Serial millennial entrepreneur Jennifer Cheng of Glam-it shares her story from Hong Kong today!
Jennifer Cheng, founder and CEO of Glam-it, a company that focuses on streamlining beauty solutions for the busy working woman of today shares her views on business and entrepreneurship all the way from Hong Kong today. Started in 2013, Glam-it was named one of the top 20 hottest start-ups in HK.
Welcome to SHEROES Jennifer! Can you tell us about yourself?
My personal development, education, and learning about the world has generally been from an international perspective and today I consider myself a global citizen. I was born and raised in the United States and got my B.A. at Brown University with a major in International Relations, before coming to Asia and doing my MBA at HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology). Since I was young, I’ve had a passion for and attained a professional level in the arts and creative fields including as a pianist receiving my pre-college training at the New England Conservatory of Music and Boston University School for the Arts, as well as having the opportunity to be an actress and a model in film and television before, during, and after college. It was when I moved to Hong Kong that I channeled by passion of the business world and entered the world of technology and startups. As my career has unfolded, I’ve realized that my natural strengths are in business development, partnerships, and brand building. I discovered my passion for entrepreneurship while helping different startups during and after my MBA and holding positions including Director of Business Development APAC at Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), Vice President of uBuyiBuy (acquired by Groupon, NASDAQ: GRPN), Queen Bee AKA Vice President of BEECRAZY (acquired by Catcha Group, now ASX: EN88), and helping to build various other startups in the eCommerce, social commerce space including Glamabox (Glamaclub), Plukka (ASX: PKA), and Glam-it! by JennGlamCo.
How and when did the idea of Glam-it come about?
Looking back, I realize that I must have always had the desire to start and build something bigger than myself, and the idea behind Glam-it! has always been to save and empower girls with the confidence and tools to explore and reach their full potential, which is a mission that extends beyond the Company itself. Our hero and cult-hit product, the patent pending GlamPact, which is the first light-up, DIY, all-in-one, customizable and refillable eco-chic makeup compact--was developed with this end in mind as it allows busy time-starved girls the complete freedom of choice, and expressing themselves, all the while providing much-needed convenience--ultimately saving them time and space so that they can focus on people and things that matter to them. I realized the need for GlamPact when I was acting and modeling, while also maintaining a busy schedule in the media and finance industries, running around from audition to film shoot, to business meetings, and desperately wishing for a way to touch up on the go. My “a-ha!” moment came when I saw girls like me in cities everywhere with cluttered makeup bags and purses dropping their makeup and exchanging knowing looks: in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, Bangkok, Jakarta, Delhi, Mumbai, we are all similarly pressed for time between meetings or out at events with friends and family as well as lacking space, and proper lighting situations on public transportation, in taxis, in airplanes, restaurants, lounges. We all needed a streamlined solution and a way to take our beauty into our own hands, a way to enable each girl to “put her best face forward” so to speak.
When initially setting up your company, what were the challenges you faced?
With any company, going from idea to actually starting up and launching from zero is a challenge in and of itself. As a founder, you need to have the perseverance to execute your idea, the leadership capability to build and guide your team to achieving those crucial milestones, and the ability to attract your early customers. I literally sketched out a rudimentary idea for the GlamPact, showed my early believers who joined my team and circle of advisors and mentors, and, while I developed my makeup formulations in Korea and developed the GlamPact hardware moldings and entered production, launched the Company. We utilized a “clicks to bricks” strategy, in that we launched the site Glamit.com before approaching brick and mortar and embracing an omni retail and omni channel strategy. We actually had revenues from day 1 because I went back to my eCommerce roots and curated different designers and fashion to generate site traffic and cashflow while we were waiting on our hero product to be produced. I showed the GlamPact prototype to our first luxury retailer, and had a contract in my hand 2 weeks after that, and within a month, the GlamPact and Glam-it! products were on shelves as well as rolling out into different eCommerce, mCommerce and social commerce partner platforms.
How did you get the initial funding requirement for beginning operations?
I’ve been lucky in that I was able to self-fund and bootstrap Glam-it! initially because of my previous successful exits most notably BEECRAZY (now AUX: EN88), now Ensogo Group, of which I’m still a shareholder. My most recent IPO was last week with my portfolio company Plukka (AUX: PKA) of which I am an Advisor. My focus after starting Glam-it! has been to generate cashflow and revenue to continue to grow the company, our offerings, and to expand our reach and team internationally and as organically as possible, while remaining true to the values of a lean startup and a high caliber team with shared vision and values. Our revenues have been more than sustaining us, we’ve been keeping our costs as low as possible, all the while focusing on maintaining the high quality of our offerings and partner network. We have been experiencing steady organic growth since inception, received awards and media attention, and as a result of the traction that come with proven product and revenues, have been naturally expanding our ranks, product categories, and geographic scope. Investors have also approached me to date who are interested in Glam-it! and in what we are working on, because of my previous track record with startups that have been able to successfully exit or raise funding. If and when we decide to go for a major fundraising round, it will be so that we can expand and scale up our efforts even faster and grow even more aggressively.
What is a typical day at work like for you?
When you’re an entrepreneur, your work and life blend together to the point where there is no such thing as work-life balance, but more a blurring of the two so that work-life-work-life more or less coexist. I don’t really distinguish between when I’m living and when I’m working, because I don’t really have an off button. A typical day I’m responding to emails before 8AM so I can get a headstart on my day, while quickly eating a hot breakfast to regain my energy levels. 10AM-1PM I try to get my important calls out of the way. 1PM-2PM I try to eat a sufficient lunch. I find it helps if I make it a point to eat with others, whether a partner, client, teammate or someone with whom I can have a stimulating discussion. The best power lunches are the ones that refuel you and inspire you mentally, so I try not to have lunch alone. After lunch, I try to have most of my meetings with partners including retail partners, brand and collaboration partners, as well as any media events, and conversations with potential teammates. In between meetings, calls (I use WeChat and Skype prolifically), I munch on granola bars and energy bars to sustain myself. I eat organic lollipops if the afternoon lull hits me, and I try to touch base before the end of the day with my team via our group chats to outline milestones and goals for the week. I spend the rest of the day before dinner getting ready for the next few days and lay out different priorities in our Team To Do list as a mental mind map for myself as well as a productive exercise for my team. I respond to emails from opposite time-zones, and then unless I have a conference call scheduled, I try to sleep by midnight. Rinse recycle repeat.
Can you explain to us a little about the process of making your products?
Many things are going on during product development and production, but from an initial jumping off point, it’s a question of inspiration in that I look for problems that need solving, things around me that inspire me, travel to learn more about different ways to look at the world, and brands individuals who share vision and goals with whom I can then collaborate. It’s a much more fruitful process when the development is about collaboration and I’ve been lucky to find partners who care about quality and delivering great beauty, fashion and lifestyle products as well as share the same level of commitment to serving customers. After we’ve gone through several iterations, we get feedback from influencers, our peers, media friends and their extended networks as focus groups, as well as from our network of omni-retail partners. We listen as the most important thing is to listen to actual customers and users and what they want, and then we try to incorporate the improvements until we are satisfied. During the production process, it’s also important to keep an eye on quality and hitting the project timeline so that the product launches successfully and on time.
When setting up a company, what would you say are the top 3 things to keep in mind?
When setting up, launching, and running your own business, here are my priorities:
1. Change the world in some way while delivering a product and service that delights users and customers who didn’t even realize this was something they need and love, but find that their lives are much more streamlined as a result.
2. Surround myself with the right partners, mentors, team, friends, and positive influences.
3. Persevere and never give up, because you can always change how you go about getting on your destination, but you need to make sure you keep your eye on that end goal and keep moving forward towards it.
Can you leave our readers with a few words / thoughts?
Starting a company is never easy, and even with companies that have achieved a great deal of seemingly overnight success in the public eye, there was a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears that had to have happened before that success was possible, and that most people won’t know unless they have gone through that experience themselves. Entrepreneurship including entrepreneurial values are a mindset and a valuable way of thinking, working and living that should be encouraged even if you don’t take on the risk of starting your own company and join a team that espouses those values. The main thing is that you should always try to be learning as well as contributing as much as you can. Life is short and time is precious, but there’s a lot to be said for using that time wisely and going for your dreams while making the world a better place.
