From $0 to $9M: How an Immigrant Turned Failure Into Fortune | Jenny Lei, Freja

now your business makes over $10 million in revenue annually.

I love New York. If I wanna stay in this country, I need to make money.

You're from China. Did you have a U.S. passport back then?

I don't have a U.S. passport, so-

Oh, so you were still on a visa?

So I'm also trying to sell a work bag right before COVID. Launch! Hey, we're live. Not a single person bought. [upbeat music]

Oh, my goodness.

But now Hailey Bieber wearing one of our bags.

And then I saw Anna Delvey wore your bag to court.

It's a part of our story now. If you don't tell your story, someone else will.

Jenny, thank you so much for being here. I'd love to talk about your business and your journey. First of all, can you walk me through this mindset? You're in New York-

Mm-hmm

... uh, and you have no design background, and you're like, "Let me start a brand that makes bags," and it's a-

[laughs]

... highly saturated market. You have all the designers you can think of. What was going on in your head?

A lot of things. [chuckles] um, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. So Freja started as my dream to design the perfect work bag for modern women.

But why bags? Like, there are other ways to make money.

The reason why bags, um, I don't really believe in oversaturation. I think you should go fishing where there are a lot of fish in the water. Um, I think, like, trying something new and totally, like, no one- that no one else has ever done is actually a lot more risky. And then why bags is, it's, like, a twofold story. When I graduated from undergrad, same situation, I had to make money 'cause I didn't have a job, and I googled how to make money fast online, and I found dropshipping.

You probably found all of those YouTube videos like-

I did

... make $100.

I went to YouTube University. I did. [laughing]

[laughing]

Um, so I was like, "Okay, this is my thing. I'm gonna try this." I made, I think, six stores, maybe got, like, one or two sales this whole time-

Oh.

... and then my seventh store, I was dropshipping bags.

From China, or-

From China.

Yeah, mm-hmm.

And that worked really well, so I'm like, "Okay, I know how to sell bags. I know what kinds of bags people like. I know what colors. I know what countries. Okay." And then I kinda, like, shelved that idea. I still went back to grad school. I was like, "I should be a designer, like, I wanna..." A UX designer was what I went to grad school for. I was like, "I think this suits me. Um, I think I should still find a job." And then, I think this was halfway through grad school, I was preparing for a very important interview. This was, like, my last chance to get a job, in my head, and the night before the interview, I couldn't find a bag that I would... I could bring to this interview. Like, I wanted to walk in feeling confident. I was supposed to be there the whole day. They let me go after three people talked to me, and they're like, "Okay, you can go now." So I'm like, "Okay, I don't think I got that job." So I went to Bryant Park, and I sat there, and I thought, "Okay, um, what can I do? Like, I'm not gonna get this job. If I wanna stay in this country, I wanna- if I wanna stay, I need to make money. I need to find a job for myself. I feel like there are other women who might also experience what I experienced today, which is not having a go-to bag that they felt confident and was super functional and elevated with no, like, logos or anything like that." So I'm like, "Okay, I have an idea. I think I can make that, and I know how to sell bags, so what if I started my own bag brand?" That's how I started, and then I started sketching, um, the day I got back.