Transcript of The Future of Fashion Technology: AI, Branding & Live Shopping Trends | Anya Cheng

Today's episode was a fun one. Talk to Anya Chang. She is the founder of Taylor Style, talking about how they're using AI to help you style your wardrobe. And again, hey, this is the Netflix of wardrobe wearing online. What does that mean? Means ultimately you rent before you own. You don't even have to buy it. You don't have to do laundry. Are you kidding me? No laundry. Stylish clothes, saving time. Check, check, check. All that and more on right about now. Let's look. We get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything these days without hearing about AI this or AI that. If you're like most people when it comes to AI, you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people better? AI from SurveyMonkey is designed to do just that in crafting the perfect survey. This is harder than you might think to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns and surfaces trends quickly. SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities make it faster and easier than ever before to get insights from real people helping you make confident decisions for your business.

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We put it together and we buy two companies. They are styling information from their 10 years operations. Then we layer on top of large language model. As they grow, we also grow. But we always one step ahead. If you are a small business or starting a company, now is your time. Because building AI is easy. All you need is unique defensive data.

This is Right about now with Ryan Alford a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

What's up guys? Welcome to right about now. We're here to help you get right now. Hey, we can talk about what you should have done. We could talk about what you should do. We need to talk about right now. You know what's right now? It's AI. It's lots of it. It's every day. It's in front of us. But ultimately, hey, I like to look good. It's hey, my style, my image. That's why I go straight to the source. It is Anya Chang. She is the founder and CEO of Taylor. She's making everybody look good. What's up, Anya?

Hello, this is Anya from Taylor AI. We use AI to Pick clothes for you. In the past, only celebrity has human styl. Nowadays with AI, everybody has your personal stylist in your fingertips. But in addition we send people real clothes for you to wear for a couple days. Couple weeks. No more shopping, no more laundry after it's rental service. Before starting a company, I help you Facebook Instagram shopping for meta head of product for ebay. Also senior director at McDonald's run their food delivery business. When you are ordering McDonald's from your phone, that was my product. And help Target to build their tech office here in Silicon Valley. Excited to be here today.

You really are 40 under 40. I mean I tell you, tell you what girls in tech 40 under 40 she's got it going on. You've been around the blog.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I'm also teaching at Northwestern University. I teach marketing and product management there. So excited to share some example in case studies.

Anya, I want to talk mainly in our short time together about what you're doing with Taylor, how you've grown that business. The future of all AI is it released your business. But let's at least because you do have an impressive background. You've worked Facebook, you just named the who's who of some tech brands and otherwise what's the one thing that our audience could know about you? You and what you learned working at some of those giants. And maybe one of the biggest takeaways that then led you to your own path?

I think so. One thing the reason that I started a company was that when I was working for big tech companies before as a female leaders for big tech company, I came from data scientists and marketing background. But I did do the large technology teams. So I always feel a little bit impossible. Same drawing. Am I ready for the day? I'm sure many people like me who have a dream feel that sometimes I start feeling like maybe at least I need to look great dressed up looks pretty sensible. When I'm freaking out, nobody will find out. I started using some subscription boxes like Stitch Fix and some other subscription boxes out there. But you all have to buy. They do style you. But once they send you the box within few days you have to decide if you're going to buy. It's almost like Netflix show versus buying a DVD of Home Alone. If you're watching a Netflix show, you don't have to decide right? You watch for three minutes, you don't like it, move on, who cares it's subscription tons of options out there versus buying a dvd. You have to really sure And I didn't like the pressure of a commitment.

I started renting clothes company like Nuuly. 500 million revenue in just five years. Backed by Urban Outfitter, Rent the Runway, Armor, lots of women's rental company. All of them require me to pick hundreds of thousands of garments. Pick, pick, pick. Spend two hours. And it was an aha moment for me that I realized I do not like browsing and shopping and I don't know fashion. I don't have strong fashion sense, I don't know what to pick. And most of fashion companies seem to have the design for people who are into fashion, not for people like me. Just want to get ready for the day and be successful. And that's what Taylor was born. But for your questions on what did I learn from big tech company that end up applying here? I think one thing that I learned really important in big tech company is always focus on finding the right problem versus only focus on figuring out the solution. Because when you are fixing a wrong problem, no matter how great your solution is, it's going to be wrong. For example where Target they thought of the one problem which is Mom. When they go to store sometimes they forget one thing.

Yes. How about we build something called shopping list. You list the shopping list, you go to the store. The app become an in store gps. Turn right, turn left. Never forget one thing from the store. The launcher feature spends six months lots of money geofencing all of a product in the locations in different store. Eventually nobody use it. Why moms they are going to the store to get lost. They like to wander around the store and they have in store for 10 years. They said they get away from their noisy kids. They want to be lost in the store so they can buy something and spend time. It's their me time. Solving the right problem is extremely important. And that's why we found that these busy men who are not into fashion but single guy salespeople, recruiter, faster professors, really don't care about fashion but need to look good. And we are solving the problem to help them to be more more successful smart.

Gotta solve the right problem. It starts there. Anya, before I turn a little bit more to Taylor and some of the specific you got things you guys are doing with AI. One question for someone is astute as yourself on the marketing side. We're in this world now and obviously sales is everything for a company. Where do you fall on the performance? Marketing versus branding. Do people care about brands anymore? Is it just about hey you solve my problem, you got a product boom. Don't really care about the brand. For someone like yourself that's in tech, I could easily see you falling into solutions sale. Does brand still have a place?

Yeah, I truly believe so. Example was my old company Sears. Sears as when we were at Sears Kmart. Our website actually faster than Amazon. The feature the performers. Every single website content 10 years ago is actually personalized. Not everybody see the same website, not everybody see the same email, not everybody see the same ad. 1510 years ago Sears was more cutting edge than ebay. Most people don't believe so, but when I joined ebay I realized so it's so true. However, people don't like the brand. They never really attach to it somehow it's the great amazing website who has some product. But then when you don't have a brand, people don't have relevancy to you, right? So for example, what we found that in our model people are not really just buying clothes. They are buying the chance to succeed. When we say mandatory rentals subscription, nobody care. But when I say hey, I can help you to dress up for your day night, which you don't have to worry about your day night, just focus on a conversation. People buy the service, people use their service and I can tell you at Meta at one point they actually do blind testing.

They sell the glasses and at one point they just put down the hide glasses. They put like Oculus versus some other brands on Apple's and some others we see people actually choose differently. I do think that both are equally important. We know the marketing funnel. You don't have a consideration so there's no performance marketing needed. However, it's also if you only have branding but you don't have performance marketing, you can never convert those awareness and consideration. We recently won the American Marketing association award of excellence in marketing by doing very well on ChatGPT. Nowadays people say performance marketing more and more get into like ChatGPT SEO versus Google SEO because more people asking questions there. How we do it is that we use human and machines in the loop and exercise. We start with identify the user journey why people search for something even on ChatGPT identify the question people will ask. We have human to write down the overall outline. We use AI to generating content from there. Our human style is revising the content with their point of view. And then when we send the customer's outfit with a styling note customer provide feedback which feedback into the notes with the content and then those content generating tool automatically to the website which would get more traffic coming in from ChatGPT and as regular SEO and it become automatic flywheel so that we won the award.

We got 10,000 impression for free from there. But I truly still believe brand is important.

So does the performance marketing woman after my own heart. Talking about the purchase funnel here. I love talking about purchase funnel. You got awareness, consideration, intent and then you got to make a purchase. Yo man, heart beating. I'm a marketer hard on. I will say it's really smart what you're doing because people are moving from SEO. Hey all about all this list. No, just give me the answer. It's about answers. It's about solving the problem. It does lead to a fascinating discussion is when there's only one answer, what happens to SEO? We'll let someone else smarter than me solve that one. Anya, you just talked a little bit how you're using AI. It's been at the core of the business I take it since day one from what I heard and what you described. What's been the biggest learning lesson being on this cutting edge of AI.

Era of AI is very different from the era of algorithm. If you look at last generation Google is a black box of algorithm. What's rent high is important. But nowadays unless you are Elon Musk Mark Zach verse otherwise most of you are going to use OpenAI, the ChatGPT parent companies or Elama's AIs or Google's AI et cetera. So nobody is going to build your own algorithm. Means what? Means data is way more valuable nowadays. Building AI is easy. It's like building website. 20 years ago you need a whole bunch of engineers. Nowadays you need $10 on Shopify, you're done. Nowadays the key things is you have your unique data so you can bring your data layer on top of whatever large language model. The Elon Musk Mark Zach review at Taylor we know customers true preference. Why if you go to a store Macy's, Nordstrom or Amazon you buy or spy don't buy something largely because of price. Your decision is polluted by the price. But when you watch your Netflix show, the show is not on discount. You watch which show is you truly like it. The same thing. For our membership model we pay people pay $100 per month whatever the clothes they pick along with our AI that our AI actually pick for them.

But when they work together on doing deciding that is what they truly like. We also get feedback every other week because the customer wanting to make sure the next shipment is better versus in the past when I'm working for Target with ebay people never give feedback unless it's one star and they're so pissed off about that. Right? And we all don't know future. AI don't know the future. But yeah, I know the past past. But we are working with 300 fashion brands. They are designing something for the future. Next year's trend. This year the most popular color is mocha. Like not brown mocha, the mocha color. But what's the next year's color? They are designing that, they are deciding that. And we also have human stylists. They have know how why you don't just search. Why you why celebrities still use human stylists? Because they are still better. We have those unique data, we put it together and we buy two companies. They are selling information from their 10 years operations. Then we layer on top of large language model. As they grow, we also grow. But we always one step ahead. If you are a small business or starting a company, now is your time.

Because building AI is easy. All you need is unique defensive data. For example, my friend is a doctor, he's a dentist. All he does is you just have one like the practice for 15 years. But he has those images for 15 years with different teeth issue. So now he's building his AI to detect teeth issue because he has those image, those unique data that no one else has. Think about that. And then for your previous question on the SEO for ChatGPT, one thing you should know is that in the past for Google they only consider structured data means copies. Remember, an image like Google doesn't read Ryan's image image. But we have to write Ryan write about now show behind the image so then Google can read. However, nowadays AI, they read both. They reimage, they read videos, they revote. Multimedia become a lot more important. User generated content become a lot more important. And that's the difference between SEO nowadays on CHP versus before.

That's good. Hey, that means I'm out there, man. I got thousands of episodes and highlight clips and smart people like Anya coming on the show telling us all the good stuff. Hey, we're covered Anya, we're good.

Exactly.

Walk me through. And I'm a busy executive. My wardrobe sucks. Not mine, mine's stylish because I got things like Taylor and other things that I use. But talk to me what that process looks like.

Yeah, our customers, they signed up just like Netflix show. They signed up for a membership $79 or $98. However, program they. So then they can't get to wear like 10 clothes per month for example. So they start with a simple style quiz how our AI know about you? We ask you some questions. We do ask you your high end weight which we don't always use because a lot of customers, they think they are taller and thinner. They will put I am definitely size medium. No, no, no. Go to your closet, pick your favorite outfit. Oh my God, when did I become a size extra large? Yes you are.

I'm 6, 52 60, so believe me, I know it's not no mediums in the closet for me.

That's right. So we do also ask them to go to their closet, look at their favorite outfit, what size is it? And then most important question we ask is your purpose. Because our customers, they don't care about looking good. They care about looking good so that they get a job, get a day or close a deal, or they show number one every single day. They want to get 5 million followers like following your traffic every single episode. That's what they care. They care about success no matter what's their definition of success. Some people's success means more time with their kids. So then they don't need to worry about their farmer's outfit, a farm market outfit. Some people's success means they close a deal, one or $10 million deal. With this new client. Our job is to make sure we dress up to success to project the best image that you want. And then from there we ask you to upload a few pictures. You like this like certain item. And if you like, we get a 15 minutes consultation call with human stylists, Our human stylist get on zoom call and then we'll talk with you.

You can show the closet, your body or whatever thing you want to show. From there we send you the first shipment, seven item, for example, you're already mismatched to multiple outfits that fit with your upcoming schedule. And then from there, if you wear after you wear for whole weeks, if you're traveling, give it back to the hotel lobby with the return envelope that's prepaid. You go home without doing any laundry. When you get home the next day, the new clothes has arrived. So no more shopping, no more laundry. Like your Netflix show, subscribe. You can watch a lot of things.

So you get to try it, you don't have to buy it and you get to trade in and out the clothes that you want. And do you get the option to keep it or is it just renting?

No matter what, you get the option to keep it. And the good thing is that for most of busy men, they never go to a trash store. So we all know sustainability Buying secondhand grades and etc, but nobody have those times. So in this model, after you wear for a few weeks, usually it's quite on discount. 10, 20, 50, 70% off. So then most people just buy it. They look still very new, just like your airport rental car. They tend to be very, very new. Average renting three times is already sold. And we partner with over 100 brands. Marine, Layer, Johnson, Murphy, Bonobos, all kind of brand, you name it for both. Most famous American brand, but also we source globally. Best brand in Italy, best brand in Netherlands, in uk, in Japan. So you get those amazing brands. Come here and then you can try. I can tell you, most of our customer thinks, I will never wear pink. And our stylist, how about this? I give you a bonus item for free. Try, try this one. And they were like, okay, this is great. Can I buy two of that? So many of us never know our true style because we have been wearing the same thing again and again in the last 10 years.

Really? Hey, real men wear pink. I like it. I love this because you get to try stuff. You just hit the nail on the head. You try stuff that maybe you wouldn't feel comfortable buying. And you know you're not stuck if you don't like it. But a lot of times it forces you into trying something a little different and you can sample it and then you get to at least expand your horizons of what you might wear. I'm a black T shirt guy. I come back to the black V neck a lot, but I've had to expand the palette. My wife's like, all right, black V necks. It's time to take a little break and gotta have a little splash of color.

That's right. That's right. Most of them, they don't. We ask like, what color you usually wear. Blue. Everybody is blue, right? So but this year the famous color is mocha. And last year famous color was a red wine. Do you have those color? If not, check it out. These are still very, very trendy. And you don't have to know. Our human stylist without AI will pair for you. We even told you, okay, what shoes you should pair with, what bells you should pair with. And that's where we are expanding into as well. Our customer uses more like executive assistant concierge service or more like the gadget guy behind superhero in those movies. So you ask questions about branding and what we are really selling. I think we are not really just selling clothes. We are selling the peace of mind, the convenience, the chance to succeed. And that's what our customers are really buying for.

That makes a lot of sense. What about like okay, tuxedos or something? You think of rentals and you think of suits or something. Is this a service to use for those types of single one off events?

No, not at all. Our customers, we don't have suits, we don't have a tuxedos because most people don't wear that nowadays. We have blazers, sport coats, we have T shirts, hoodies, sweaters and all kinds of things that for everyday wear. Our mission is to help people get ready for their days. So our customer uses more like your Netflix show. In the old time you buy the DVD once a year like okay, holiday we will do this. But nowadays you open your Netflix show, you become every day. In the old time you only rent the car once a year when you go on road trip with your family. Nowadays you open Ubers and Lyft, you renting car every single day. So the share economy is getting a lot more getting into everyday life. And also we partner with fashion brands from all over the world. So instead of burning those inventory today 30% of clothes go directly from factory to landfill generating 10% of carbon emissions, 20% of polluting water. Fashion is the most most polluted industry in the world. Instead of burning those inventory, we also help them to find a new outlet. And also a lot of brands send us their latest collections.

Over a hundred brands we partner with a lot of them. They will be sending testing their latest collections through the platform. Then they get feedback right away. Then they can decide how to produce next year. Our customer on the one hand helping to solve the environmental issue. On the end other hand become the guinea pig to try the latest collections. That's not even out there. Maybe you are wearing the most trendy shirt for next year.

Hey Win. Win. Well, as we wrap up here, Anya, I got a question for you about a trend that's been taken off especially it's a little late in the states, been overseas a lot more. Just want your perspective. Live shopping. Where does Anya fall on this? Are you a proponent? You think this is a trend that's going to expand? I personally do, but I'd love to know someone like yourself what you think about what's happening in the live shopping.

You're asking the right person because I review live shopping for Meta. So I build live shopping, Instagram, Facebook shopping. I help to build a team. I actually build a live shopping feature for Meta. I think for sure it's going to expanding. Most people ask me the question differently though. They say Ask me why it's so SLOW in the U.S. as you know it's been super popular in China, Southeast Asia. Most of the countries there live shot shopping is their everyday life. And every year I heard VC investors come to me and say Anya, can you do diligence? This company, we really think that it's going to blow up next year. Why? But then after few years still not yet, like not everywhere yet. I still truly believe you will be very very popular. But the reason why it haven't been I think many reasons. Number one, I think in the US we tend to be a little bit more fragmented in in terms of platform like commerce platform or payment platform. Most people don't feel comfortable giving Facebook your credit card. While in China, Southeast Asia. Many of those company their platform for payment is exactly the same platform for their e commerce.

That's where they shop, where they do the payment, where they book appointment for doctor appointments. They are super app does all of those things. While here we feel like Amazon is Amazon, ebay, Instagram and Google Map they are all separate functions. Customer behavior takes a while on being emerged. The other thing is I think is also because of talents. If you look at those countries that have very strong live shopping, they are engineers the same thing they are engineer who build payments and shopping are the same people who view chat conversations. While in the US I can tell you a lot of Google engineers or Facebook engineer in their entire life they never built anything that was a physical product, live chattings or other stuff, whatever Google Maps, there's no physical product. So it's very different from the engineer who work in Amazon. They need to consider the warehouse, the shipping time, the physical product which is very very different user experience, technology, collecting taxes, collect doing returns, make sure you write on time when lifetime in the offline environment. So also talents are very very different. However, despite those things I still super believe that either commerce company like Amazon those company will incorporate a lot more social into it.

I also do believe social company Meta Instagrams and TikTok will still incorporate a lot more commerce in order to pull their attribution that they actually make an impact for the sales for advertisers. And I also still do believe there will be standalone commerce social commerce platform emerge like today you see like for example Sephora. I do see a lot of startup doing just Sephora type of company. But entire site is native from social commerce with social contents over there. So I truly believe this still the future.

Yes, whatnot's taken off. I'll tell you where it's taken off and there's no looking back. And this trading cards and collectibles. Yes, I have a business in that. And let me tell you, people are hook, line and sinker on live shopping. We'll see maybe in Taylor's future. Who never knows. But ultimately they're already breaking the mold using AI Taylor. Where can everybody keep up with you and Taylor and learn more?

If you are investors, if you are suppliers and we're talents or partner dating side, fitness center, career center shows. Who needs outfits? Feel free to reach out to me. I'm Anya A n Y a@taylor AI that's t a e L o R a I or if you are just customers want to get ready for your day? No more shopping or laundry always looks great. Have human and AI stylist to style you. Then go on Taylor style. That's T e L o r s T y L e Taylor style. Use a code PODCAST25PODCAST25 to get 25% off off your first month or use go on the gift card to going podcast gift to get 10% off of gift card Holidays around the corner. Best gift is saving time.

Love it. Podcast 25 and podcast was that gift.

That's right.

There it is. We got those. We'll have those in the show notes for everyone to take advantage of. Anya, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Nice meeting you and thanks everyone. Would you all be very successful and saving time? No more laundry. Who say yeah, I cannot do your laundry. This is Anya from Taylor Style. Thank you.

Hey, guys. You know, to find us ryanisright.com we'll find highlight clips, show notes and all the links that Anya so graciously shared for savings on Taylor. You know, it's always here, it's always right, it's always now. We'll see you next time.

This has been Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.