A Discussion with Jenny Zhu, Founder and CEO, Triangle Home Fashions | Lush Décor

Emily Chang: Hi. I’m Emily Chang, author of Brotopia and host of Bloomberg Technology. Welcome to the SHEconomics series honoring women who are blazing trails as founders and CEOs. Today I am joined by Jenny Zhu, CEO and founder of Triangle Home Fashions, a designer, manufacturer and wholesaler of pillows, bedding, curtains and more.

Jenny, thank you so much for joining us. It's wonderful to have you here.

Jenny Zhu: Thank you for having me.

Emily: So, you grew up in the province of Shandong in China. What was that like?

Jenny: It was really fun. When I was in my, you know, elementary, I stayed in, like, village. It's very small village, with my parents, my grandparents, you know, all the friends. I didn't know anything better, so we had a really good time. Then when I was in middle school and high school, my parents sent me to a boarding school.

So, you know, my mom is a teacher. That's always the best education. She wanted me to follow her to be a teacher and that's, you know, when I was in middle school, high school.

Emily: What kind of kid were you? Did you want to be a teacher?

Jenny: No, I remember I read a story from a magazine. It's about a young female entrepreneur to start her business and succeed. I was so excited. I always thought, "Oh, my God. I wanted, you know, to be a business owner one day. And if she can do it, so can I." So that's when I was really starting to have, you know, the entrepreneurial in me.

Emily: And your first entrepreneurial dream was to own the biggest laundromat chain in China. It's bringing back memories, isn't it?

Jenny: Yeah. It's like the first, the entrepreneurial experience for me is this dry clean business, you know, I had with... in the beginning, I knew nothing about the business. You know, I learned how to promote it. I had a membership and how to scale it. So I was very, you know, ambitious to compete with, I think, the biggest laundry business in Beijing.

And I was... I remember when I went, you know, to get order from this hotel. I was not really setting up for that, but I got the order. In order to deliver it, I think I spent three days non-sleep with my employee to finish that order delivered. And, you know, the business was sold in the end, but I learned a lot and that experience really gave me confidence. You know, even though in the end I didn't become the biggest laundry at a dry clean business in Beijing, but I definitely had that... you know, to own a business, to scale the business, I feel like I love it. I wanted to keep doing it.

Emily: So you get into the Fashion Institute of Technology. You can't study fashion design, but you have to study...

Jenny: Home textile.

Emily: Home textiles instead?

Jenny: Yeah. So, I think, before I graduate, I find a job in a major supplier in the home fashion industry. I work there for four years and in 2008, I thought I had a better way to do business and I had a vision to, you know, create the beautiful, affordable luxury with the unique design and great quality, exceptional service. So I thought I’m going to start it. Now, even in 2008, it was...

Emily: How do you even start a business like that? What was the very first thing you did?

Jenny: It's very difficult decision and because to start a new business during the financial crisis, by creating my six-figure stable job and soon-to-be single mom with a one-year-old baby was very scary. And I always love risk taking. I thought, you know, this might be the hard time, but I always a firm believer, you know, the hard time is the time for you to get ahead if you can survive through this. So that's, kind of, I thought I’m gonna do it and that's how I started. And in the beginning is really, you know, find the location, find the salesperson. And it's really a very naive way.

And I thought, "Okay, I’m gonna build a beautiful product." And I do have the manufacture relationship, and, you know, when I think back, I think probably I should not have started at that time. But at that time, I just feel like, "I’m gonna try it. I can never be prepared 100%. If I go through this, I probably will have more opportunity. If I lose, I will be smarter next time." So that's how I started.

Emily: Well, and I think, I mean, at least I've heard from entrepreneurs, some of them say if they knew how hard it was before they started, they never would have done it. So perhaps sometimes that ignorance is empowering.

Jenny: It is. A lot of people, when you think about it, you think too much. You know, then you scare yourself and sometime you just have to do it.

Emily: How did you get a new business off the ground in the middle of a financial crisis, as a single mom with a one-year-old child?

Jenny: Now I look back, I think it’s the best time. I started because the traditional way, when you start in that home textile business, is you go to this big traditional brick-and-mortar store. You know, you get it ordered and you ship to them. That's how the traditional business at that time. Because the financial crisis, a lot of these stores, you know, they don't want a new vendor. So the challenge is really, you know, made me think what's another way to do business in this field? So that's the e-comm.

Actually, that time, not so many people even wanted to do e-comm business with the dropships order, because you have to own inventory. Then you have to start your own design. There's nothing guaranteed. So I think really that differentiate us, you know, from the beginning. We build the ground up to serve e-comm marketplace and as a logistical SP brand.

And the e-comm folks, the business model, you know, build the focus on data-driven and efficient warehouse dropship capability, and the IT infrastructure, and all, of course, the global sourcing. And with our very diversified team, I think that it really from that time, shaped, you know, for us to become the frontrunner in the e-comm, you know, focus the business model.

Emily: You now sell your goods on Amazon, and Wayfair, and Target.

Jenny: All the majors in e-comm pretty much.

Emily: What is it like to think about how you started, and how hard that was, and see how much progress you've made?

Jenny: You know, I think, in that I used to be... when I was, you know, doing the first eight or nine years business, you’re just self-grinding. I think one of the biggest difficulties is the lack of guidance and, you know, the network. I pretty much self, you know, grinding in the first eight and nine years, and that's kind of the reason why I wanted to come here today to share my story and, you know, to share the mistakes. And some success, too, for the women in the market want to start their business or scale their business, which they can probably learn, hopefully not make the same mistakes I had, or share some inspiration.

Emily: What do you think the mistakes are that you made?

Jenny: I think the first mistake is really when I started the business. You know, instead of, like, put your head in the business, you should look out and, you know, what is not working there? And reach out to more. You know, today I belong to the women organization group, and C200, and Enterprising Women. It's really priceless. You know, you can get advice, you can see the inspiration, you can see, like, when you get to a bump, when I hear, or the sisterhood, oh, they have the same. It's really nothing personal. It happened a lot.

And when I had it, it is, "Oh, my God. Why do I have this?" You know, the things happened in the business regarding, you know, the scaling, or everything is just you can share so many stories, and you can, you know, get over that instead of you self-learning a lot of things. I think that's one of the mistakes I wish I did, is to reach out your peer group to get a solid sounding board of advisors to learn from them. That's very beneficial. That's one of the things I wish I did.

Emily: Did it feel lonely in those early days?

Jenny: Very. I think that a lot of women entrepreneurs had that. Feels like, especially you have the family, you have the kids, and then, you know, you have the business. I think another thing is almost like mystery, you know, when before you say, “Oh, you want to balance your work and life. I think that's such BS. Isn't work always been part of life?” It’s just like another hobby. I feel that people talk too much about the heaviness, almost like the work is too heavy, the life is so light. And I think it's, you know... I think the key is it's not about a balanced work and life. It's really to separate the important from urgent.

A lot of time, people getting into the business feel, "Oh, my God. I need do this. I need do that." That's really getting burned out. But if you really separate out what is really important to you, you know, if you have to go to kids' activity, you should go. And, you know, for certain urgent stuff, that's a lot of time, I learned right now is how to delegate, how to let other people help you, because you cannot do it yourself, whether you're small or big.

You always... either you reach out to, you know, your peer for some advice or I think sometimes it's really beneficial to hire for your weakness. Now you can really put your more time, focus on your strengths and grow faster than, like, you know, just self-grinding a lot of things you're not good at it.

Emily: So delegate and hire to support your weaknesses?

Jenny: Yes.

Emily: So, did you manage to fend off burnout?

Jenny: I think after that, I did really start to learn. You know, how to separate the important from the urgent. You know, now you put the fire every day. That's really... a lot of fire is urgent things. You should let your team to do it. You should not putting the fire if you want to grow your business every day. So I started really focus on building my team, focus on the vision, where the company should go, you know, what is our goals? I learned a lot.

Emily: What's been the impact of the pandemic on your business, especially given the supply chain issues and...?

Jenny: I think COVID put a lot of challenge on a lot of the business. I think, for us, it’s good and bad. I think the good part is, because of the pandemic, a lot of people stay home and then start looking in their house, they want to do the, you know, renovation and decoration. So there's a certain demand in our sector, a lot of demand.

The difficulty is, because supply chain, how you're gonna really meet that demand. That's one thing when I tell my team, you know, I always believe, you know, when you have the hard time, that's the time you can get ahead of everyone. So that's what we did, is, you know, we try to look at the inventory. And because the ERP system and the data we have, so we can be really forward-thinking to get the inventory here. While in our industry, a lot of inventory level is like 70%. Ours is up 90%.

Emily: Wow.

Jenny: And, you know, that's all because we have very nimble, you know, the global sourcing, and our strong China office team. And, yeah, I think it's a blessing for us to go through this COVID and still growing a lot. And in the meantime, I think it really gives us a good foundation for the next years to come.

Emily: So, where do you think the business will be in five years?

Jenny: So it's very exciting, actually. You know, in the last 10 years, we, kind of, built this winning recipe, so how to operate the multiple category in the home categories, too. So, in the next three, five years, we wanted to build this logistical platform by focusing our core strengths and our core category. Then expanding into the other home categories to build this complete room strategy, which is, you know, when the customer will look at us, we can build for every room, whether from living room, bedroom, bathroom, outdoor and with the curated lifestyle.

Also, we have the life staging from a baby to the kids, to the teens, all the way to 55-empty-nesters. So that's kind of the goal we wanted to do. Of course, regarding revenue-wise, you know, I'd love to do a 10-figure business. That's really a matter of time. So the good thing is we have really good, clear vision for the whole team and where we wanted to be. So it's gonna be very exciting for us.

Emily: So, when you look back on it all, what are you most proud of?

Jenny: I think the most proud of is really building this... you know, in the initial when I first started this business, personally I wanted to... okay, I wanted financial security, you know, getting that. Then evolving into, you know, I worked almost 10, 13 years with my team, really building this diversified team is... you know, our team is very dynamic. We have over 60% women and from eight different races. We probably speak over 11 different languages.

Emily: Wow.

Jenny: I think, you know, the most proud things probably is, you know, the team we build together. And I really hope, you know, it's gonna carry on, you know, into the next stage. And that's probably one of the most proud things I would think.

Emily: That is certainly something to be proud of. We will be watching you and your dynamic team taking it into the next stage. Jenny Zhu, thank you so much for joining us.

Jenny: Thank you.

Emily: It's been wonderful to have you here. Yeah. That was beautiful. Thank you. Yes.