business

The Future of Retail

October 24, 2019 By Kat

The old retail world of big department stores and longstanding brands is being turned upside down on its head by new up-and-coming brands who are capturing the hearts (and wallets) of consumers, especially those of the Gen Z and millennial generations.

This is forcing many brands who have enjoyed decades of success to rethink their retail and marketing strategy. Stores are forced to innovate on what the consumer experience will be like and adapt to changing consumer tastes. Meanwhile, for successful online brands to further expand their footprint, they’re exploring new ways to engage with people in-person.

Enter Re:store.

The concept behind Re:store is to bring online brands that people love and give them an in-person physical presence so that their customers can interact with and feel the product in real life.

By housing all these brands under one roof, it makes it easier for shoppers to interact with many brands at once. And from the brand’s perspective, it’s more economical for them to experiment with a shared space instead of committing to a brick and mortar store or even a pop-up store.

I stumbled upon this store in Union Square in San Francisco and was intrigued by this concept. I took tons of photos of the whole space so you could see it. Enjoy!

re:store san francisco store — Storefront

When you walk in, to the right there is a nail bar! Wow. No one was there at the time, but I would have loved a retail experience where you can also get your nails done. With every brand that’s represented, there’s a little blurb that describes them.

Now here’s the rest of the store!

Each brand has a little section / some shelves.

On the descriptions, there’s also little stickers that denote different meanings like whether it’s sustainable fashion, supports a good cause, etc…

There’s jewelry too!

There’s an upstairs as well – 3 levels to be exact.

One of the stickers – IRL for the first time

On the third floor, they have a cool community space for events and such. They also said it was a free co-working space that was open to the public. Not sure if that’s changed since then, but if I lived closer, I would totally go work there!

For the calendar of future events, check out this link.

And last but not least, they also had a row of tablets for brands that have completely digital products. Each tablet was setup for a different brand, so you could sign up for a subscription for that brand – i.e. Masterclass, Calm meditation app, Imperfect Foods, and more.

Alright, that was my fun experience checking out Re:store for the first time! If you’re in the area, drop by and see it for yourself!

If you’re a brand looking to partner with them (maybe get a spot in their store!), check out these membership details on how to apply.

Even though the world is becoming increasingly digital, there’s nothing quite like an in-person shopping experience.

What do you think the future of retail will look like?

Morning Brew: Business News in Your Email Inbox

October 11, 2019 By Kat

Sharing a favorite resource. As part of my daily morning routine, I like to read The Morning Brew – which comes in my email inbox. It covers biz / tech news and other major current events. Very easy and quick to skim.

You can sign up here:
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=644438

Do you have email newsletters that you enjoy reading?

The Questions You Ask

August 2, 2019 By Kat

I’ve been fortunate to have some great coffee / phone chats with people of different backgrounds, age ranges, and industries.

From these conversations, I made an observation that I wanted to share with you for when you are networking with people.

Depending on your background experiences, you may sometimes feel intimidated by the other person. Perhaps they have many more years of experience than you, and you feel like you have nothing to offer them. But what I’ve realized that you can always add value to a conversation by the questions you ask.

I think a great conversation is fueled by great questions, positive energy, and connection. I would describe a great question as something that provokes the other person to think deeply or in a new way.

If the other person is currently struggling with a challenge in their life, maybe you don’t have the answer or expertise to advise them on a solution. But you can always prompt them with questions that help them get closer to the answer.

Asking good questions is a great way to form a bond with someone because you’re not preaching advice to them (which they probably don’t need to hear anyways). It’s encouraging them to self-reflect and come to a conclusion on their own. It’s more like looking at a problem together, instead of pretending to have all the answers for them or trying to fix a problem for them.

It’s a more empathetic way to build a relationship because it emphasizes listening carefully and responding in a supportive way.

What do you think?

What a Toddler Taught Me About Business

July 26, 2019 By Kat

Owning my own business has taught me so many life lessons, and there can be a teachable moment within every encounter – a new client, collaborator, friend, family member, etc… Even when you least expect it.

This story happened a long time ago actually, last December. I was giving a Christmas gift to my nephew, who is a toddler. It was a dinosaur themed lego set – the Duplo ones with really big pieces for young kids.

Anyhow, he unwrapped the gift, and then opened the box to play with the legos. The lego pieces came in these sealed little plastic baggies. And he outstretched his little arm, held out the bag to me, said “Help pleez!”

At the time, he didn’t have a big vocabulary, but he knew how to ask for help. And that was the lesson I needed to learn.

Up until that point, I was trying to do everything in my business on my own. My own marketing – videos, social media, blog. Finding speaking opportunities and personal styling clients, doing sales calls, managing the administrative stuff and finances, while trying to juggle promotion for my book as well. There was just so much going on.

After that moment my nephew asked for help, his words kept ringing in my head. The words are so simple. Yet as adults, it is so hard for us to ask for help.

It wasn’t an overnight thing, but I started to ask more people for help. I started collaborating more. I was open to accepting help instead of being stubborn and trying to do it all on my own.

And probably the biggest step was to ask for support, in those tough times of my business, to say that I needed help.

Somehow, we’re conditioned to think we need to figure it all out on our own. But we don’t. We don’t even have to hold it together all the time. It’s a humbling realization, and it requires putting our egos aside. It’s okay that we need each other. And it’s okay to ask for help.

To my dear nephew, thank you for reminding me of this important lesson. And yes, I’d be happy to open that bag of legos for you.

If you enjoyed this post, you can check out other articles of my business journey here.

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Update on Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge

April 17, 2019 By Kat

If you remember, last month I wrote about the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Erod. I took on his 30-Day Challenge and tried to do the routines every day for 30 days. Over a month has flown by already! Below are the results on how I fared.

Quick recap first: The Miracle Morning routine consists of these 6 activities. You can do them for as long or as short as you’d like, but you’re supposed to do all of them each morning.

S – silence
A – affirmations
V – visualization
E – exercise
R – reading
S – scribing (also known as writing or journaling)

The Last 30 Days

I tracked all of it in a spreadsheet, or sometimes on paper in my journal.

As you can see, there are a bunch of gaps in odd places. Some days, I did none of the activities, usually days when I had a meeting early in the morning. I traveled one weekend, so that was completely blank. But for the mornings when I had nothing immediately pressing to do, I was able to get through (most of) the SAVERS activities.

Another chart to visualize how many times I did each activity

You’ll also notice that my biggest weak spot is exercise. Often it’d be easy to do the 5 other tasks, but then I’d procrastinate and then not exercise.

Despite the inconsistencies in my routine, I still feel like I practiced each activity enough times to gain some new insights which I share below.

Silence

Prior to this challenge, I never had the time or discipline to sit in silence for a few minutes, but now I look forward to it! I crave that silence sometimes. It’s a moment to feel at complete peace and to be receptive to whatever God / the Universe has to offer you.

I’ve heard of it described this way. If prayer is asking God for something, then meditation (or silence in this case) is listening for the response.

Hence, I would clear my mind and try to listen. Oftentimes, a phrase or word or some sentiment would pop into my head. Then I would immediately write it down in my journal so I could remember it.

I would “hear” things like: Trust and soften your heart. I have everything I ever wanted. Let my heart sing. Unwaver. And so on. Sometimes I’d write these early morning thoughts on my Twitter account.

Affirmations

Another good habit! I initially started reading aloud affirmations from lists that other people created (Louise Hay or T. Harv Eker). I didn’t know how to come up with my own affirmations nor had the energy to do so.

But then as I started reading more self-improvement books and watching videos, I started to come across empowering sayings that I wanted to capture and keep repeating to myself. So I started creating my own list of affirmations that are relevant to my life. Things that may feel uncomfortable to say because I didn’t feel that confident about them being true yet. But that’s a sign you’ve got to keep repeating it!!

Here are some examples of affirmations on my personal list:

I will lead people to their destiny.
I will be all that I can be.
I have laser focus.
I have immense self discipline.
I will never give up.

Here’s one I heard in a video from JLo that I added to my list too. She ages backwards, so I think I’ll give it a shot! 😉

I am youthful and timeless at every age. I am ever evolving and my life is full of joy and adventure.
Jennifer Lopez

Visualization

My Vision Board – YouTube video about it here

I do one of two things here: 1) I look at my vision board and just read it and take it all in. Or 2) I close my eyes and visualize the day unfolding beautifully. I envision the meetings and people I’ll be meeting and all of those things going smoothly.

Visualizing good things happening in my day does make the tasks I have to do that day less scary. It’s not a bad thing to visualize things working out well!

Exercise

Ahhh I just cringe when I think of this one. That’s probably the problem right there, ha! Anyhow, I have to say that I’ve exercised more in the past 30 days than before, so that’s a good start.

Other than that, I know I could’ve done better. I am just being too lazy. *Facepalm*

I did experiment with different types of exercise (dance, strength training, yoga, pilates, stretching, treadmill, stairmaster), and even different time durations. Hehe yes, I did 1 minute exercise days and that even counts. (Hal Erod says so himself!)

So if you really need some motivation, you could do 1 minute of jumping jacks or a 1 minute plank. Or you can move up to 10 minute yoga exercises that you can find online. Or sometimes I’d walk to do errands like grocery shopping. The fresh air does a body good!

I’m going to need to keep experimenting. This is something I’m going to need to conquer!!

If you don’t make time for exercise, you will have to make time for illness.
Unknown

Ouch, yes.

Reading

Oh I like this one! Reading is a luxurious time for me. Sadly, I can’t just sit there and get absorbed into a book for hours when I have a full day ahead of me. But reading a few pages picks my energy up. It makes me feel great that I’ve learned something new before even getting out of bed!

I usually have multiple books I’m reading at once, and I don’t finish all of them. And I have an audiobook or eBook on hand as well. So I choose from any of those books.

Reading books is an old love that I’ve returned to as an entrepreneur. Back when I was in the corporate world, I had no time to read books! My only advice: make time by getting off your phone! LoL

Scribing or Writing

I love my writing time as well. It’s a time to pour out all my ideas and worries and frustrations onto the page and then let it all go. Sometimes I spend a little too much time on this one compared to the other activities!

I usually start with 3 things I’m grateful for in my SELF journal. Then I move onto my notebook for freehand journaling. I like to rewrite the same list of goals on a regular basis as well.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve filled up many many notebooks with my random thoughts.

Ripple Effects

Going forward, I’m going to keep doing these miracle morning activities. I find tremendous value in silence, affirmations, and visualization and they are very quick to do. I think they made the most difference in my life because I hadn’t done them before. Reading and scribing take a little more time, so I can’t do them if I’m in a rush.

This is literally the beginning of having a routine in my life. I had no structure to my life prior to this. So I’m going to piggyback off this routine and start to add other healthy habits that I want to do. For example, writing my blog or checking my finances or anything else.

I heard that once you have ONE thing that you do every day, then you can use it as a trigger so that once you do that thing, then you immediately do a second activity. And by repeating that with additional activities, you slowly build up a whole day or whole life of healthy habits and routines that take less willpower to get through. *Crossing fingers* That’s the hope, people!

Here’s The Miracle Morning book if you want to check it out.

P.S. If you found this article helpful, subscribe to my newsletter HERE.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

No B.S. Time Management

April 6, 2019 By Kat

If you like advice straight and blunt, Dan Kennedy will give to you. In his book, No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, Dan does not hold back from laying down the law when it comes down to how to manage time effectively. He is such a stickler for time, and while you may scoff at his unconventional methods (i.e. using a fax machine), his numerous achievements at running multiple businesses and writing numerous books is no joke. He protects his time and gets sh*t done.

It’s a sizable book at 240 pages, I read the eBook version and found it was quite gripping. I couldn’t wait to read more. It got a little bit dry in one section – Chapter 14 where it became a rant about taming technology, but I stuck through it, finished it, and thought it was overall a worthwhile read!

If you are protective about guarding your money, you should be even more protective about your time! I am guilty of letting time slip by innocuously as I endlessly scroll through my phone, sigh.

How He Manages Time

Anyhow, he emphasizes understanding the worth of your time – even calculating how much each hour and minute of your life is worth. He talks about setting firm boundaries and not allowing “time vampires” to suck away your time. Example of a time vampire: someone who often drops by your office just to ask you something that ends up taking a lot of your time.

Even though he is running multiple businesses and has many private clients, he only has 1 staff person – his assistant who works on the other side of the country. He works from home and contacts her every once in awhile. The reason she is not in the same physical space as him is because then he would get interrupted a lot more. By being in different offices, they limit communication to the specific methods – faxing, FedEx documents back and forth, short check-ins. He used to have a staff of over 40+ people and go into the office on a regular basis. However, he found that when you’re too available to your employees/team, then they ask you for things that they could have figured out themselves. So he finds it best to work at home (no commute and less interruptions) with just one staff person on the other side of the country.

He also guards against interruptions by not having a cell phone. Yes, that’s right, he doesn’t have a cell phone. He did try having one once, but got so frustrated with it after 2 weeks that he threw it out his car window and never had one again. He also doesn’t have email. Yes, pretty crazy! He does his work through fax, FedEx packages, phone call appointments, and in-person consultations. It took me awhile to wrap my head around this that he wasn’t actually kidding.

He even has these strict communication rules with his clients, where they need to setup appointments ahead of time. His phone appointments are 20 minutes long, so that he can squeeze in 3 meetings into an hour. And once a month, he has these phone call days, to take care of all these calls. If there’s an emergency, the clients contact his assistant who will triage it appropriately. He requires his clients come to where he’s located, so he can save time by reducing air travel time and fatigue.

While I found some of his methods very strict, I do see the value in having those firm boundaries so that he can have as much uninterrupted time to do deep focused work. He describes the benefit to his clients in this way: when they’re meeting (on the phone or in-person), they have his FULL ATTENTION. Whereas if he was available 24/7 by phone, then they would only receive his partial attention because he could be in the midst of doing something else.

I have to admit, Dan Kennedy has seriously thought about the costs of everything – the cost of travel, interruption, context switching, etc.. By being intentional about how his time is used, he is able to have more time to relax at the racetrack in the evenings or spend time with family.

Similar to what I had learned in the last book I wrote about on The Power of Full Engagement, being extremely efficient with your time DOES NOT mean working all the time.

Dan Kennedy has budgeted time for the projects and clients that are important to him and budgeted time to enjoy life as well. That sounds like a good deal to me.

Quotes From the Book

Here are some of the quotes I wrote down:

“If anything, the passing of time has stiffened my resolve about safeguarding it, wisely investing it, enjoying it, and bringing upon any who would steal it, waste, or abuse it.”

“Is what I am doing, this minute, moving me measurably closer to my goals?”

“Just as the person who cannot tell you where his money goes is forever destined to be poor, the person who cannot tell you where his time goes is forever destined to be unproductive- and, often, poor.”

“One of the most significant things that you can control to a great extent, is association- your choices of whom you permit into your world, whom you give time or invest time with, and whom you look to for ideas, information, and education.”

“To get anywhere with an idea, you must concentrate ALL your thoughts on ONE task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until they are brought into focus.” -Alexander Graham Bell

“There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley

My Takeaways

One suggestion he made is to have clocks in every room of your house. Then you won’t lose track of hours passing by. You’ll always be conscious of what time it is, so you can know if you’re on track or need to move onto the next thing. I usually use the clock on my phone, so my action item is to buy more clocks for my place!!

I’ve also decided to use timers more often for my work. If I take an afternoon break or a lunch break, sometimes I’ll set a timer so that I don’t get too carried away. In addition, I’ve gone back to using Toggl and even downloaded the app on my phone too for when I’m not doing laptop work. (See earlier blogpost where I talk about Toggl.)

If you’re feeling frantic / pressed for time, here’s the book if you want to adopt some new time management techniques: No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs

For more thoughts on productivity and priorities, check out some of the episodes on my podcast What Kat Found Out, also available on all major podcast players.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

How to Create a Booth Display for Your Business

March 15, 2019 By Kat

Last month, I had the opportunity to showcase my personal styling business at the Four Chamber Business Expo in Palo Alto! The event was hosted by the Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, and Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce organizations. As a business owner, you can purchase an exhibitor table / booth at the expo, which is held during one evening.

I wanted to write this tutorial for those of you who may be wondering about this method of advertising and promotion. Sponsoring an event or purchasing an exhibitor table at a event can be a great way to spread awareness about your business and meet potential clients or collaborators in the community.

In this current age of digital advertising, I think there is still a lot of value in meeting people face-to-face and building a relationship on that foundation. It doesn’t necessarily scale as fast, but if you have the time and financial resources, it can be a marketing option to explore.

Last year, as my first year in my business, I had setup a booth at this event as a children’s book author to promote my first book.

Last year’s booth at the Four Chamber Expo

This year, I came back with a different career, haha! My booth was for my business as a personal stylist. I offer styling packages for helping clients upgrade their wardrobe with closet consultations and shopping trips.

This year’s booth at the Four Chamber Expo

Honestly, when you’re figuring out whether to invest in having a business booth, you first need to figure out whether the cost makes sense to you. Depending on the event, it can cost several hundred dollars and beyond (even thousands of dollars) to have a table at an event. For this event, it cost $200 for a 6′ table. You should weigh the cost of how many products / services you must sell in order for the cost of the booth to be worth it. It’s easier when you have higher-priced services like coaching or styling, as opposed to lower priced items like books. You’ll just have to sell a lot more books to be equivalent to the cost of selling a couple of the bigger service packages.

But of course, marketing can’t just be measured in short-term returns on your investment. There’s also the benefits of increased awareness and exposure, so people even begin to realize that you and your business exist. This is harder to measure and takes a lot of persistence and consistency – to keep showing up, so people can start to associate your business with solving a certain problem they may have in their life.

Part of maintaining that consistency is to collect business cards (brought a jar for that) and email addresses to build up your mailing list. Then you can continue to send out useful information to interested people.

Mailing List

To increase the incentive for people to sign up for my mailing list, I decided to do a giveaway. Chocolates and cookies are a popular giveaway, but may not help them remember the specifics of your business. On the other hand, schwag like pens or water bottles personalized with your business logo is useful, but can be pricey. At this point in my business, I’m not ready to buy branded schwag yet. I don’t even have a formal logo yet!

I wanted to go with something fashion-related, so I decided on lint rollers! They’re fairly inexpensive and I had seen them on sale at IKEA, so I went and picked up a huge pile of them! So if someone signed up for my mailing list, I’d give them a handy dandy lint roller. These were pretty popular, so in the future, if I had budget, I may get them personalized with my name as schwag.

Business Info Materials

The next thing I had to prepare was the actual handouts / materials with my business information and services. That included business cards. I used a template and same-day printed them with Office Depot.

I wanted to prepare a whole bunch of pretty materials and pamphlets on my process and services, but alas, I ran out of time. So at the minimum, have some handout about your services that people can take with them. I created a one-pager that listed the 3 different tiers of styling packages that I have, with pricing information and a special event discount for anyone who signed up that day.

If you want something a little fancier, you could use the free tool Canva to design brochures and flyers. They have great template designs. (I wrote a Canva tutorial for social media graphics earlier on my blog.)

Anyways, I came up with that handout, then rushed to Office Depot to get a stack of copies printed. Speaking of printing, if you’re going to do marketing for your small business, you’re probably going to have to print frequently. Luckily, the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce has a great partnership with Office Depot so members can get discounted pricing on printing. It saves a bunch of money!! Printing costs can add up!

Client Testimonials

Another thing that new customers love to see is your work in action, a.k.a. your portfolio. Since my work is very visual, and people would be passing by the booth fairly quickly, I decided to print out before/after photos of 3 of my clients.

Speaking of printing, in my experience, Office Depot does a great job with black & white copies (and they’re very fast with turnaround time). But their color copies don’t turn out as great. The color looks weird – too yellow or something. Hence I opt to go to FedEx for my color printing jobs, which is a little pricier, so I use it more sparingly.

By the way, it’s easier if you have the email addresses of Office Depot and FedEx on hand, so you can email them the files instead of bringing a USB there directly.

I sent them the copies and printed them. I trimmed them to fit my clear frames, which I had bought earlier at Michaels.

Before & after photos of my clients Ines, Paula, and Michael

I also included before/after photos of my own style transformation!

The photos were quite a hit, people liked seeing the transformations.

Payment Methods

Another thing I prepped for is to accept payments in-person. I use a Square payment reader with my phone. I setup the Square app with the items that are available for sale. Last year, it was the book (and I had to make sure the sales tax percentage was correct for the city I was doing the sale in). This year it was the styling packages with the discounts applied. I also tested out the reader with my own credit card to make sure the whole process would go smoothly and that the receipt looked the way I wanted.

This should be setup as early as possible. Last year, I panicked because I was going to use a PayPal reader but then my account wouldn’t activate, so I rushed to get a Square reader on the day of the event. Avoid those last-minute scares!

Decor of the Booth

The last part is the fun part of adding the decorative finishing touches onto the booth.

I had actually envisioned what the whole booth would look like as step 1 of this whole process. I sketched out what I wanted the booth to look like (see below). I thought about what props I already had from last time or around my home that I could reuse. It helped me to also think about what I needed to purchase/create.

A later, more refined sketch of my booth

Some decorative items I used were: some faux flowers in a vase, some twinkling lights, basket for the lint rollers, a vase for the business cards, a trinket tray for my business cards, Vogue magazines, velvet clothing hangers, candles, jewelry box holder, heels, fashion tape, and fashion books.

I also got a letter board from HomeGoods (where I got a lot of decor items for last year’s booth), where I could display my name and title. Otherwise I didn’t have a big sign with my business or name on it.

Get Yourself Ready

After all the work of running around and getting your booth ready, don’t forget to get yourself ready! I planned out my outfit ahead of time, did proper self-care and grooming, and allowed enough time to do my hair and makeup before the event. Since you’re representing your brand and your business, you want to look polished and professional – even if it’s been a frantic day, ha!

Extra Hands

If you’re a one-person business owner, try to find a friend or family member who can help you out at your booth. I asked Vince, my fiance, who I am grateful for. He helped me move and setup everything, as well as talk to people at the booth with me. It’s hard to handle all of that as one person! Let alone, sometimes you need to go to the bathroom and don’t want to leave everything unattended! Thanks babe!

Conclusion

To summarize, this is the process of how I designed and prepared my booth to promote my business at a local business expo. Overall, I thought it was great exposure for my business. I met many new contacts in the community, and have leads that I’m following up on now. It is a lot of work, so it’s not something I would do on a frequent basis, but it’s a good marketing tool to use every now and then. And once the primary legwork is done for setting up a booth, it’ll be easier for me to do the same setup for a booth at a different event.

I hope the article helped you understand what the experience is like and helps you decide whether you would want to do it in the future for your business! Again, in early stage businesses, it’s important to pay attention to costs (me learning from my mistakes) so be cognizant of how much you invest in the price of the booth and the materials so that you can get the most value from the experience!

Celebrate

After the event, we were exhausted and starving, so we went out for a little impromptu dinner date. Sushi, yum! Cheers to a successful event!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, you can check out more tutorials on business topics on my blog.

Or you can sign up for my mailing list, where I share more behind-the-scenes of my life as an entrepreneur.

Interview with Co-Founder of Ava James NYC: a New Workwear Brand Exclusively for Sizes 8-18

March 2, 2019 By Kat

At the end of last year, my friend and classmate from MIT, Eugena Delman, launched a brand new clothing line called Ava James NYC with her co-founder Saena Chung. It is a workwear brand with high-quality tailored dresses for women who are sizes 8-18. This is an underserved market, as the fashion industry has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity and creating a range of options for all body types. Hence, I was thrilled to hear about how this duo is working to create beautiful and sophisticated clothing for this target audience. Furthermore, they manufacture locally in New York City, which is awesome!

Read on for the story behind Ava James NYC.

Isn’t this pic so elegant??
All photos from Ava James NYC

Co-Founders of Ava James NYC: Eugena Delman (left) and Saena Chung (right)

I’m fascinated by people who have the courage to start a new clothing line, so I had lots of questions for Eugena! Below is my interview with her. Hope you enjoy!

Eugena Delman

KK: First off, what inspired you to create the Ava James NYC clothing line?

London Dress in Baby Pink & Black
London Dress in Black

ED: I was inspired by my older sister who lives in Hong Kong and has been a size 14 her entire adult life. I had just left my corporate job and was hanging out in Hong Kong with my family (I grew up in Hong Kong although my family is Korean).

I was mulling over my next steps when my sister jokingly suggested that I start a wholesale business that would import plus-size brands into Asia. She had mentioned that there was a large expat community and there were more and more women who had struggled to find larger sizes in stores. Having grown up there, I knew that any clothing options greater than teeny tiny was difficult so I thought that this was an interesting business proposition and I started doing my research.

Pretty quickly, I started to realize how limited options were in the US, where the average woman is a size 14-16! It didn’t make any sense to me that a huge swathe of the population was massively underserved by the fashion industry. So I figured if it doesn’t exist, why not try to create it?

I knew I couldn’t do this on my own so I tapped my bestie from Hong Kong, Saena Chung, to join me on this venture. She had graduated from RISD and had spent her entire career in fashion so I knew she was the perfect partner.

KK: How did you meet your co-founder Saena?

ED: I met Saena when we were tweens in 90s Hong Kong. We actually have no recollection of how we met – it was probably at Korean Saturday School (every Korean in Hong Kong was forced to go to Korean school on Saturday mornings which was universally hated) or at church (super stereotypically Korean!).

KK: What was your background prior to starting this business? How did you know when it was time to make the leap?

ED: I worked in finance at Goldman Sachs for 9 years before making the leap. I held several roles while I was there – I was originally supposed to start in the Public Sector and Infrastructure team in Investment Banking but the recession hit almost immediately after graduation and I was moved to the market risk team.

I eventually switched to a structured product marketing role where I stayed for 7 years. It was a great place to be as a junior person but as the years went on, you could feel that business was starting to slow down. A lot of new regulations started popping up and directly affected the bank’s ability to play in super structured and illiquid products. I could see the writing on the wall.

Moreover, I had just turned 30 and had my first kid – I felt like I hadn’t really pushed myself in the last few years and knew I had the energy and risk appetite in me to do something totally crazy.

KK: Sounds like perfect timing! How did you pick the name of the brand Ava James NYC?

Berlin dress in Salamander
Berlin dress in Salamander

ED: I wish we had a better story for this! Originally we wanted to do something with our first names but every combination we came up with sounded like an insect or biological specimen.

We finally decided to come up with the name of a woman who could be a potential customer of ours – a sophisticated and elegant name that is easily spelled and pronounced and could (hopefully) last the test of time.

KK: Where do you manufacture your clothing?

ED: We manufacture everything locally in the Garment District here in NYC. We decided to produce here because we were very particular with our quality standards and wanted to make sure we worked with a factory that was experienced with higher end brands. We wanted to observe the entire production process to ensure that our standards were maintained.

Moreover, because we were very particular about fit, we knew we were going to have multiple fit sessions during our pattern development process. It would’ve been logistically impossible to handle all of this in an overseas factory.

KK: What distinguishes your line from the other clothing brands out there?

ED: There’s been strong growth in the offerings available for plus size women, particularly at lower price points. We wanted to offer a premium product with a super feminine and sophisticated design aesthetic that we felt was missing in the market.

Moreover, our size range is meant to capture women who just about size out of the “straight size” designers (many of whom produce up to size 8 or 10) and are too small for the traditional plus retailers.

Berlin dress in Dove Grey
Berlin dress in Dove Grey

KK: What has been your proudest moment so far in business?

ED: Getting our first collection designed, developed, and manufactured in about 5 months was incredible.

My partner is an amazingly creative person but sometimes needs a little prodding to get deadlines in place whereas I’m no creative genius but I get things done efficiently with the financials in mind. We make a great team!

Also, I launched this business while I was pregnant with my second child and gave birth to my little girl, Chloe, the day after Thanksgiving.

People thought I was crazy for starting a business while pregnant but to be perfectly frank, there is NEVER a good time to be pregnant. I figured I would just deal with it and it turned out not to be so bad. My husband was a saint – he helped me with some of the fabric deliveries and dealt with all the ups and downs of starting a business / being pregnant. The poor guy had to deal with all of my emotional highs and lows and we hadn’t even had the baby yet!

KK: Haha sounds like you have great teammates in work and life! Where is the best place to find out more about your brand?

ED: We are online! Check us out at www.avajamesnyc.com and on our Instagram @avajamesnyc. We also have a showroom on 30th and 7th and happy to show our products in person to anyone who would like pop by. We do participate in pop-ups on a pretty regular basis (we are heading to Florida for the World Equestrian Festival in Wellington in March!) so keep an eye out on our instagram and sign up for our email newsletter.

New York dress in Black
Madrid dress in Charcoal

Chicago dress in Dark Spruce
Chicago dress in Dark Spruce

KK: Eugena, thanks so much for the inspiring interview! Wishing you and Saena amazing success above and beyond your wildest dreams!

Check out their website and social media to support these ladies!
Ava James NYC
@avajamesnyc

All photos courtesy of Ava James NYC. Note: this is not a sponsored post, just posting about awesome female-owned businesses!

The Joy of Work

February 26, 2019 By Kat

Last week was a really hectic, but fun and fulfilling week of work for me. I wanted to write this post because my work now has a different feeling to it, compared to when I had internships / jobs at corporate places. In the past, I’ve been lucky to have some very rewarding experiences on projects had a lot of purpose and meaning. But somehow it feels different now.

The word that probably best captures my sentiment about work now is: joy. A close second is probably the word stress, haha! 😉 But the joy outweighs the stress and keeps me going!

As I drive to meet my clients at the mall or at their homes, I have a lot of excitement about what’s coming up. I have excitement to talk to them, spend time getting to know them, and being able to figure out what knowledge or resources I can share with them to help them with their challenges. It’s very mentally stimulating because it involves deep listening and empathy and drawing on the best of my communication skills to articulate my thoughts as clearly and compassionately as possible.

With each work experience, I learn and grow and gain more confidence in my chosen career path. And of course, what follows joy is gratitude for this joy – gratitude for the people, places, and events that led me to my personal styling business. And gratitude to myself for making the leap of faith that this seedling of an idea (that fashion would be something I’d really enjoy doing) actually did come true!

Who knows what’s to come, but right now, these days, I feel so happy.

Happy doesn’t mean everything is easy and working 100% in my favor. But I feel happy as in fulfilled and feeling useful to the world.

A long time ago, my church gave out this card that says “God Use Me” to whoever attended service that day. We were supposed to take it home and pray about it, ask God how we could be of use to Him. I decided to frame it and leave it on the mantle. I prayed about it but not much happened. I still felt lost as what I was to do next.

As glamorous as it may sound to not have work and to just sit around with no obligations, it is quite stressful actually because I was always wondering, should I be doing something productive? Or I wish I had something to do. Or I wish I could make progress towards my next step in life. Anyways, that whole period of time in my life deserves its own detailed explanation, which will have to be saved for another time.

However, my point here is that when you’ve experienced having “no work” to do, you really do cherish when you have meaningful work to do. The other title I was considering for this blogpost was: “The Gift of Work.” Because now I do see that having work is a gift, to do something meaningful and contribute to someone’s life in a positive way – however big or tiny. It’s a gift for ourselves, really.

If your current work doesn’t feel that way to you, then maybe you’re doing the wrong type of work. If it’s draining or you loathe doing it, perhaps it’s time to consider if something else would make better use of your talents and skills.

Try to listen to what pulls you or attracts you. That may be a sign for the next big change in your life.

For more behind-the-scenes insight on what Kat Kuan’s life as an entrepreneur and personal stylist is like, subscribe to her mailing list here.

Photo by @lailaniafrica of @chicreativeagency

My Word of the Year for 2019

January 27, 2019 By Kat

I wanted to pick out a word-of-the-year. One thing to focus on for the year. But I couldn’t decide which word to pick!

Top contenders:

Massive action – phrase borrowed from Tony Robbins on how to take charge of your life and achieve your goals.
Focus – self-explanatory, we could all use more focus and less distractions.

However, I realized that “massive action” was not working for me because I kept trying to pile more things onto my plate and keep moving in many directions, making little progress on any one thing.

I also realized that “focus” was too narrow of a word for me. It didn’t excite or motivate me that much. The word made me think of limited options and a smaller focus area. It wasn’t very invigorating to wake up and feel like you must focus for the day. Felt more obligatory for me personally.

But then I was listening to this amazing motivational YouTube video Live Your Dreams over and over again. Then I decided on my word for 2019.

Courage

I believe that the word “courage” will steer me in the right direction at each step of the way during this year. Courage means doing the hard thing. Doing a single hard thing can give you more progress than doing 100 easy things in the wrong directions.

Oftentimes the “hard thing” is the right thing to do, and probably the thing that we fear and dread the most. But that’s when we stand to have the biggest gain both in potential external results but also in who we become as a person.

If I have to measure each day, then I’ll need to ask myself, if I did things that required courage each day. It freaks me out thinking that I’ll need to face a fear each day, but if I don’t, what is at stake? If I don’t face a fear today, if I just stay in my comfort zone, then I’ll likely stay the same. I won’t have grown that day.

Sure, one day without growth is no big deal. But if you multiple that by 7 days in a week, spent hiding and procrastinating from your fears, that’s one week of your life gone by that you didn’t grow. And then a month passes by, and you didn’t grow. You make more excuses about why it’s “safe” to stay where it’s comfortable. And then years pass by, and you’ve settled for even more things and you’ve come up with a laundry list of why it’s too hard to change now. And then life send you a wake-up call that you are ill prepared for because this whole time, you didn’t grow into a stronger, better person. You’re essentially the same person as you were 5 years ago.

The Movie: Revolutionary Road

Another way to think about this sobering thought is illustrated in the movie: Revolutionary Road. (This movie reunited Kate Winslet and Leonardo DioCaprio on the big screen since Titanic. Omg I just had to watch it! It’s available on Amazon Prime if you’re interested.)

It’s about April and Frank Wheeler (played by Kate and Leo respectively), who are a married couple in the 1950s living with 2 young kids in Connecticut. They live in a picture-perfect neighborhood in a picture-perfect house. He goes to an office job, while she stays at home to take care of the house and kids. The problem is that their life is on autopilot. They had ambitions when they were younger (her to be an actress, him to go back to Paris – a city he loved) but then they settled into married suburban life and those dreams got put on the backburner. They get so numb with their life and by staying static, and as the movie unfolds, they actually find that there are consequences. I won’t go into details in case you want to go watch it.

Honestly, it was a depressing movie, but I can’t help but find how truthful it is. Staying still in life is so tempting because it seems safe (it’s what you already know and are familiar with), but it is actually the riskiest option. But we can’t see the consequences until the long term, and by then, it may be too late to change our choices.

Many people are dead now. Many people are allowing their dreams to die. Many people have allowed their ideas to lie dormant and collect dust. Many people have all this talent and ability that they allow to be buried inside of them, that they will take to their graves. Because they didn’t have the courage to be who they are.”
Les Brown

Thoughts on Courage

Courage is hard. There’s so many uncertainties and things to fear and worry about in the world.

Does it mean that valiant people are not afraid? No, it means they experience that fear and they move forward.”
Les Brown

What I’ve been trying to do is feel the fear. To feel the trembling fear when I’m about to do something I’m scared to do. And then to acknowledge it and DECIDE that I will do it anyways. And the quicker I do it, the less painful it will be because I won’t have to agonize over all the worst case scenarios.

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

I’m far from perfect, and still very much working on being brave. It’s daunting because just as every day is a new day, every day you’re faced with a choice of whether you will be brave or not. And I hope that for me and you, we both decide to be brave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgIvxZ4m8U

Disclaimer: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.