From E-Commerce Rookie to the Queen of Lingerie

Asia Boss x Entrepreneurship x Karen Liang | Beaulace

In the past 10 years, Karen, the founder of Beaulace, has gone from a lingerie sharing blogger at Wretch (無名小站) to become the founder of the company, and from a business model of bringing goods from Japan to Taiwan, she has successfully transformed into developing her own lingerie products and creating an unmanned fitting room.

The entrepreneurial experience:

Year of 2010–2011: Lingerie try-on (Bosslady Lingerie Try-on Report) sharing went viral in a year, then got famous through media interviews and publication of books.

In 2010, Wretch (無名小站) was the main stream for online sharing, various bloggers began to write blogs on it, such as Foodie Yunyun for restaurants topics or Queen for relationships topics. Karen then took selfies and became the lingerie demonstration model for her blog.

The new topic of experience sharing quickly gains the attention of everyone and the media. She was not only in the interviews and book publishing, but also news reports and TV shows, talking about her lingerie try-on experience.

Year of 2012: Selected into the Appworks team and founded Beaulace

**AppWorks provides two-stage services for entrepreneurs: Accelerator from 0 to 1, and Venture Capital from 1 to 100. Since 2010, it has coached more than 226 startup teams, many of which, like EZTABLE , GoodLife, Fandora, CHOCOLABS, Oku and other Internet industry booming stars, is the largest entrepreneurial accelerators in Asia. **

Year of 2014: The number of fans exceeded 100,000, and the company was established with angel investors

Year of 2015: Trial operation of unmanned fitting room

Year of 2016: Start their own product design and development

Year of 2017: The official opening of unmanned dressing room 2.0

The first step of entrepreneurship is to make a profit, and thinking of net profit is the must.

The first time I understood the importance of “profitability” was the brunch business Karen ran in the early days. Although it closed in three months, it was because Karen discovered that she did not include the gross margin in the overall operating cost, so she decided to end the loss as soon as possible.

“I gave up not because I was tired, but because there was no money to make.”

What I did was set the price just to break even and I only thought of the cost of food, and did not take into account the gross profit and net profit. It was the first lesson I learned.”

Look for market gaps. A gap in the market is a place or area that current businesses aren’t serving.

When Karen wanted to buy lingerie, she wanted to search for products online and looked for recommendations from bloggers, but unexpectedly found that no one wrote an article for it, so she started her own journey of writing lingerie.

“I want to write about a topic, but I don’t want to do the same thing as others. Since no one wrote about the topic of women’s lingerie, I would like to try it.”

Actively cultivating fans, and they will become regular customers who can provide a much higher business effect than developing new customers.

In 2013, the official website of Beaulace was launched, selling all kinds of functional women’s lingerie.

Karen also purchased various brands of lingerie from Japan to Taiwan.

From trying on, choosing goods, and purchasing, Karen did everything by himself.

The difference between her and ordinary lingerie bloggers is that Karen will personally take netizens to physical stores to select lingerie for free.

Although it seems to be a time-consuming and inefficient thing, because of this, Karen has developed a whole group of diehard fans.

On the other hand, she has accumulated practical experience in how to choose lingerie for women with different breast shapes, laying a good foundation for the research and development of their own brand of lingerie.

There are no restrictions on product development, the product is to solve the problems from consumers.

In 2015, Karen decided to create her own brand. She collected various complaints from consumers about women’s lingerie on the market in the past few years, and went to the lingerie factory and discussed it with the designers.

She designed a type of concentrated strapless lingerie for different target customers and overcame the problems of easy falling.

Once it was launched, it immediately became a best seller and earned the first pot of gold for the company.

The success made Karen more confident to develop other different styles. At that time, it accounted for about 70% of the company’s total revenue.

“When you have difficulties in developing a new product, ask your customers, they will tell you their pain points, but usually the boss thinks he understands the customer’s needs and has never noticed it.”

Get Your Hands Dirty

Karen, who was born as a graphic designer, has never had experience in product development, financial management, or business operation, so it was carried out by other employees at the beginning, but under the circumstances of bumping into walls and chaotic financial situation, Karen decided to learn by herself.

Unexpectedly, after getting my hands dirty, I found the trick to overcome this difficulty and become a true entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is a process of self-growth. Various knowledge such as product design, customer service, invoicing, finance, management, etc. have been hand-in-hand.

After years of accumulation, Karen’s own ability has become stronger and stronger. I no longer worry about the unknown.

Now She is confident that she can lead the company to the next stage.

“The company’s technology, finances, and management must be understood by oneself before they can be handed over to others. You can’t touch it if you don’t understand it.”

Although Beaulace has a small team, its sophisticated team brings out outstanding results. Karen also has some management tips to share:

a. People who stay in small circles should not stay in the company, no matter how good their ability, because such people will not bring any significant growth to the company or influence people with positivity in the company in the long run.

b. Never leave employees hungry, snacks and drinks must be prepared.

c. Attitude is better than ability, your staff should ask questions and be curious about company’s vision, strategies,and products.

d. Be a boss who is willing to communicate with a leading action. When your staff send you a resignation letter but actually asking for more bonus; when your staff think he or she is the actual leader of the company, deal with the attitude immediately.

“There is no one who cannot be replaced, and also, you’re the one who is going to be responsible for your team and customers.”

e. Workflow optimization with written SOP will definitely reduce and clarify communication misunderstandings and increase the efficiency of cross-departmental collaboration.

(Monthly fixed review and continuous optimization is required.)

“The world is so wide. Through learning and constant experimentation, there are actually many possibilities.”

This is Karen’s entrepreneurial story, from a child from Kaohsiung who has no family background to a female entrepreneur who is an independent entrepreneur.

The constant collision and learning on the road of entrepreneurship, perhaps this is the trait that allows Karen to lead Beaulace on an extraordinary path.

“I am very glad that I started a business, because I am a person who really desires growth. I am a very pragmatic person that when I encounter obstacles, I will find more resources for learning. If I keep learning, I will gradually become stronger.”

Beaulace：https://www.beaulace.com/