“Business initiatives such as this exciting partnership with Verishop have had an added layer of complexity because of COVID-19, but we're taking each step day-by-day to make sure we're able to serve our community and keep our employees safe. One of the changes Choosy has made is its recent partnership with the shopping platform, Verishop, with the goal of continuing to change how the world shops. “We were pretty scrappy, until we essentially raised the first round of funding.”īut being a small, scrappy team is what gives Choosy the ability to be agile. To date, they’ve raised over $10 million in funding. My cofounders said, ‘I think we have some traction here, maybe we should go raise some money.’ I was doing photoshoots on my roof and there were sewing machine labels everywhere!”Ĭhoosy’s official launch was in the summer of 2018, after the startup received funding. “In the very early iterations, when I was doing it by myself, I was literally fulfilling orders out of my apartment in NYC.
She left Citi to focus on Choosy when she realized the idea had potential for growth: Reinvention is also about pivoting, which Zeng mastered ever so gracefully when she went from team member to founder, and pivoted from finance to fashion. For us, that means being proactive in everything from trend forecasting to applying the technology we've developed, to different use cases beyond our initial plans.” “The biggest benefit of a start-up is being able to make decisions quickly. As a small company, it's so important to be nimble,” Zeng explains. "For me reinvention is really about adapting to change, no matter what challenges come about in life. So we want validation on our social media and / or newsletter, by asking our customers something like, ‘we only have enough room for one suit - which one do you want, left or right?’ And that tends to work really well because the customer feels empowered and like she’s part of the decision-making process.”Ĭreating a sense of community is also important to Zeng, “by just allowing our customers to engage with us and letting the customer be part of the brand’s growth.”Ī critical part of growth is evolution and reinvention - something incredibly important to Zeng. “The items on our own Instagram are the products the algorithm has already picked up. The algorithm had identified them as a trend, and now it was up to the Choosy customer: they were produced in low quantity as a test, and ended up being a bestseller. The algorithm Choosy employs helps identify what’s trending in women’s fashion and also involves the Choosy customer by having her “vote” and validate products.Ī classic example of an item that was “tested” is a pair of two-colored pants: since it was a forward trend, Zeng was unsure about whether the pants would be well-received or rejected by the community. Choosy is among the wave of these new brands that are actually meeting the customers where they are.”īy producing in small batches, Choosy holds minimal inventory and uses only readily available repurposed fabric, which is eco-friendly. So today that’s where people are getting ideas and inspiration of what new outfits they want to purchase. But someone who is 19 or 20- they really exist more in the virtual world of social media. For example, when we were growing up, we’d go to the mall after school and that's where buying intent really occurred. So on the supply side, we have innovated by being able to dramatically reduce the waste and by producing smarter pieces that people actually want, but also on the demand side, we’re unique because we’re ‘social’ first. “What’s special about Choosy is that we match supply and demand in real time.
Thanks to long-standing relationships with hundreds of factories in China (Zeng was raised in China and her family runs some factories there), she identified a network of small, agile textile factories, making it possible to produce a range of items in small quantities -as little as 80 units at a time - practically on demand.
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