What It's About
An investment banker discovers small changes make a huge difference in her business model and profits.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Afraid of making mistakes or failing? Hear from Chi Li on the subject; “Making mistakes is a part of the game that cannot be skipped.”
Fun Fact
Though Chi Li sells petite clothing for women in New York City, her first customer was a man from Canada!
Notes from Chris
Episode 1240
Investment banker Chi Li went through the traditional route of earning an MBA to work at a bank. She found that the work she was doing, while financially rewarding, wasn’t satisfying her creative impulse. Looking for a side project, she decided to market and sell clothes for petite women. As a woman under 5’4 [162 cm], she found it extremely difficult to find clothing in mainstream shops, even in New York City. Expecting that there would be others like her who faced the same problem, she decided that this was the problem she would tackle. Her first step was to set up her own online shop and website, PetiteDressing.com, using the Shopify platform. This set her back $500 or so. She probably could have spent more time and done it for less, but time was a scarce resource since her job was so hectic. Marketing her store and getting web traffic was more challenging. Unlike how she secured her inventory, Chi Li didn’t have first-hand experience with digital marketing that she could lean on. She started running Facebook ads and posting on social media platforms, but these efforts failed to generate even a single sale even after hundreds of dollars were spent. The twists and turns didn’t stop there. A year into launching Petite Dressing, Chi Li saw that the growth of her blog was far outpacing that of her store. The blog was intended as a marketing channel for her store, not the business itself. But she knew that she needed to increase revenues on her website if this was to be more than a hobby. With all that traffic, Chi Li started monetizing her blog as well through affiliate marketing and running advertising for brands. This also had the side effect of boosting her own store as she started to get inbound inquiries from independent designers who wanted to cater to petite women. On her part, this required a big switch in mentality. As an employee in a traditional industry like finance, shaking things up was a sure way to remain stagnant. But in the world of entrepreneurship, she says that you constantly have to find new ways of doing things, whether it’s engaging with customers or generating a new stream of revenue. This has certainly been true in her case, when she moved from focusing on eCommerce to blogging. In fact she’s now started a YouTube channel since she expects video content to only become more prominent in the long term, and especially with more people are staying home due to the evolving Covid-19 situation. In her words, “making mistakes is a part of the game that cannot be skipped.” Chi Li never imagined that she would have a profitable blog when she first started out. But now, with over 150,000 monthly visitors to her website and $2,000 in monthly income, she’s gone big catering to smaller women on the side.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Learn more about Chi and shop her online store at, PetiteDressing.com.
SEE ALSO:
- Honeymoon in Nepal Becomes Fashion Accessories Business: A multinational love affair turns into a global side hustle in the fashion world that also raises money for charity in Nepal.
- Fashionista Blogs Her Way to Career Success: A thirty-four-year-old fashionista in New York City finds a way to turn the economic crisis into an opportunity promoting affordable fashion while bringing in a profit to keep her flush in designer looks.
- When Fashion Flops, This Designer Follows a Shiny Object: A Los Angeles designer pivots from making clothes to selling vintage, semi-fine jewelry inspired by her love for the beach.
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