Have you ever wondered what it truly takes to turn a groundbreaking idea into a successful business venture? On this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, our host Marcia Dawood explores this question with Anya Cheng, an innovative entrepreneur from the Bay Area. Anya’s journey from big tech to launching her own AI-powered company showcases the transformative potential of unique data in revolutionizing an industry. Anya Cheng is the founder of Taelor, an AI company on a mission to redefine how men dress by leveraging cutting-edge technology and unique consumer data. With a background that includes strategic roles at Meta, eBay, McDonald's, and Target, Anya’s experience in tech is both broad and deep. She played a pivotal role in developing Facebook and Instagram Shopping and expanding McDonald's food delivery services worldwide, equipping her with the skills to seamlessly integrate technology with consumer behavior. In this must-listen episode, Marcia and Anya discuss the intricacies of Taelor's business model, especially its novel approach to using AI and unique data to personalize men's fashion. Anya reveals how her company gathers authentic consumer feedback and detailed garment quality data, providing invaluable insights to brands and improving sustainability in fashion. Additionally, Anya shares her fundraising journey, shedding light on the challenges faced by women and people of color in the startup ecosystem. For anyone interested in AI, the power of unique data, or building a tech startup, this episode is packed with expert advice and inspiring stories, making it essential listening.
Have you ever wondered what it truly takes to turn a groundbreaking idea into a successful business venture? On this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, our host Marcia Dawood explores this question with Anya Cheng, an innovative entrepreneur from the Bay Area. Anya’s journey from big tech to launching her own AI-powered company showcases the transformative potential of unique data in revolutionizing an industry.
Anya Cheng is the founder of Taelor, an AI company on a mission to redefine how men dress by leveraging cutting-edge technology and unique consumer data. With a background that includes strategic roles at Meta, eBay, McDonald's, and Target, Anya’s experience in tech is both broad and deep. She played a pivotal role in developing Facebook and Instagram Shopping and expanding McDonald's food delivery services worldwide, equipping her with the skills to seamlessly integrate technology with consumer behavior.
In this must-listen episode, Marcia and Anya discuss the intricacies of Taelor's business model, especially its novel approach to using AI and unique data to personalize men's fashion. Anya reveals how her company gathers authentic consumer feedback and detailed garment quality data, providing invaluable insights to brands and improving sustainability in fashion. Additionally, Anya shares her fundraising journey, shedding light on the challenges faced by women and people of color in the startup ecosystem. For anyone interested in AI, the power of unique data, or building a tech startup, this episode is packed with expert advice and inspiring stories, making it essential listening.
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Marcia Dawood
Anya, welcome to the Angel Next Door podcast. Thanks so much for being here today.
Anya Cheng
Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. This is Anya Chen from the Bay Area.
Marcia Dawood
Great. Anya, tell us a little bit about. You have such a unique background. I watched your TED talk, it was fabulous. I've listened to you on a couple podcasts now. I would love to hear a little bit about your background. Let's start out there.
Anya Cheng
Yeah. I started AI company two years ago. We use AI to style men. Help busy men and lazy men to get ready for their day while also Support sustainability. Today 30% of clothes go directly from factory to landfill. So we are on a mission to solve the problem. Before starting Taylor, I have 15 years in big tech companies in the Bay Area. Most recent at Meta where I help build up Facebook, Instagram shopping.
Anya Cheng
Was head of product at ebay for the emerging markets, new business in the US and new market in Latin America, Africa, Asia. Was a senior director at McDonald's. Helped them to build a food delivery business globally when Uber E just started and also helped Target to build its tech office in the Bay Area. Start my career as data scientist as a marketer and work my way up and leading large engineering teams. Yeah. So I'm excited to be here.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. Wait, so tell me a little bit more about this. 30% of the garments that go from right from factory into a landfill don't even make it.
Anya Cheng
That's crazy. Yeah. 10% today the carbon emission in the world are from fast fashion alone 10% of carbon emissions. And why? Because it's just really hard for fashion brand to discover what customers true needs. A lot of brand they actually go through like distributors, wholesalers and going to middle the smaller wholesaler. And eventually as you can imagine the feedback never goes back to those original brands. And as a result they don't know what customer really needed. And they also don't really know the quality of their garment.
Anya Cheng
They think they know but after thousands of manufacturer the the. The manufacturing made and different batches really don't know if their quality of garment is good. As a result they were and also they are predicting three years from today on what people will like. So of course they get wrong all the time. And that's why they turned out that lot of inventory goes directly to from factory to landfill. And a lot of brand as you don't know most of people don't know most of brand actually burn their clothes because they don't want their clothes goes to the discount store. They are afraid of impacting their brand. And as some people may know in the fashion Industry brands are correlated with a price, but quality is not correlated with the price.
Anya Cheng
So in fact there are many high quality amazing brands people never heard actually were reasonably priced. But they just don't know how to enter the new market, how to get feedback from customers. And so we are on a mission to do so while also leveraging AI to help busy men get ready for their day.
Marcia Dawood
That is so interesting. But what made you pick like busy men needed help?
Anya Cheng
I know I was definitely stumbled on it. I was head of product at ebay and also leading large team at Meta. As a immigrant from Taiwan originally and as a woman with color, I always feel a little bit imposter syndromes. So I want to look great. And I try some subscription boxes like Stitch fix which someone style you but they send you something that it's surprise box and you have to buy in order to wear. And I didn't want to own that much stuff. I'm definitely not those people who are really good in tidying up on my apartment. So I tried some rental companies rent the Runway Nuuly which is owned by Urban Outfitter they turn profitable unicorn in just four years.
Anya Cheng
But those rental company they all require people to browsing through thousands of garments and pick what they want. And I hate doing that. I thought hey most of fashion company they are designed for people who are into fashion. I'm someone who need to do great for my job for my dates but I don't want to spend time chasing after clothes. And then I realized that wow, with the lazy economy, the lazy people, especially men who are very busy who actually are being ignored. People thought they just love wearing the same stuff again again they love Google logo T shirt. In fact they just don't want to spend time figuring out how to wear and they have no idea how to pair those clothes up.
Marcia Dawood
That's so interesting. So what made you pick like men though as opposed to just everyone?
Anya Cheng
Yeah, I realized that who are more like lazy hate shopping, hey laundry and also want to do great just for a purpose which they don't care about what they wear. They care about is this clothes for my date night. This clothes is for a tattoo. This clothes is for farmers market. And realize that a lot of people are like me but they are old men. They are mostly guys who are socially active. They are single guy, sales guy, recruiter, professor, faster pastor. They meet people, they socially active, they only know a few brands, they are not very interested in reading GQs and they have been wearing the same thing again and again.
Anya Cheng
Turn out that I Think like men. So I was trying to build my own closet, but turn out that to be a menswear brand.
Marcia Dawood
So then how did you have the idea to bring AI into this? And how did you incorporate it into Taylor?
Anya Cheng
Yeah, so serving those lazy men, it does have need a cost. And what's the cost? You probably know in the old time they are those co personal stylists. They will bring you to a department store and then shop around like personal shopper. They'll help you to shop. And they will spend $2 per hour for half day. And then on top of that you have to pay the money that you have to buy for the clothes. And in fact now AI make it all possible. And in 3 seconds you will consider your personal preference, your sizing.
Anya Cheng
You fill out a simple short survey. You can take some picture of yourself, your favorite celebrity, even your wife or family or some of our customers. They even share the designer brand that they like. Their furnitures or their books or their whatever things that represent them. And now AI can pick from 10,000 garments in real time and then also pair them with different outfits. So when you receive it, you don't have to figure out how to pair. And I think AI make it possible to serve those lazy men in a reasonably cost. And that's why it no longer is celebrity have their personal stylist.
Marcia Dawood
That's so interesting. And then so do they get like a box every month or how does it work?
Anya Cheng
Yeah, so they pay a monthly subscription fee, say $100. They are different tiers. But then you get about 10 clothes to wear per month. And so you get first shipments with five item which usually pair to two, three. Two to three outfits you wear for a couple of days. If you love it, you can buy it with a discount. If you don't, you wear for a couple weeks, you put into the return envelop and you should be back. And you get next shipments right away.
Anya Cheng
If you are traveling, you can return at whatever the hotel you put into return envelope, give it to hotel lobby. You go home without doing any laundry. And when you buy the clothes it's. Yeah, when you buy the clothes and you are it's secondhand but still like new only usually been wear for a few times. And so you are doing good for the environment. And at the same time, every time you provide feedback which most of our customers do because they want to make sure next shipment is better. And those feedback go back to the brands. So help them right away say hey, this is an issue with your clothes and this is what people are looking for so they have an idea what people are looking for and stop producing junks for the world.
Marcia Dawood
That's really interesting. So you've got the company or the clothing end of it of Taylor but then there's a whole data piece that you're collecting all this data that's really helping the brands and that's building value for your company too.
Anya Cheng
Exactly. We really see that we are a data company today most of people don't provide feedback like when was the last time you provide feedback? And in fact in a lot of part of the world people provide feedback just to get discount. And so they give five star which they don't mean to give it five star. And also a lot of time when you provide feedback it may not be the quality of after washes. So today most of brand they don't know the real quality. They will come to us say hey locals are slow old fashioned, you can wear 90 times and we wash them. In fact some of us style does not and it's not because they intentionally to lie how sustainable they are. You just they don't know because they outsourced it to the manufacturer, manufacturer have different batches and they also to another smaller manufacturers and you just don't know.
Anya Cheng
So we provide those feedback and to them but also we include like in the AI world like how do AI grow? By having unique data. So for example we have human stylists who will share feedback into the AI and we also partner with over 300 brands. So those brands they are designing the future. Typically AI only know the past, doesn't know the future and we know the future. So we combine all these together if it into the AI and help on making a better algorithm to picking the clothes for the customers.
Marcia Dawood
That's interesting. So angel investors, we've talked about this in our forum groups and we're a little gun shy when it comes to investing in an AI company. But we really know that's the future. That's where everything is right now. But we get a little bit overwhelmed just because there's so many companies right now. AI is moving so fast, all technology is moving so fast. Your company seems unique in the sense that you do have this business side and then you've got the whole data side. So how would you explain to an angel investor if they were looking at your company or really any other AI company like what are the things to look out for and to look for?
Anya Cheng
Yeah, I think so. There are a few different angle. You can think about it. There's AI foundations Which is a company who would need a lot of money such as the OpenAI Elon Musk XAI Google's AI Meta's AI there's called like deep tech company in the AI space. If you are very passionate about this space. It definitely is fascinating growing really fast. But for sure usually it does require very big capital. Which means you are like tiny big of the company.
Anya Cheng
The other side which is today most of angel are investing is AI applications which is more of hey, let's leverage the lln large language model that OpenAI Elon Musk and Google are building. But then this includes some of our unique data so that we can use the algorithm but bring our own and put it on top of the algorithm and do something to solve the problem that's already happening today. And this AI application which you tend to need a little bit less capital, have shorter period of time to assets and impact right away. But of course that you just need to solve a real problems in the world. And we are in the AI application which is what I heard in the Bay Area. A lot more investors will move from the more of deep tech into AI application. And I think that's one thing that you should know is very different from the era of algorithm. What's the era of algorithm? If you look back for technology every 20 years has a big wave, right? Start with industrial computer of IBM sell to like governments and military into personal computing, which is those Apple's computers and your desktops which has another 20 years after that.
Anya Cheng
You see the era of apps. You see that start applications and get into iPhones. And now I would say and then in the era of apps the well known is Google and a lot of company which is all based on algorithm. It's a black box. You type into the chip or you type into a search bar, you come up with a result or it's Instagram. You see the news is behind it is a black box of algorithm, right? So the era before was all about algorithm which make engineer are very valuable because was the person who create the algorithm. However today. And that's why before you see people still talk about pattern.
Anya Cheng
Even though it's a lot less in the software than the hardware. But you still heard people talk about that. But today if you think look at Elon Musk AI Xai it's worth probably one most powerful AI today they have zero patterns. Why? Because it's not no longer it's about algorithm anymore. The era of algorithm is dead. It's an era of data. Because now you power the AI with the data. The AI is stronger every minute, every second by eating data.
Anya Cheng
So you may be the already startup could be maybe just using a manufacturer's data, which is traditional company, really old school. But the data they have may be very unique because no one actually know how to produce this item and how many minutes were what when you get into improving the throughput. Right. So I think it's important that you look at the company is a company just pull into OpenAI or Elon Musk AI and put into a nice fancy app. Then tomorrow with a new feature launched by OpenAI the company will be dead. Because there's no defensive strategy for the company. All you do is white label and put a fancy top of UI off someone else's company's data. But if you look at any company with unique data, in our case, for example, we know people's true preference.
Anya Cheng
What when you go to department store, you buy something or not. It's not because you like it or not. It's not because if the stuff is free, you might bring it home even though you don't like it. So most of our decision were influenced and polluted by the purchase price which in our model is rental subscription. So it's monthly. Almost like when you open your Netflix show. You didn't watch a show because it's on discount because you like the show. So the same thing we pay them, they pay a hundred dollar already.
Anya Cheng
So when they work with our AI to get a close should be to them it tend to the stuff that they like, not stuff that's on sale. So we have the true preference of customer without impact of a purchase price. We know the quality of a garment, we have professional stylists, the input, we know the Future because the 300 brand we partner with are designing the future two years from now to train the future. And we acquired two company that they have unique stylings data that they have used in the last 10 years. And those were the unique data that we have. So when you are investing, look at if they have unique data that other people don't have.
Marcia Dawood
Wow, that is really. That was a great explanation, really helpful. Okay, so along this journey you've built this company. Very interesting how you've built it and the way that you're using your data. Tell us a little bit about your fundraising journey. As a woman of color, I never.
Anya Cheng
Thought that woman or color made me any difference or disadvantage in the last 10 years until I start fundraising.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Anya Cheng
Even though I used to work for big tech company Meta ebay Targets and of course in tech companies still a lot more women, but a lot more men than women were leadership team are a lot more white men than women. But I never really truly felt that I was different. Even though yes I may see hey at the top leaderships or middle leadership. I am only one or two women in the room. But I never felt disadvantaged until I became a founder in startup fundraising. And how I found out was just when people introduce me investors or when I even sometimes reach out to investor of the same company which has the same the investment thesis with the same material. For some reason the person who responds to me tend to be woman or minority or immigrant or gay. Which was surprisingly to me.
Anya Cheng
And it just. I never at one point I felt really disappointed about that. And I heard about the Data say hey, 50% of company in the US are actually founded by at least one woman. And 30% of tech company in the Bay Area are founded by at least one woman. But 1.8% of venture capital money goes to woman funded company. 1.8%, not 18% 1.8% and is down from two years ago for 2.1%. But then I told myself okay, if I can only attract minority or women or gays or immigrant into by my investor, then so be it. So I start reach out to people who are Nigerian and Kenyans, who are Indians, who will have color, who are gay, who are disabilities, who are woman for what things to describe them as a minority.
Anya Cheng
And I reach out to them. So I start getting different investors and I figure out if I can assemble all of the minority, then I am the majority.
Marcia Dawood
I love that.
Anya Cheng
Yes. So that's what I have done. However, I think everyone who are listening there are many things that we can do for each other. For example? For example, events. Sometimes I will see events. It could be Genai summits or whatever, CMO summits. If I ever see the event which haven't happened yet and it's upcoming event, if I see the speakers entire pages are met, then I email the company, the conference company and just say that I highly recommend so and so to be your speaker and I encourage you to have a woman or minority on the panel. And 9 out of 10 they were like oh yeah, we didn't even notice that.
Anya Cheng
Or for example when I go to I teach classes, I jump faculty at Northwestern University. So every time if I see the clients has less woman's then I would say okay, the first anyone had questions. The first question let's go to a woman. Because what we found at Meta was in the old hand, if a woman asks the first question, then the rest of questions will be equally from men and women. But if the first question was asked by a guy, the rest of question will be 90% by guy. So we always save the first question to a woman. Or for example if I'm an organizer for some events then we already know one of the event will be less woman to a attend. Such as maybe angel events or something.
Anya Cheng
So then we will before that we will do another event, small event which will be more gender friendlier, warm, has more diversity. Then in the end we will say hey, we're just following with this event. We hope everybody will stay then the event. People who attend the event tend to be more diverse than just only men attend the events. So small things like this where we amplify each other, which we all heard right, people hate women promote themselves. So then how about that in the event I would say hey, this is another amazing startup founders and she is doing great job in this background. Or for example when you as a speaker you are angel investor. So sometimes you probably go to a speaker, don't introduce yourself, always have someone to introduce you because then bring a little bit more weight to you.
Anya Cheng
And unfortunately that's a world that we are living today. Then sew a bit. Let's try to also gam it. Okay. If they don't like men to talk, how about men talk and introduce how awesome I am.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Wow, this has been really fascinating. So you, you were able to raise money from both angels and VCs or what was the fundraising journey like?
Anya Cheng
Yeah, so two years ago we started our pre C. So we raised $2.3 million. And how I did this, I leveraged a community and I do was definitely have very honored to be able to graduate from Northwestern University their master degree in marketing. And I also got my MBA from University of Chicago. So I start with the community I have. And so most of investors at the time were just alumni from the community. And then one day one of the professor became our angel investor. So the professor say hey, I can connect you to another founder.
Anya Cheng
Maybe you are fundraising. You can ask asked him to introduce you his investor. So when I met with him I forgot that I was intent to ask for the investor. So I was just genuinely and curious about his product. And he talked about how they use AI to do security footage to help police department. So I introduced a whole bunch of friends as potential customers to him. And few weeks later he came back say Anya, thank you so much for those referrals. They are amazing.
Anya Cheng
By the way, what was something that you want me to help you in the call? I think you forgot to ask me. I said yeah, yes, I was trying to ask you for your investor. So then he sent an email and we got on the call the same week and in half an hour we got Million dollar Wow. So sometimes you can when you are not looking for. So don't be frustrated if it's not there and you might be surprised. You turn around just like those love like Christmas movies. You turn around and the right person is just behind you.
Marcia Dawood
That's incredible. Well Anya, I'm so excited to see what's going to happen in the future. What's going on for 2025 with Taylor.
Anya Cheng
Yeah, so we will be soon opening our C runs and so we do now have VC already committed coming in one of the world's largest consumer tech VC Goodwater Founder of Amazing Fan so we are definitely will be raising our C round and for this round our goal is to open up for getting a little bit more of different brands and category. One thing we found was that people don't use us just to rent clothes. They actually use the tailor to be their personal assistant. Remember I say they are lazy men. So what we found was they love us to also sell them shoes, accessories and bells and because. Because for them it's about saving time. So the more that you can get them ready for the Wii with the entire outfit the better for them to save time. So we want to use the money to expand into the category and which we also found in very high margins.
Anya Cheng
We also will definitely continue investing in AI As AI world is evolving so fast. There's so much going on and I think next 20 years are going to be era of AI. So we are just at the beginning of AI and we also found that partnering with dating site has been very helpful. So we partner with dating site like Coffee meets Bagel. We also found that partnering with other women's company like women's wear rental company Armour for example. We partner with company Armour so then we can together to help to sell gift card for quiz for Valentine's Day for each other. And we can also together team up to go after corporate deals. So think of a company.
Anya Cheng
When you join a company instead of giving a mark or the cops of the company, why not give you someone to help you style you so you get ready for your work on a new job you're probably all nervous and trying to get make sure you get ready every day and you are busy, you might be a busy sales guy or what, and you meet your colleague, so why not help your employee to look great? And so we together, we are now partnering with Amor, so then we can team up going after the corporate deal and having corporate to do more things to help on sustainability.
Marcia Dawood
Wow, that's incredible. Well, Anya, I love what you're doing. I think it's so interesting, all that we learned from you about AI and data and unique data. So thank you so much for coming on the show today and talking to us.
Anya Cheng
Yeah. So if you are interested in learning more about investing in Taelor, you can go, you can reach out to me. I'm Anya. A n y a @taelor t a e l o r dot a I anya @taelor AI and or talk to Umami Capital, which is a Android club that we partner with. And so I think most of angel investing, they start with a few thousand dollars only and so probably cheaper than your purchase. So definitely reach out and help and learn more about the industry, learn more about AI by investing.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, I love that. All right, thanks, Anya.
Anya Cheng
Thank you. Bye.