building. It was snowing, and then I stepped on snow on the ground, which is like black, you know, in New York. The snow on the ground is like black. So I was trying to hide the it was like rain and snow at the same time. I was trying to hide uh between uh the rain. So I was zipping between the newsstand to the newsstand and waiting for the cloud to be break. And I realized all of a newspaper on the newsstand, it used to say like publisher name wrong. If you want advertising, call this number. Perfect. So I bought all the newspaper from the street. I went back to my friend's living room where I stay, and I start coconut each of the publishers. And turned out that I met with C of CEO of New York Times, VP of a CNN, MBC, and all of those leading media companies, but nobody was hiring. So I thought this works, but I need to meet a lot more people once, like hundreds of people. Yes. Conference. If I go to conference, I can meet hundreds of people. So but conference tickets are very expensive. So I call an amazing company back in Taiwan and I asked them, would you like me to cover an amazing conference in New York for free? They say yes. I mean, email the conference. I'm a reporter from Taiwan, give me a press ticket, and they did. So I again met with hundreds of people there, but after these two months, I didn't get any job. I went back to Chicago, I was ready to back home back to Taiwan. But I realized that I learned a lot during the process. Remember Paggy, the salon owner, magazine, the farmer's magazine owner. So I emailed Paggy, I asked her, Would you like to know what your competitors are working on? She said yes. Before I went, I interviewed their salon owner, the readers uh who are salon owners. I opened a magazine, I called the advertiser, and of course, the former employee, the HR, told me a lot about the company's secrets. So I wrote a business plan. I said, if you want to do this thing that CNN is doing, I think you should hire someone with a marketing degree, with media company background, and ideally not very expensive, just out of school, and I happen to know someone. So she asked me one question. Would you like to be a contractor? Um, I didn't understand what contractor means. My English was really bad. I said, Yes, I went home and I Googled contractor. I didn't know why she wants me to be a plumber, contractor, contractor, but anyway, that's how I get the first job here. But answer your question, I think why I was confident during the journey. Looking back, I think I was only using what I knew, so I wasn't afraid. I was a reporter before, so I wait outside the building. People said that's crazy, but that's the only thing I knew. I when I was a reporter, I wait outside, and whenever people come out, I give them my microphone, right? And I was interviewing, covering a story of a conference. That sounds crazy. Again, I was a reporter covering a story of a conference, easy peasy. I was a reporter co-calling people. I bring the newspaper and call them, hey, can I get an information interview with you? It was my job for two years, and I was co-calling the all of the alumni, the same thing. I was a reporter, so finding people, and it wasn't that hard for me. So looking back, the reason I was being confident was because I did something that I know I can do. Yes. And because the people people ask me, I gave a TED talk twice, and one of the talks was, How do you keep going when you want to give up?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I say the answer is using your strengths. Because for some people, way outside an ambush hiring manager is crazy. But I'm sure you will do something that other people think is crazy, but you think it's really easy, right? You might be a statistician, so you're calculating over chances to you only email one person, but you know that you email one person is the highest chance to say yes to your resume, right? So I think I was using something I knew, so I wasn't afraid. And as soon as that I know that there's one more thing I can do, I wouldn't give up because I say, Hey, there's one more thing I can do. You see the light in the tunnel, and that's how you are not giving up because you see, as long as I go there, where I try one more time, there's opportunity.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah, and I think those stories are important, even for the business that you're in now. I mean, you're out, you say, I know what I know, and I'll continue to learn and grow.
AI Stylist Plus Clothing Rental Model
SPEAKER_02Um, what do you say when you think about the work that you're doing? What made you pick? You know, I know you you mentioned earlier that people don't want to have to make choices and pick out clothes. What's the advantage to, or why should someone call you based on the young professional that don't want to pick out clothes? What do you what have your experiences been? Why someone should call you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that just uh a lot of our customers are busy guys who need to do goods. They open a closet, they only have a few different brands, they've been weighing the same brand again and again. Um, they might have ambitious goals, such as a simple as just want to get this birthday party with the for the kids and ready for the weekend. They have a busy life between job and kids and families and hobbies and lots of things, but they are also socially active. They might be pastors, talk to people, executive managers who are leading a team. We have a customer who are new managers, they want to stand up. We have customers who are consultants and they go to different client meetings everywhere. And not everybody is really good with sense of fashion. Not everyone can afford a personal shopper. But luckily, we are in the era of AI. So our AI stylists will pick perfect outfits. We work with 150 different brands: Rails, Marine Layer, Johnson and Murphy, Bonobos, BYLT cuts, lots of different amazing menswear brands in the US and globally. And they are all high quality from like sweaters to jacket to blazer to sport coats, polo t-shirt. So our customers they want to look good, but they don't want to make a commitment. Yes, you can probably buy something from Amazon's or Macy's, but the the I the idea of shopping and picking is just a lot of work. Not to mention, after you get a close, you have to decide how to match in the outfit. It might look good with these and the pants and the shoes and jacket. And also you have to do ironings and folding, it's just a lot of work to look good. So we use our AI stylus and our human stylus double check and our human stylus communicate with a customer. So every customer assigned a human stylus, a steer coordinator between the AI and them. And people receive the clothes, they wear for a couple of weeks. If you are traveling, say to Carolina, you change your address, you ship there, you wear a whole week for the conference. After you are done, you return the dirty clothes there to the hotel lobby, you go home without doing any laundry, and new shipment has arrived. So by doing so, always looks great, but don't have to come in to buy anything. But people can buy after wearing for a couple weeks. If you love something, you can buy. So you are supporting the environment by buying second hand, but still looks like new. But usually you get like 50% off or something. So we went for the company and for the brand. And full of customers.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I mean, I never would have thought, you know, I'm sure there are just things that you don't think of and problems that you solve that people say, I wish someone would do this for me, and all I have to do is just show up. And so phenomenal. So did the idea come from the fact that you wanted to get dressed and you didn't want to be committed? Did you have that problem yourself? And that's what that's what the idea came from.
SPEAKER_00Yeah,
Sustainability And Feedback Data Loop
SPEAKER_00yeah. It was uh when I was feeling like I'm impossible syndrome and meta, but I realized that um men actually have even more uh needs for this one because a lot of men hate shopping and laundry. We also discovered that behind the thing, this is actually an amazing business to help on sustainability. Today, 30% of clothes go directly from factory to landfill, generating 10% of carbon emissions, 20% of polluted water. Fashion is the one of the most polluted industry in the world. So, not to mention, even people buy the clothes, most of people only wear 20% of what they have in their closet. Look at these and that, you always only wear a few of them. The rest of them were there collecting dust. You are you don't want to give out to someone, it looks new, but you just somehow a little bit too tight, a little bit too wet, you just don't like it anymore. So, as a result, there are so many of those on so inventory being burned out every year. Why? Because they never get feedback from the customer. When is the last time you told them, hey, I don't wear this one because it's one inch too short here? Hey, because the shoulder looks a little bit weird. You never, right? So when I work for Target, Sears, Kmart, we never really get customer feedback. Even we get the feedback say the clothes is too big. What too big mean? Chest is too big, shoulder too big, or sleeve too long, or what? What's too big? For whom? In what situation after washing five times, your string, still too big, or wash 10 times, it became loose, so it's too big. Those fashion brands never get the feedback. Not to mention they are designing something two years down the road. When they design, after design something, they outsource it to big manufacturers, they outsource it to small factory, they get the clothes, they sell to wholesaler and small retailer. After the six step of supply chain, they never get real feedback. And that's why there's so much jump being produced every year. So we realize for consumers, these AI stylers with meant to be rental business, also give us unique data, feedback from the customer all the time. Because our AI pay codes for you. So you for sure will tell me feedback. Oh, I don't like this one, don't send me again because sleeve is too long. And I because it's membership, so we know your height and weight, because it's rental. We know after we're watching how many times it's still too long. And we feed those information back to the fashion brand and retailer as a data company to help them predict what's going to sell and improve the future design so that the world can be better, they can stop producing junk, and their next collections will be better and less inventory.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
Agile Thinking And Solving Real Problems
SPEAKER_02Where did you pick up the skill to not only receive feedback well but to look to seek it out? Where did where did you develop that skill to get feedback and make changes?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I have been um um the software um had a product for my entire career. Being agile, iterated approach is always in my um work practice best practice. For people who may not familiar with agile, that means that using analogy of building a car, you shouldn't build a car with two well and four wheel, and after six months, you eventually have a car and you realize nobody buy it because everyone works from home. You using analogy, you should be building a bicycle first. Hey, nobody buy it. Why too slow? No, because we work from home. Yeah, you got a feedback early, so you never need to build a car. You just build a bicycle, you already get a real feedback from the customer. The idea of agile is not that after you implement agile, suddenly everybody works faster and the product being shipped earlier. That's just not true. It's impossible. But the idea of being agile is that using a minimum viable product to validate a hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that people need a car to go out to work. In reality, it's maybe they don't. So if you you build a minimum viable product, in this case, a bicycle, then you will know, hey, nobody needs to go out because they work from home. It's the idea to get feedback early from real customer. And you might ask about, okay, why do we need feedback? Well, we can research, or why do we need to build something? Using analogy is almost like your dinner with your wife. You ask your wife, like, hey, what should we eat tonight? She said, Yeah, I'm fine, whatever. And you say, Okay, how about that? Let's go eat pizza. She's like, No, I don't want pizza, right? So until you have something there, you're not going to get real feedback.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, that's exactly how it works. Like, yeah, well, let's go here. No, I really don't want that. So you need feedback to make a decision. So when you when you think about where you are now and what you want to get accomplished, you're a CEO, founder of a company. What is the greatest lesson you learned that's actually helping your business?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's really go back to focus on what real problem we are solving, right? And for whom. Um, so um using an example of my previous company, Target, we we are uh at the time my colleague, uh it was 10 years ago, uh something very popular at the time called Omni Channel. They go to the store and store has beacon, they recognize your geolocation, you go to different aisles, you scan a backup, something AR, V, R, Pop out, so amazing. So they have an idea in mind that hey, sometimes customers go to the store, they forgot one thing. Oh, I forgot to buy the milk, right? So they decided, hey, this is the era of Omnichannel. Let's map out every store of their in-store map and their product location, and let's layer this beacon. And once you go into store, uh, it becomes an in-store GPS on your app, you turn right, turn left, your shopping list will never be missed again. Sounds amazing. How many target in the US? A lot. So maybe not every store is like giant work. Amazingly, finally launch a feature. Nobody uses it. Why? Who goes to Target store? Busy mom. Yes, mom goes to target store to what to get lost. They are not there for the in-store GPS. They want to get away from a noisy kid, they want to get lost in the store, they want to wander around. Wow, this is cute, well, this is interesting. Oh, I didn't know I need this. I think I need this now. Is the fun always to mom to wandering around in a store? Yes, not in-store GPS, like hey, turn right, turn left. Okay, you have finished your shopping, now go home. No, that's even more stressful. Yes, right. So I think it's really important to know who are you really solving the problem for, and then what problem are you really solving? In our model, for example, our at the beginning with all our customers, just any man. Any man, probably handsome man wants to look good. No, we actually have most of our customers who are just guys, they may be handsome or not, but they are not into fashion, they don't reach eq. That's why they need our help. We using analogy of cleaning supply, we are not selling cleaning supply, we are selling the May service. Like, hey, you don't know shopping, no problem. Let me help you. You don't know fashion, no problem. So I don't want to teach you. Let our stylist pick for you. Hey, you don't even know what you shop for or how much you should pay for the clothes, no problem. How about you wear for a couple weeks? And by the way, it's also pre-owned, it's definitely cheaper than retail. You don't know any new brands. You open your closet, only have Nike, Uniquo, Banana Republic, Lululemons, no problem. We have a hundred different brands for you to try. You don't have to commit to anything, you just try different things. So, how we realize that we are not selling clothes, we are selling a peace of mind, we are selling a confidence, we are selling a chance to succeed, we are selling an executive system, we are selling the bottler, the gadget guy behind a superhero. That's really what we are selling. So, understanding our customer, understanding the real value problem is a key.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I mean, I mean, for everyone that's listening, what you just said is is is a magic moment for all of our listeners. What are you selling? Um, and it's not like you said, you're not selling clothes, you know. And I think for entrepreneurs, we get caught up in the product of what we have or the versus like what's the problem, what's the convenience, what what are people really buying it for? Um, I love that you did that. What is it? So when you think about people that are listening, um, what are some things that's happening in their life, Anya, that says, hey, pick up the phone, give her a call, uh, and I want to be able to get people into the funnel that reaches out to you and you leverage your service. Why should someone call you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah,
Partnerships Discounts And How To Try
SPEAKER_00uh, if you are um partners and we partner with a lot of different brands. So uh if you're dating side fitness center, we partner with company like uh Coffee Meets Bagel, Carter's uh the another amazing apparel company. We partner with Rent The Round Way, the women's rental companies. Uh we partner with the sport team, college basketballs, fitness center, people lose weight, they need new clothes. Uh and why those partners partner with us? Because a lot of this is a value add for their member. If you are fitness centers, your clients lose weight, looks sharp, looks fit. Of course, you want them to dress up and then showcase, oh my god, it looks so good. Yeah, I work out in this gym, right? If you are dating side and suddenly it looks presentable, people want to uh introduce their girlfriend, boyfriend for them. So then, of course, your dating side seems a lot more valuable. Of course, if you are dating side with matchmakers, you open your portfolio, over member, if they all look amazing and with the right outfit, of course, the even more people want to get on the side and meet with them. So we partner with those companies. We also partner with corporates. Uh so for corporate who love ESG sustainability product, they really a lot of them now are helping their customer employee to be more presentable while saving time in My Spaces. Most of companies are uh not are not really nine to five. So the time you save from your employee is just a time back to the company. Not to mention sales guy, sales department, when it looks great, they bring clients, the money back to the company. And when they travel for business, they no longer need to expense the very expensive dry clean fee from the hotel, which is a lot of money. They can rent the clothes, they don't need to travel um with luggage anymore because they can travel live shipping tailored clothes to their destinations. So that's why a lot of corporate use us as an employee gift and pur. We partner with women's rental companies. Um, amor rent the runway newly. So um, you when you people offer the service for their employee, it doesn't have to be just for menswear, which is what Taylor is for, but you can also offer for women's wear together. And so they partner with us because then this is just something to help the employee to save time and my spaces while help the company to improve productivity. So if you want to partner with us, you can email me. My email is Anya A-N-Y-A at Taylor. That's T-A-E-L-O-R dot Ai. And if you are just a regular customer who wanna try out um this no shopping and laundry or gift card, like holidays come, like a lot of different holidays, uh, Father's Days, and and also the summer vacations coming and birthdays coming. So, best gift is helping people to save time. Then you can use a code podcast25, podcast25 to go on tailor.style that's t-a-e-l-o-r dot s t y l e t-a-e-l-or dot s t y l e or use a code podcast gift, podcast gift to get a 10% off gift card.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Not only do you know your stuff, you're a good marketer too. You laid it out. I mean, I love it. Uh, so the so now as you're talking about the man, so all the people on the red carpet, do they own that or do they rent that? So I'm thinking of all the people that that dress up, and I know they don't have a call, a closet full of clothes like that, but you're right. I was I was blown away by the your about how much of the clothes in our closet do we really use? And and that number is astonishing because you're exactly right. How we don't use a majority of the clothing that we have in our closets, and we know we have some really big closets. I mean, matter of fact, you know, people have tons of clothes in their closets. So thank you. Phenomenal. Any last words that you'd like to share about the journey or about your product or your service? Anything you'd like to close that with?
The Future Of AI Needs Data
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it was just uh a lot of people ask me about the future of AI. Um, I think so just uh on one hand, we start seeing a lot of AI application, which is AI for certain occupations. I used AI designer, AI engineers, AI accountant, AI lawyers. Uh, that's definitely one area. The other is that for your own business or your company, you probably are also doing AI improving productivities and also building AI product. And one simple tip I want to make sure you know, so because that's really the goal for the future, is that AI only grows when they have great data. So anything you are proprietary data you have. And when I what I meant isn't always means your customers' net numbers, something know. It could be your know-how. For example, being Ron being the executive coach, he knows for what kind of person needs certain techniques, so then the person can get out of comfort zone and try something new. Ron knows that to identify the best uh situation to break through a communication with a colleague in what situation for the company. So these are the know-how that mostly cannot be found on the internet. So anything that you find that ChatGPT doesn't know is your goal. For example, my friend is a dentist. He has the image of people's teeth with teeth problem, and he is operating in California. So using the images without any information of a person, he can still train the AI to recognize what kind of teeth has what kind of teeth problem, right? And it becomes the goal. I have another friend, he's a founder of uh a lobster company. So in the old time they use human to identify if a lobster is big enough to be catched. So, but now they have because they have so much knowledge about when is the perfect timing to catch a lobster. So now they develop an AI to catch a lobster at the right time. The same thing applies for farmers who um grow the strawberry. In the old time, they have to identify the color of the strawberry, make sure it's the right time before they can take it down. And now they also have the knowledge which feed into the AI, and AI now with robotic, can pick the strawberry at the right time. So anything you think is you need know-how. Like Taylor, we know the true quality of garment after washes. So nobody has the information. We know people's true preference because they are through rental service. So when they rent something, it'sn't because it's on discount, it's because they truly like it. Like how you decide what to watch watch on your Netflix show, it's not because it's on discount, you truly like the show. Those types of information is a goal in the future. So think about that, it might be helpful for your career.
Final Takeaways And Sign Off
SPEAKER_02I love it. I mean, you are great, you know. And for everyone that's listening, um, she's giving you all the information on how to reach her. She's also given out codes for you to get discounts. Try out the service, which this is about us building and supporting. We call it um economic development. And I want to make sure that we use what's out there and people try new things. So if you need a service, please reach out. If you know someone that'll be phenomenal for the podcast, you can always find me on LinkedIn. It's the easiest way to find me, but you can also go to our company webpage with Global Course Strategies of Consulting, www.gcs.consulting. Everything that you'll need of access to me, you'll find on our website or LinkedIn. Thank you, Anya. You've been phenomenal. Um, thanks for all of you that um came and joined us. Please share the link with others. Um, if you know someone that'll be great that has value to add or business to promote um that will serve the people that we're serving, please uh tell them to reach out to us. We'll be happy to have a conversation. Thanks again, everybody. Um, Anya and I will sign off and tell you to have a great day and thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpack Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron Unpacks Sound Advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are or the people you serve. Because people always matter.
