“One of the biggest reasons I started the company was because when I moved to the United States, a few years ago, I had a hard time finding clothes that fit me,” she said. “My friends and I, we constantly went to the kid’s section to try to find clothes that worked for us.”

Wang launched Petite Studio in August 2016 with her partner and husband Matthew Howell, who manages the business side of the operations. The small but mighty label is growing by the minute as evidenced by the sold out pieces on the site and has hit its stride with the petite community. Its Instagram account currently has 22.7k followers.

Ahead, Wang shares nine practical pieces of advice for anyone looking to become a fashion entrepreneur.

1. You Don’t Need to be “Rich” to Start Your Own Line

We used Shopify, which is [one] of the cheapest ways. Photoshoots cost a little bit of money, but you can also do it in a cost-effective way, if you don’t require a supermodel or a super expensive photographer. I will say that for less than $50,000 you can start [your own clothing line].

2. Identify a Market Need for the Product

If you do something that the market doesn’t really need, you can’t just create a demand for it. All of the products that we see become successful are catered to a demand from the market, so that’s really important. [For us specifically], we saw a need for [clothes that spoke to the petite community]. I follow the blogger Extra Petite and if you go to her [comments], there are tens of thousands of girls asking, “Where did you find these petite pants that fit you so well?” Girls [want to know where to find these pieces] and [personally], I wasn’t able to find [any brands out there] that worked for me.

3. Know Your Target Audience

I saw that the Asian [fashion] community really needed service. I’m Asian, I know how they think, and I know what they would want to shop. I know the [clothing] styles they want and I [understand] their struggles. A lot of [Petite Studio’s] customers are Asian.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Work With a Tiny Team

I started with two people. It was me and [this one other] girl. [She was also] the graphic design, model, photographer, and social media person. We have almost 10 people right now. I think it’s very important to [launch your product right away] rather than plan for a really long time. Don’t just do it without research [though].

5. Hire the Right People to Help Grow the Company

The designer is definitely one of the most important roles in a fashion company, especially if the founder herself is not a designer. I suggest people use recruiters if you’re young and inexperienced with the hiring process. We [found people by] posting on school websites such as Parsons and FIT and [we] worked with a recruiter. [Our current team consists of] a logistics crew, a design assistant, a merchandizer, the marketing team, and, now, a small production and assembling team in China.

6. Find a Factory You Trust and, Ideally, Can Visit

I’m lucky that my family already knew [someone overseas with a factory for production]. If you don’t know anyone, I would suggest starting with a factory that’s near you, so you can regularly visit it. [This is logistically important because] the fabric might not come as you expect it or when they do the grading, they might mess up the size and then that [affects] 100 pieces. Really pay attention to the factory.

7. Market, Market, Market Your Product

I like to utilize the influencer experience. I email everyone most of the time, but we also have a public relations person that helps me to reach out to influencers that we’ve been working with over the past two years, who I love. I keep in touch with them and send them pieces every season.

8. Brush Up on Your Business 101 Skills

In my personal experience, it’s really helpful that I have a business background. I think a fashion designer [without business experience] tends to think more from a design perspective, but I tend to think from a customer perspective [because I don’t have that design experience]. I look at the numbers every day to see [what products] sell well and what doesn’t in order to learn from that. [Don’t be afraid] to ask for help. The part that I really asked for a lot of help on was the business management and function part. You can learn from other people and their experiences. Also, read more business-related books [like The Lean Startup by Eric Ries].

9. Take Some Time to Self Reflect

I think it’s very important for an entrepreneur to self-reflect. I wish I had more experience [when I first started out], but because I didn’t know a lot of things, I’m [still] learning, too. If I know something’s not working, I will pivot immediately. Also, recognize your weaknesses. Recognize something you’re not good at [and learn to improve on that].

To gain insight into some the increasingly complex issues they face, The Business of Fashion founder and chief executive Imran Amed welcomed industry leaders to the second annual BoF China Summit on October 15 in Shanghai, in partnership with The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

The invitation-only event took place during Shanghai Fashion Week in the city’s newest shopping complex, HKRI Taikoo Hui, and featured 12 panel discussions with some of the most influential executives, entrepreneurs and thought leaders from China’s explosive fashion market.

“We are living in an era of constant change,” Amed said in his opening remarks. “The pace of innovation along the fashion value chain is accelerating faster than ever before, with a consumer that is more demanding and a market landscape that is more unpredictable.”

Amed concluded: “As a result, it’s important for all of us to become more focused on the new frontiers of the fashion industry. Open dialogue and exchange are essential in order to navigate these changes — here in China, and beyond.”

One leader who has done just that is Gucci president and chief executive Marco Bizzarri, who has made several daring moves since appointing Alessandro Michele creative director of the Italian megabrand. Gucci’s gains both in China and around the world were buoyed by their ability to transform the brand image and reinvigorate it with a sense of purpose.

These changes have instilled confidence: Gucci has seen its annual turnover grow more than 40 percent year-on-year, reaching €6.2 billionin 2017, and the brand attributes the Chinese market as a key driver of this success. Earlier this year, Bizzarri got the industry buzzing when he said he would now pursue a target of €10 billion.

When Amed asked how he would get to that lofty figure, Bizzarri responded in jest: “My famous crystal ball,” he deadpanned.

Risk to Reward Ratio

In China, Gucci’s business has doubled since 2015. Interestingly, the company has avoided following the lead of other luxury brands online in the market. Gucci is conspicuously absent from the list of brands that have opened a store on Alibaba Group’s e-commerce behemoth Tmall or its rival JD.com.

“Listen, it is very much sooner or later we’re going to end up working with these platforms. [But] at the moment we are in a situation of wait and see. We are talking with these platforms,” Bizzarri said.

The Gucci chief executive’s candour about having reservations about joining the huge Chinese platforms created an interesting dynamic since Jessica Liu, president of Tmall Fashion and Luxury for Alibaba Group, took to the stage shortly after Bizzarri.

Liu addressed Bizzarri’s reservations head on, before going on the offensive to pitch to other brand executives at the event. “If today you joined the Tmall flagship store, we will have an analysis tool available for you the next day…We’re not saying that luxury goods [companies] should consider working with us today just to see whether it is possible to increase their sales revenue by 10 percent,” she said. “Rather, it’s about having a channel to reach 600 million users and possibly get to them earlier than your competition, even if it’s by one quarter. It comes down to this: we hope to use big data to empower our partners [to get] opportunities to get insight into future trends and make changes more directly,” Liu added.

Tmall has access to consumer data from nearly 400 cities. Many of those users are part of a giant ecosystem of Alibaba apps, including music, shopping, games and video, helping Tmall understand the overall lifestyles of their users.

The value of such consumer insights and behaviour on Chinese customers certainly isn’t lost on Bizzarri. “For sure everybody’s keen to get all the data on the customers that these huge platforms have in China. On the other side, I think we need to make sure that we maintain this luxury feeling, luxury perception and this kind of exclusivity in terms of presentation and that is absolutely key for us.”

But the biggest risk associated with joining China’s big online platforms, he asserted, is still about counterfeiting. “Frankly speaking, [on] most of the platforms, there’s a lot of counterfeiting and I don’t want to certify counterfeiting because I belong to these platforms,” said Bizzarri.

“The point to me about the counterfeiting is not the counterfeit in itself. The counterfeiting feeds into a lot of things that are unethical. Why does [an item that’s similar to one that we produce cost] $1 instead of $1,000 or $10 instead of $1,000? Because you don’t [properly] pay the people, you use black [market] labour, you use children. [That’s] something that I don’t want to certify, and I don’t want to support.”

Instead, Gucci is focusing its investment in other areas. Changing its store formats to reflect its new brand image has been especially effective in the Chinese market, Bizzarri said, boosting sales density by thirty to forty percent.

The Art of Reinvention

Fostering the in-store experience is also critical for overseas Chinese shoppers. But Harrods managing director Michael Ward told BoF’s Asia correspondent Casey Hall, that to capture this younger, more modern shopper, they are reinventing themselves across all of their touch points.

“We are reinventing the way we digitally communicate with our customers to tell them the stories to lure them to enter the store,” Ward said. “We’re [also] constantly changing the store. At the moment I have 150,000 square feet being refurbished because complacency to us is the worst evil.”

Yet the focus remains, to court Chinese consumers, who make up about one-fifth of the spending at the iconic Knightsbridge department store, on providing the “quintessential British experience.” Ward said that his Chinese customers are looking for those old-fashioned, traditional values when they shop with Harrods, so it’s key to “not be ashamed” of being a heritage-focused company while still being modern.

Indeed, even for a traditional, family-owned company like Ermenegildo Zegna Group, bold moves are necessary to appeal to the Chinese youth demographic. The group made a surprise announcement in August that it acquired American menswear label Thom Browne, “to invest in a brand for the next generation,” said chief executive Ermenegildo Zegna. Already, the group has made major strides in China since first bringing over its suits in 1991, now showcasing fun and fashionable casualwear — think sneakers and caps — at the front of its in-store displays, coupled with a fully integrated digital strategy.

“The speed of change [in China], it’s unbelievable,” Zegna said. “Every time I come I learn something and I see something different… If you don’t watch who your competition is and how it moves, you are out of this market in a matter of two seasons.”

This is the argument that Tmall’s Jessica Liu makes for luxury brands harnessing big data on Tmall. The company claims it is working with 60 brand partners to better understand their customers’ ever-changing behaviour and around half have already adjusted their brand positioning accordingly.

“Today’s consumer [in China] changes are very fast,” Liu cautioned. “For luxury brands, it may be enough for them to make plans for five years down the road, but now, if you don’t revisit your consumer’s portrait every six months, maybe after two seasons things will go south for you.”

Liu said that while the proportion of consumers shopping for luxury online is still relatively low in China, their data reveals massive potential: about one-sixth of their 600 million shoppers are interested in luxury, and they predict that those who do buy high-end ready-to-wear online will soon be spending more.

Research this year between Tencent (parent company of WeChat) and The Boston Consulting Group reveals that the proportion of online search for luxury has — and will — continue to climb in the next five years. Fuelling that desire is the dissemination and digital application of emotional content, said Tencent Online Media Group director of consumer goods Shi Saifei.