Latest / Talk Commerce / The AI Fashion Revolution Transforming Men's Style Through Smart Subscription Services with Taelor's Anya Cheng
Transcript
- Brent Peterson (00:02.173) Welcome to Talk Commerce. Today I have Anya Chen. She is with Taelor. Anya, sorry, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions in life. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (00:14.03) This is Anya Chen from Silicon Valley. Now I'm running an AI company. use AI to pick clothes for men. And we send them real clothes for them to wear for a couple of weeks. Once they are done, return the dirty clothes, get next measurements. No more shopping or laundry. It will be perfect for you when you go on the Hawaii trip so you don't have to bring dirty clothes home. But before starting this AI company two years ago, I had 15 years in big tech companies before I the e-commerce team. Most recently, Meta. where I helped build out Facebook's Instagram shopping. Was a head of product at eBay, helped them to build out new business in the US, new market in Latin America, Africa, Asia. Was a senior director at McDonald, helped them to view full delivery e-commerce globally when Uber just started, and helped Target to build its tech office here in Silicon Valley. I'm excited to talk more about e-commerce. Brent Peterson (01:05.309) That's great Anya, thank you so much for that. And do you have a passion outside of work that you have? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (01:11.574) Yeah, I am. I'm a very I love writing postcards. So anywhere I go, I write postcards for print people. We also love food and travel because my husband is a chef. So lucky me, they always gain weight and never lose weight. But so every time we travel, we love to try something very unique and local and special. And so we try all kinds of exotic foods. And so there's something that we love doing together. Brent Peterson (01:41.341) Where is your favorite place that you've traveled that you've eaten at? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (01:45.494) Yeah, I'm biased because I'm originally from Taiwan. So Taipei, the food is amazing. If you love dim sum, if you love seafood, it's an island. it's food is ocean. So the seafood is fantastic. Probably as good as Hawaii, I would say. But then it's really cheap. It's over there. You can get a lot of kind of crabs and shrimps and very, very cheap. So you can get plenty of those type of food. And also like beef noodle soup is amazing. is also known for all kinds of different soups, chicken soup, beef soup, all kinds of soups. So if you like soup, you like seafood, that's place you should go. Brent Peterson (02:26.801) Well, I'm hungry now. Boy, I have to have a lunch right after this. So Anya, before we get started, and we're going to talk about AI, and I love the solution that you have to help men get dressed, I'm going to tell you a joke. And all you have to do is give me a rating, 8 through 13. So here we go. My wife wants me to blow air on her every time she overheats. But honestly, I'm not a fan. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (02:28.552) Hahaha! Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (02:53.474) That's great. 13! Brent Peterson (02:56.671) Thank you very much. right. Yes. Thank you. right. Okay. So tell us a little bit about your solution. Tell us the AI side of it and how it helps people to our MEND address. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (03:10.54) Yeah, so you know, we use AI to pick clothes for busy men. A lot of people, they are not into fashion, but they need to look good. They need to look good for conference going to Hawaii or vacation going to Hawaii, or they need to look good because they are single. They want to a job, a date, close a deal, but they are not into fashion. And if you look back, most of fashion company has been kind of designing for people who are into fashion. Either you have to buy traditional subscription boxes like Stitch Fix, or you have to, you can rent, but for women you have to pick thousands of garments, rent the runway or more, or newly, that you have to pick and spend hours. So for Taelor, we help to solve the problem by using AI to pick clothes for people and then send them real clothes for you to wear for a couple of weeks. Once you are done, you can buy the clothes or you return the dirty clothes and we wash them and send to other people. Like your Uber, you get out of a car, then someone else get on car right away. Like your Netflix, no more shopping or laundry. And on the other hand, we have solved the problem that 30 % of clothes in the world now go directly from factory to the field. So instead of burning those on sale inventory, we help them to find a new home by having professional stylists to help people to pick. Brent Peterson (04:30.603) That's great. Yeah, and I did have a chance to look through the website. And, you know, for myself, I actually wear Hawaiian shirts to conferences, but I wear a long sleeve shirt because every time I go to a conference, the air conditioning is set to, it seems like zero Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit. So I'm so cold. So I have to wear some special things. Tell us a little bit about how your model works. I see that you have a membership and a subscription. How does that work? then after that, tell us about the AI portion of it. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (05:06.094) Yeah, so for flat monthly fee, say $79 or $109 with the discount, then you get to wear five or 10 items per month. Think about $100, you get 10 clothes to wear per month cheaper than your dry clean. You wear that and when AI pick the clothes, we already get some information. We ask people's high and weight, size, which we don't use a lot because most people think they are taller and thinner. But so they say, oh, I'm size medium. Oh, no, no, no. Go to your closet and pick your favorite outfits and tell me which brand and what sizes. Weight is extra large. So we usually ask a question like, what's your fit issue? Tell me your favorite short. What's the size? What's the brand? You were usually sleeve too long, was usually the pants too short. And then we ask them to raise some pictures like this line, like this line. And then from there, with the occasion, they want to get a job, a date, what's the real purpose? Because they don't care what they wear, but they care if they look good, they are more presentable in a conference, or they close a deal in a conference, or get a girlfriend or boyfriend. So we ask those information, and now AI start picking the clothes from our 300 brands over 30,000 garments. And after that, we have human stylist will get on the call with this customer for 15 minutes, optional. And customer can tell more information about themselves or show the closet or show their wife or husband's pictures or what's their shoes. And from there, the human stylist will make final decision and make sure the outfit get out is correct and right for the customer. On the AI side, we get a lot of unique data for the AI. For example, most of people when you go to e-commerce sites, we talk about e-commerce, right? What people buy or not buy, you actually don't really know their true preference because it's heavily influenced by the purchase price. When I was at Target, anything you would get 90 % off, someone is going to buy it. But in our model, because it's rental, similar to the Netflix, you watch a show, it's because you like it, it's not because it's on discount. So we get this unique customer preference data that we feed into our AI. And then we also know Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (07:27.758) garment quality after washes because it's rental. So we also know the quality of the washes. We get feedback every other week because it's subscription. We also know the future trend because our 300 brand partners are already designing something two years down the road. So we get a lot of information with professional stylist information, putting on top of AI. So if you're an e-commerce owner, think about what unique data that you have that no one else does. And that is going to become your goal in the next 20 years. Because nowadays, it's easy to make AI, but it's a lot harder to differentiate. So make sure you have these unique data and layer that to your own algorithm. Brent Peterson (08:09.875) That's interesting. So tell me about the process of learning. And as a person were to order more and more or return more and more, do you have a way of making sure the system understands what the user is going to want in the end? And how long does it take then for that back and forth to happen to determine the type of clothing that they really like to wear? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (08:35.97) Yeah, it's after you signed up. So if you're the first time to quiz, then you get the achievement within one to three days. And then after you done, you wait for two weeks, you have you done, you put into a return envelope, which you already prepared, you drop it in any post office or the box on the street, or you go on USPS website and hit pick up for free and it will come to go to your home to pick up for free. Then the moment they scan the item, even before we receive the return, the new shipment is already prepared and you get a new shipment within one or three days. So there's pretty much not much gap in between. so usually, customers provide feedback right after they wear or before they get next shipment. And those informations get feed into back into algorithm, like the stuff that you buy, the ratings, the feedback. structure and non-structure data or the conversation you have. You can also text your stylist and the conversation with the stylist also feed into the AI. And then of course, combined with the government information on the qualities of garments, et cetera, then we pick the perfect outfit for your next occasions. Brent Peterson (09:45.907) So your business model then is the rental side. How do you work with somebody that spills red wine all over their white shirt? Is that a problem or is that just something that's part of your working model? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (10:02.534) It's a little bit like dry cleaning business. Anything that dry cleaning or laundry company can handle, we can handle. Of course, if you cut one's shoulders off, then we have to charge you. We do have the credit card. But most of people are not doing that. In fact, we oftentimes see people say, oh, I split the wine, but it's easy to pull off. It's actually a great. on this material and we provide those insight back to the fashion brand so the next collection is better because we do believe that yes, we can help them to find new customer for those on. So inventory because they are brand new amazing item. But at the same time, we want to make sure customer feedback back to them so then they keep producing better stuff. Like as e-commerce owner, we all know that sometimes we are looking for something that customer want, but we cannot find it. And sometimes which is really hard for those original brands to know the real feedback because they tend to be after you sell to a customer, customer give to another person, no one really come back with the feedback. So we want to make sure the feedback loop is really closed so then we can also help them to produce better items for the customers. Brent Peterson (11:07.203) And do you do the full? you clothes or shoes and pants and everything else? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (11:14.028) Yeah, right now it's only top and bottoms, but we are planning to expand because we realize most of our customers really treat us more like executive assistant, concierge service. They really want to make sure head to toe, entire things for the occasion is perfect. Belt, shoes, even Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, flower of flowers. They want to use us. get ready for the occasion, no matter it's farmers market or conference or Hawaii trip. So we are expanding the category. So if you're an e-commerce owner who do have inventory and want to partner with us, or if you are brand who have amazing product that you think white collar busy men in the US would like to buy, we're happy to partner with you. Brent Peterson (12:00.099) What about the idea that, well, tell us a little bit about the sustainability portion of it. I mean, I can see how it helps in the sustainability. Was there a motivation behind trying to get maybe more clothes out of landfills and more clothes into closets? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (12:19.662) Yeah, so actually not more clothes into a closet. In fact, we want people to empty closet. You just usually only have the basic in your closet and everything else you can share. So if you look at your closet, most people only wear 20 % of what they buy. So you see the full closet, then tomorrow when you go outside, I don't have anything to wear. That's what most people have. And you feel bad that you don't want to get rid of the clothes, but you get away or lose weight. and still pretty new and but then you feel style is outdated or after you wear once you just for some reason don't like it and that's what happened for most of people most of people only wear a few the same thing again and again so why not actually rotate your closet so each garment before is still very new why not have more people to have to be able to share and when you buy something it should be something that you know for sure you like and for sure it's not from one trial in the store or even look at the pictures on the e-commerce, it should be something that you can wear for a couple of weeks and then you are very sure that you really like it. And then also we have fashion brand from those Anso Inventory finding new home, but even for the brand that haven't met production their stuff, they put a sample on our platform. So our customer get the latest collection that's not even live in productions. So then they get the feedback back. So we help them to decide. which one they should produce. And also we help our customer to try new brand because many of our guys, you know, they try the same thing again and again, but they're not always rental. With someone style them, they are willing to try new brand. So once they know new brand, you know how guys shop. They're like, oh, give me 10 of that. I really like it. So we also help brand to find new customer and help customer to discover the amazing emerging brands. They haven't may not be well known yet, but it's high quality and could be also very sustainable. We have brands made from recycled coffee grounds and plastic bottles and coconuts and organic materials. So you'll find amazing brands that really support sustainability. Brent Peterson (14:26.269) Do you find it that you're competing against somebody that is just a subscription box where it's a try it and return it that that you do you have to differentiate yourself to make sure people understand that you're not just a subscription box. You're a more of a membership and you're you don't have to keep the clothes and you don't get penalized for not sending it back. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (14:47.158) Yeah, yeah. So I think some, probably would need more education before, but you know, in a woman's space, has been 15 years since Rendez-Renouin, or more newly by Urban Outfitters, Ralph Lauren Express, Banana Republics launched their rental business. So circular fashion has been there for a while, the market has been educated, and they are two public company today. Urban Outfitters newly started four years ago, now it's a profitable unicorn and they make $380 million per year. So I think the market has been more educated now awareness, so a lot of guys heard about that, even though they may not have tried it before because there was no Taelor before. But now with Taelor's, are like, OK, it's similar to Stitch Fix plus Render Runway with AI styling. OK, I will love to give you a try. And I think competing, not exactly. A lot of people tried subscription boxes before. The problem of that is that you have to think. Because even if someone styles you, the moment you receive, you have to decide if you are going to keep it. And you don't know. Most of the customers are like, I don't even have fashion sense. Should I keep it? And also, can I buy this somewhere that's similar but cheaper? They have to research. But in our model, once they receive, it's a rental. They just go where? It's a secondhand. So for sure cheaper than original price. So once they like it, they just buy it. So I won't say it's competing. It's probably more of their customer now realize, hey, there's more even advanced versions and want to give you a try. Brent Peterson (16:29.231) Yeah, perfect. Anya, what kind of advice do you give a middle-aged man who is maybe struggling with fashion? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (16:37.646) Yeah, I'm biased but I would say definitely try our service. I think this year's fashion trend is called mocha color. So the E of color is coffee, which is mocha. So if you are having a one mocha show, you won't go wrong. And then also, our stylist teaches us, they say, hey, if you're not sure if you're looking good, there are two different, two rules, like three rules. Number one is you can open your phone. and then you turn on, you know there's black and white, right? The filter when you take picture there's black and white. So take yourself with your phone, look at yourself in your phone, the black and white, there should be contrast. If you have dark color on the top, you should have light bottom. If you have dark below, you should have light on the top. like the norm is that there should be a contrast among yourself. And number two rules is that you shouldn't have more than three colors entire outfit, including your bags or shoes or belt you shouldn't have more than three different colors and then always matching your belt color with your shoes color and number three advice is just look at the mirror before you go out. Brent Peterson (17:49.843) So my wife tells me, Anya Chang, it's been such a great conversation. As I close things out, I do give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they'd like. What would you like to plug today? Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (18:01.612) Yeah, so we'd love to have you help you to get ready for your days. so if you use go on tailor.style, that's T-A-E-L-O-R.S-T-Y-O-E, tailor.style. You can use a co-podcast. Podcast, you get 25 % off first month on the user co-podcast. So someone will style you. You can try the service and looks great and ready for your day and focus energy on your e-commerce business. Brent Peterson (18:30.099) That's awesome and I will make sure I get that into the show notes. Anya Chen, thank you so much for being here. It's been such a great conversation. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (18:36.93) Thank you so much, Anya Chen from Silicon Valley at tailored.style. Brent Peterson (18:40.765) Thank you, bye. Anya Cheng At Taelor.Style (18:42.062) Bye.