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

Unlock the incredible story of Jenny Lei, founder of Freja New York ― a vegan leather handbag brand that has taken the fashion world by storm. After arriving in the U. S. without a passport, Jenny was driven to build her own business as the only way to stay in America. What began in 2020 with just 300 bags has grown into a multimillion-dollar company's. Today, her bags are adored by top influencers like Hailey Bieber, Matilda Djerf, and Katie Holmes. Tune in for a conversation that will change the way you see setbacks-and success. Links: Follow my Newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/ Companies & Products: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Marinamogilko.co Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconValleyGirl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconValleyGirl LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/marinamogilko⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/marinamogilko/ X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/siliconvalleymm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/siliconvalleymm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Marina Mogilko?

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

• 1:03Speaker 03

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

• 1:07Marina Mogilko?

  You're from China. Did you have a US passport by then?

• 1:09Speaker 03

  I don't have a US passport.

• 1:10Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, so you're still on a visa.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  So I'm also trying to sell a work bag right before COVID. Launch, hey, we're live. Not a single person bought.

• 1:18Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  But now Haley Weaver wearing one of our bags.

• 1:21Marina Mogilko?

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

• 1:24Speaker 03

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

• 1:30Marina Mogilko?

  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 and you have no design background. And you're like, let me start a brand that makes bags. And it's a highly saturated market. You have all the designers you can think of. What was going on in your head?

• 1:52Speaker 03

  A lot of things. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. So Freya started as my dream to design the perfect work bag for modern women.

• 2:02Marina Mogilko?

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

• 2:03Speaker 03

  The reason why bags? I don't really believe in oversaturation. I think you should go fishing where there are a lot of fish in the water. 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 like a two-fold story. When I graduated um undergrad, same situation. I had to make money because I didn't have a job and I Googled how to make money fast online and I found dropshipping.

• 2:32Marina Mogilko?

  You probably found all of those YouTube videos.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  I did. I went to YouTube University. I did. 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. And then my seventh store, I was dropshipping bags.

• 2:50Marina Mogilko?

  From China or?

• 2:51Speaker 03

  From China.

• 2:52Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  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 kind of 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. It's 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.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  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 back brand? That's how I started. And then I started sketching um the day I got back.

• 4:13Marina Mogilko?

  Did you have a passport, US passport back then?

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I don't have a US passport.

• 4:16Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, so you were still on a visa?

• 4:18Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:19Marina Mogilko?

  So that meant you had to move really fast?

• 4:21Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 4:22Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, wow. And your parents are still in China, right?

• 4:24Speaker 03

  They're in China.

• 4:24Marina Mogilko?

  When did you move? How old were you?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  I was born in China. I moved to US when I was four.

• 4:29Marina Mogilko?

  Okay.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Um, grew up in the US and I actually went to high school in China. Cause I visited the summer before high school in the US. I'm like, wait, this place is dope. Like, I could see myself living here.

• 4:40Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  So I moved back to China by myself. My parents came back two months later. I enrolled into a local Chinese high school. I learned how to read and write Chinese in high school.

• 4:49Marina Mogilko?

  Wow.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  But now I can talk to my factory in Chinese.

• 4:52Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Like, everything kind of worked out really well.

• 4:55Marina Mogilko?

  Do you think you're all gonna go back or?

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Hmm, not to live.

• 4:57Marina Mogilko?

  No.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  No, I love New York.

• 4:59Marina Mogilko?

  So you were able to get a visa through your business?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:02Marina Mogilko?

  After that, EB one, all of that?

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:04Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. Oh, wow. That's, that's a great. What did your parents say when you told them like, hey, I didn't get a job, but I'm starting a first business?

• 5:11Speaker 03

  I've always been able to make money online. So they're like, you know what? Like, let's let her try it.

• 5:16Marina Mogilko?

  What was your initial go-to-market strategy?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  I didn't really have one. I thought, let me, okay, so I'm very much like a one step at a time kind of person. I don't, I'm not a planner. Um, trying to be. So I went to school December, January twenty nineteen. And then I graduated December twenty nineteen, but during that summer, like, I was in China looking for factories and doing all of that. So my, my only goal was to make one bag that I was really, really happy with. And that took eight months of back and forth, because I didn't know what I was doing. And then my factory was like, how do you want us to work off of these sketches? Like, I don't know what you want. So there's a lot of communication issues there, too. So a lot of my time was just focused on getting the product perfect. So I'm like, you know what? I can worry about everything after that. I think,

• 6:02Speaker 03

  you know, product is king, marketing is queen. My initial launch strategy, so, because I was dropshipping, so I knew how to do ads. And even to this day, like, we're very, very heavy on, um, paid advertising.

• 6:14Marina Mogilko?

  Amazon or is it just Shopify?

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Just Shopify. Um, we're only D to C, and we're in a couple retailers as well. Um, but my, my go-to-market strategy was I'm gonna run an ad for people to sign up, email.

• 6:28Marina Mogilko?

  After you made a product?

• 6:29Speaker 03

  After I made the product.

• 6:29Marina Mogilko?

  Cause people do A B tests and like mockups, right? Normally, like?

• 6:33Speaker 03

  That's what I was told to do. I didn't do it.

• 6:34Marina Mogilko?

  First model that you designed, the bag, was it successful in terms of like paid ads? Did people actually convert or?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Eventually, yes.

• 6:41Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  But I ordered three hundred bags. I had them sent to my apartment. No, I think they were like on the way. I started collecting emails. I think I collected twenty-five hundred emails on Facebook. And then once the bags got there, I was like, send. Launch. Hey, we're live. Not a single person bought.

• 6:56Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, wow.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  And then.

• 6:57Marina Mogilko?

  For how long?

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Um, so the bags got to me February of twenty twenty. So I'm also trying to sell a work bag.

• 7:05Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, and it's, oh, my goodness.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Right. So I'm like, okay.

• 7:08Marina Mogilko?

  The worst.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Let me, let me think about how to market this.

• 7:11Marina Mogilko?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  In a way where people need, feel like they need a work bag right now. Um, so there was a lot of back and forth on that. Um, I think it took, it took a year to sell out three hundred pieces.

• 7:21Marina Mogilko?

  Wow.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:22Marina Mogilko?

  And you didn't give up?

• 7:23Speaker 03

  I can't. I have to sell these bags in my apartment.

• 7:26Marina Mogilko?

  Well, like maybe find a job or it was impossible, right? To find a job during covid.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  I'm thinking if I was still looking for jobs. I don't think I was. Um, I had savings. I had some runway from dropshipping. But there was one month, I think this was eight, August twenty twenty. I remember this so clearly. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, Shopify screen open. Three sales the whole month.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Eight hundred and thirty-four dollars the whole month. I'm like, you know what?

• 7:53Speaker 03

  So worse it's gonna get, right? We're only up from here. And I remember how it kept going during that time. It's like Jenny, you're gonna look back five years from now and you're gonna be so happy that you kept going.

• 8:04Marina Mogilko?

  It's like your future self talking to you.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:06Marina Mogilko?

  Wow. And so what were the next steps? When did this magic happen?

• 8:10Speaker 03

  I don't think magic really happened. I think, um, so there's a lot of trial and error for the first year, mostly with paid ads. I think I found a formula that works well for us and it still works well for us today. Like, most of our ads are variations of the same. It's like me packing the bag. Cause that really gets the people going.

• 8:30Marina Mogilko?

  Um, bag in, in action.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  In action, exactly. In videos. Um, images don't work well for us, like pretty campaign images don't work well. People wanna see it. And like, given that we are known for being a very functional bag brand, I think that makes a lot of sense. Got better at the ads. It was just like a lot of improvement. Like tiny little improvement here and there. Um, in the beginning, first year, we probably did like one to one point five X ROAS, which is like pretty much breaking even. Like you give Facebook one dollar and you get one dollar back. Um, year two, I believe I started interviewing ads agencies and like, I think I've kind of hit a wall with what I can do. Um, but I think like I got the brand voice down that where I could, you know, teach an agency that.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  First one was honestly terrible. Um, they told me that I should focus on writing content and like I'm trying to sell bags now. Content marketing works, but that takes a lot of time. They were like, you should write blog posts. I'm like, okay, I will do that, but however, I need to sell this product. Um, second one was okay. Third one started working really well, so like they helped us pick up. It was so expensive though. I think it was like three thousand dollars a month and given like I'm not really making money at this point, so I'm like, okay. Leap of faith, like let's, let's hope it works out. And then I got assigned a new, um, ads person. And he, he got it. Like he.

• 10:00Marina Mogilko?

  What was so special about his approach?

• 10:02Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 10:02Marina Mogilko?

  He took the same creatives or?

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Same creatives.

• 10:05Marina Mogilko?

  It's just the way he targeted people?

• 10:07Speaker 03

  I think so. There was something different about it. Yeah. And I think we had.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Maybe the ad account was, um, had enough data at that point where Facebook could use to find new people, but I, I don't know, Patrick, like, he, he just got it. Um, and then we started hitting like two, two point five consistently, three, sometimes four.

• 10:29Marina Mogilko?

  For the same creatives that you used for the whole year?

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Same creatives.

• 10:32Marina Mogilko?

  Surprising, cause my strategy with paid ads would be like, oh, this creative is not working. Let's just try a hundred more and see what's working.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. On the creative side.

• 10:40Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  I'm lazy, so I'm like, this is the creative. I know it works.

• 10:44Marina Mogilko?

  Do you know how many iterations you went through till you found that piece that worked?

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Um, not that many, honestly. I think probably like on the 10th batch. Like I started doing videos and I started talking about the functionality and that worked really well.

• 10:58Marina Mogilko?

  Interesting.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, but yeah, anyone listening to this, thinking about doing paid ads creative is a lot more important than targeting.

• 11:05Marina Mogilko?

  But it's interesting to hear that for you, then the second step was figuring out the right person who did the right targeting.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Because at that point, I, I don't know, cause I think I've found, so that creative was getting me sales. I'm like, okay, I know this kind of creative works. But there's something that I don't know on the backend. And I think there's someone that can come in and do that. And also ads was taking up so much of my time. I wasn't doing anything else. It was like eight to 10 hours on Facebook.

• 11:30Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  I was a marketing company. I was not a bag brand.

• 11:32Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  In the beginning, yeah.

• 11:34Marina Mogilko?

  And so that started working. What were your next steps? Let's design more bags?

• 11:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, I think we put out maybe one or two new products every year up until. This last year and that's just because one, design is not my favorite part of it. It's really difficult. It's a lot easier now because like I have a base to work off.

• 11:55Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  And I know, like I've found the brand identity. I know what kind of products I like. I had to develop my own sense of design, like alongside.

• 12:03Marina Mogilko?

  Of course.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Um, so design was really, really hard. I also trained my customers to not expect a lot of new products. Cause I'm like, guys, I just wanna make the perfect work bag for women. Um, I think this is it. We'll make it in neutral colors. There's no, it's like seasonless. And then people started asking for that bag, but with the zippers. I'm like, okay, guys, I'm gonna design this bag, but with a zipper. So that's kind of, it was a lot of like community feedback. Cause I'm like, guys, you tell me what you want. I don't, I don't know what I'm doing here.

• 12:31Marina Mogilko?

  Have you ever sort of hiring a designer?

• 12:32Speaker 03

  I have a creative director now, um, that I hired and maybe like last summer. It's funny, I actually hired her to do some content for us when I first started. This was four years ago. I was thinking this past summer, like who is the perfect person? Brielle. And I reached out and she was free and now she's our creative director. But now we work on designs together and it's really, really, it's so helpful to have another pair of eyes.

• 12:56Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  With like amazing and similar design sense to me.

• 13:02Marina Mogilko?

  Now your business makes over ten million dollars in revenue annually. What has changed in terms of marketing? Are you still doing the paid ads? Are they still the, the number one source for you?

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, paid ads are bread and butter. Um, I think we're always in customer acquisition mode. Cause we're, we're still very small and very, like a very young brand. Um, last year, I started thinking like, okay, paid ads aren't gonna work forever, obviously. Um, they're working great now, but let's also start some other channels before we have to. Like I don't wanna wait until it stops working. So we're investing heavily into influencer. Um.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  I have a good program for that.

• 13:44Marina Mogilko?

  U G C with influencers or what?

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, U G C and then like during events and just like more um collaborations. Um like driving affiliate sales and then because I'm thinking like I don't really buy things off ads. I buy things when I see someone I like wearing it.

• 13:59Marina Mogilko?

  Right.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Right, I don't really shop from ads. So um really building that out because I also want to offer a lot of value to our customer. I think something that resonates really deeply with our customer is the backstory. It's the behind the scenes. It's like the little design choices, why we why we're doing this, why we're doing that. It's my life, honestly, like they want to hear what I'm up to every day, like they like our newsletters. We send to a week Tuesday is a bit more product focused and then Friday I'll send. They're called Jenny's journals. I'll just send like this is what I'm working on or this is what I've been thinking about. I was feeling a lot of imposter syndrome this week and this is how I walk through it and like people really resonate with that.

• 14:38Marina Mogilko?

  But you still avoid bright colors and like trends, everything. Does it bother you like I'm not following the market, where's the burgundy?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  No, I think a lot of my design decisions also are I am lazy. I don't want to think about seasonality. I don't really want to think about colors. I want everything to be sellable all year round. And also I'm not a designer. I don't even know what rules I should be following. Like I look back at the first bag and I design, I'm like, there's no way I would design it like that today.

• 15:07Marina Mogilko?

  Hmm, but it still sells, right?

• 15:09Speaker 03

  It still sells. I'm like, I I want to redesign it, but people like it and it's kind of it's a part of our story now. So I'm like, maybe I just leave that alone and it's really fun to see the progression, I think.

• 15:19Marina Mogilko?

  In one of the interviews, you said you don't like to follow like traditional marketing things. Um I wonder what your opinion is on live shopping because I feel like it's taking over everything. And you're from China, you know how crazy it is out there and it's coming here. Like I see creators in China in front of four hundred cameras, live streaming, selling and selling and selling.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  They're crazy.

• 15:41Marina Mogilko?

  Right, and.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  It's a workout.

• 15:42Marina Mogilko?

  And you just see like American social media turning into that because everyone is now selling and the social media platforms are pushing that. What do you think about that? Do you think it's a healthy trend? Does it work for a brand?

• 15:54Speaker 03

  I don't think it's something that I would ever try, just because I think for for Freya and for me like. My goal is not to be salesy. My goal is not to like push product on you. My goal is to be a brand for the people who are looking for something, you know, made with care, made with love, something that they can wear for a really long time, something timeless and neutral, classic. And I think live shopping kind of goes against that. And it's like, I want this to be a purchase that you think about. Like, I want it to be an investment piece. I don't want you to just buy it because, you know, you you saw me.

• 16:31Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  You saw someone live shopping. And I want it to be, I really want it to be intentional. I think that's like one of our brand, um, brand pillars.

• 16:38Marina Mogilko?

  You said, our customers don't want to be sold to. I really like that phrase. How does that reflect in you, in what you do in marketing? Maybe like you don't do like shop now stickers or whatever. Can you share some of that?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  So in marketing, first of all, we don't really do sales. We maybe do one or two a year, just to say like, hey, thanks for being a part of our community.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  I used to never do sales. Never. We didn't do a single sale for the first two years. I'm like, I don't believe in it. I think our prices are set the way they are to be fair all year round.

• 17:08Marina Mogilko?

  Especially because you explained the pricing on your website, right? If you're discounting, that means you're like just cutting the margins.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  But but then someone framed it in a way and I really liked it. He was like, this is actually a way to reward your customers, maybe at the end of the year, like do a little sale, um, so they can like gift their friends and gift themselves. And like, you know what? That's a really good way to put it. I like that a lot. So we do that. Like for our emails, that's why I, it's never like salesy. It's always like, I I think of it as a pull, not a push. Like, I want to pull you into our um, ecosystem in the Freo world. I'm like, what would I want to see as a consumer? I want a brand that delivers value to me, like through our content, um, through our newsletters. Like, I want to learn something. I want to be entertained. I don't want to be sold to. Um, same with our, I would say like our ad creatives. They're very, I would say elegant. They're very simple. It's not like,

• 17:59Speaker 03

  buy now, buy this, um, slashing prices or anything like that. It's just us packing the pack and just showing you like, hey, this is something that you might, um, consider in your life. And like showing them how it could fit into their life. And then I definitely want to do a lot more, um, community events. Um. That's something that we're building out right now and I want to be more than a brand.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Like, we started the Freya Fund last year, which essentially is I put out a poll to our community and they could fill out, um, not a poll, but basically they could submit an application and we selected a group of seven women to who are like working on starting their own businesses and I essentially like mentor them um every other week and we're all in a group and I've met all of them almost. So I want to do more things like that. I think I wanna, I think we're at the stage now where I do, I'm not in like survival mode anymore. It's not like, I um, how am I gonna sell this mountain of bags? I'm like, okay, I know they're gonna sell. How can I channel the money we're making now into something that feels really meaningful to me? I think that's like the stage that we're at right now.

• 19:08Marina Mogilko?

  Do you become an investor in their companies or is just you just give them money and that's it?

• 19:11Speaker 03

  I don't want to be an investor. Like, I don't, I don't want to take a part of their baby.

• 19:16Marina Mogilko?

  Hmm. Wow. So you just, it's just a fun charity. Wow.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  I think it's like educational, I think, and I think especially in the beginning, what everyone needs more than anything is someone telling them, hey, you're not crazy. I believe in you. I believe in your idea. And I think to be surrounded by other women who are also starting their own businesses, like, that's not something that you get. It's not easy to find, especially in the beginning. And everyone's like, problems feel so big in the beginning. And I think it's very reassuring when someone's like, don't, don't worry about it.

• 19:45Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, and you always feel it's just you, nobody else in the world.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. Like, also, like, everyone is experiencing the same thing. Like, on our first call, I think everyone was um worried about their packaging. They were like, oh, it's, it's not just me. Like, everyone is going through this. And it's very reassuring.

• 20:00Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. I wanted to show you something, a picture. Um, can you tell me what you felt when this happened?

• 20:09Speaker 03

  I was, okay, so the picture is Hailey Bieber wearing one of our bags. Um, this was April of last year. I had just hired PR, I think, February of that year. And she had started like doing some seeding. And I remember I was in Hong Kong. I think I was, I was back to visit family, visit the factory. So I was taking a walk at six AM. So I was very, very jet lagged, was looking for like an open bakery or something. And suddenly everyone is FaceTiming me, okay, what's going on? And then they're like, Hailey Bieber is here. I'm like, oh, I gotta get it. So that was our first love.

• 20:47Marina Mogilko?

  Wow.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:48Marina Mogilko?

  So the, the strategy was basically just sending them?

• 20:50Speaker 03

  It was just seeding.

• 20:51Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. And did, did you see a splash in sales, spike in sales?

• 20:56Speaker 03

  A little bit. I think where we did see a huge spike in sales is we started running ads. That was with like, um, just saying like, I don't know if we used that image. Or we just say like, I don't think we can.

• 21:09Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think we can. I think we did, like the Hailey Bieber bag or whatever. And then people started Googling it and then they would find the article.

• 21:15Marina Mogilko?

  Can you do that? Like, can you use somebody's name in an ad? I don't know.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  I don't know.

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• 22:19Speaker 03

  We don't do it anymore.

• 22:21Marina Mogilko?

  But that's that's

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Ask for ask for forgiveness, not permission.

• 22:25Marina Mogilko?

  And then I saw Ann Delvey wore your

• 22:27Speaker 03

  I know she did, yeah. We did not, we didn't send her.

• 22:32Marina Mogilko?

  That wasn't part of the strategy.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  No, I asked Molly, I was like, Molly? She's like, no, that wasn't me.

• 22:37Marina Mogilko?

  Do you feel like you don't want to target certain people with your bag or you're inclusive of everyone?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Um, we're definitely selective. Like your selling power is not the main thing that we consider. Like especially when looking for creators to work with. I think what we look for is interesting people. I think like people that I find inspirational in some way. Um, either their style or their story, um, or what they do in the world.

• 23:09Marina Mogilko?

  Can you give any tips to a beginner creator who wants to work with you? How polished should the content be? Should they just be boasting about style? Because what I I've started doing some fashion Instagram and I've been primarily business. And I've heard a lot of backlash from brands. They're like, you're not, they they won't say it directly, but they're like, this is not the type of content we're looking for. But like translates into you're not stylish enough. Where are these photo shoots in like New York aesthetics, whatever? And so this is what I've been hearing back from the industry. Is that your approach as well?

• 23:40Speaker 03

  I think for us, so there's two types of creators that we mainly work with. One is for content. So the first type is, you know, I I think you have really, really good, good, good eye for content. So that's like one category. And obviously that's our creative director is based in Copenhagen. So now we have a lot of Copenhagen girl. It's like, maybe like that's like the Freya aesthetic.

• 23:59Marina Mogilko?

  One with stylish cities, yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Black and white. Yeah. And then the second type is, uh, people who can move product essentially. And then I think for those, I'm looking for someone with a point of view, like someone really authentic, someone with a very engaged following who follows them for a reason. And, you know, we'll Is open to buying what they suggest.

• 24:22Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, in today's world, everything is scrutinized, everything is criticized on social media. Have you ever had an event when you had an opinion and then you got so much backlash? You're like, I'd rather just not say anything.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  I don't think so, not yet, not yet. Um, but like, there's always gonna be backlash about everything. So for the first three years, there was nothing about me. There was, I think maybe my first name was on the website, but you couldn't find anything else about me. And then when I hired PR, she was like, Jenny, you need to put yourself out there. Like, it'll help build the brand, it'll help build you. And she was right, but I was really scared. I was like, what if there's backlash, what if there's backlash?

• 24:56Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, right, that's a risk as well.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  It's a risk.

• 24:59Marina Mogilko?

  If you get, I think about this all the time because I'm in the face of my company. If I get canceled, like, the whole company goes down.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  I know, and it's like one of those things that you can't come back from. Like, once people know you, they're not gonna unknow you.

• 25:09Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  Right, like, they might forget about you, but they'll, they'll always know you. That's like one of those decisions that, it's not a two-way door. Like, you go through, you're not coming back.

• 25:16Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  But then someone told me this at the very beginning, and it always stuck with me. And he said, if you don't tell your story, someone else will. So I'm like, okay, I need to get ahead of this. If there's backlash, great, I can learn from it. But as long as I am acting in accordance to my own morals and value system, I think like I can go to sleep happy at night knowing that.

• 25:35Marina Mogilko?

  Couple of last questions. Where do you see your brand in ten years?

• 25:40Speaker 03

  And I said, I'm not a planner, so I don't, I haven't planned anything out beyond maybe the next year or two. But I decided collectively with my team, I think this was maybe a month ago, we started having, um, like, all hands-on deck calls, which are kind of fun. On the first one, I said, guys, you know, I've been really thinking about this. Um, we grew the team a lot in the last six months, so everyone's like pretty new. Like, we have a world-class team here. Everyone is so good and so passionate about Freya and their role. If we're doing the work anyway, why don't we think about building Freya into a legacy brand? Like, I think it was just a little mindset shift. Like, business is formulaic, right? You, you're the product, you're the marketing, you're operations, logistics.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  I think what is not formulaic is how you think about it and the mindset behind everything. And I think that is actually what's driving the most change, like, as, as I've noticed. Um, like, last year, I decided I'm gonna take myself seriously, and I'm gonna take Freya seriously. Huge change. This year, I'm like, okay, I'm taking it seriously. But where do I want to go? Let's channel this energy into building a legacy brand. We're doing this anyway. It's not more work, it's just different work. And then I'm just thinking a lot more long term. And then I think it makes it actually a lot easier for everyone else to focus in on what their role is in the company and where they're gonna grow. And where we're taking it. And it's a lot easier to filter decisions through like, what a legacy brand do this.

• 27:05Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, what's, what's different now?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere fast. I think I want to invest a lot more into building the brand instead of just like selling product. In a way, and that's why I want to do like more community events. I want to be known for being a brand that treats its community and customers and vendors and everyone really, really well, along with having, you know, a nice selection of functional bags. I want to expand into men's. I want to take it global and I want to have a lot of fun doing it.

• 27:39Marina Mogilko?

  Love it. What's the brand that you're looking up to?

• 27:42Speaker 03

  There is one brand, it's called Metier London. They're not super well known. I think they're getting a lot more press now. Which they very, very much deserve, but I think they have been around maybe like six or seven years. But the designer Melissa used to work at, I think she used to design cars. So she comes from like a car. Technical, more technical background. I think she started with men's bags. They're very expensive, but I saw one in store once and it's very rare that I'm like, oh, that's really high quality. And like everything she does is so thoughtful. And that was one of my inspirations for starting Freya. I was like, I want my bags to feel really, really thoughtful.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  And I think she does that really, really well. Like every little detail, like how the magnet sounds when it closes, like things like that. And I think that's like the level of thought and detail that I aspire to.

• 28:34Marina Mogilko?

  How do you then balance the price tag and the quality?

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, at the same time, it's like I do want Freya to be and remain accessible. That's really, really important to me. Um, I don't want to change. Are pricing too much? I think what I might do is launch like limited edition runs, maybe like a couple hundred pieces. Higher priced, like you can go for that if you want. However, we'll always have our main collection. And I think that will build a brand too. It's like we are known for, you know, having our basics, but we will also offer elevated pieces here and there.

• 29:10Marina Mogilko?

  Can you give advice for women who are watching right now? They have a brilliant idea, but the market is saturated. They don't know how to start. They don't really believe in themselves. What is the mindset change they have to go through in order to make it happen?

• 29:23Speaker 03

  You just have to do it. You'll never be ready. And I also think, don't think too far in advance because you'll get really, really overwhelmed. Just think about the next step. My favorite podcast, Alex Pomozzi, my bible, there's something he said and I'm like, that is exactly what I'm trying to say. So he said, imagine you are in a dark tunnel. You have a headlamp on your head. You can see what's in front of you, nothing further than that, starting a business. Similar, you can see what you have to do next. I'm like, okay. I don't know how to sell bags, but before I sell bags, I don't, I need to know how to make a bag. And before I know how to make a bag, I need to like find a sample maker. So I was like one step at a time. And then he says, you only know what's in front of you and then you're not going to see what's next until you take that first step.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  But once you take that first step, the next step illuminates. And I think what people don't realize is you at step two is not you at step one. You at step two is much better equipped to deal with everything that you need to do at that point. But you need to take that first step first. Like, think about your job today. You could probably do it in your sleep, but day one, like you went in there like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do. Like the problems I'm dealing with today, I'm looking back and I'm like, if I knew what I knew today, I don't know if I would have started.

• 30:36Marina Mogilko?

  I hear that from every entrepreneur.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Really? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you don't even, you don't know what you're starting out for. You don't need to know. Like you're not handle, you're not going to handle it. You're not going to be able to handle it, but future you will. And I think another thing is figure out what to measure, like especially when you're not necessarily making progress. Um, in the beginning. And I think for me, like when we, even when we weren't selling bags, I was like, okay. I know if I can get my ads engine to work like that, what is that one thing? Your input-output equation, like what is that one thing? I'm like, you know, I might not be able to sell bags. But if every day, if every day I promise myself my input is I will sit in front of Facebook and try different things for eight hours a day. There is no way that I'm not gonna learn.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  And I think going off of that is really figuring out like what's actually going to drive you forward from like, from you know, like I need to sell bags. Cause there's so many things that you could worry about.

• 31:32Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  But I'm like, right now, I just need to figure out a way to sell. And I'm choosing ads. You can pick anything. It could be content. It could be influencer, but like focus in on one thing. We are one way of getting customers and get really, really good at it.

• 31:47Marina Mogilko?

  Love it. Love it. Thank you so much.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 31:51Marina Mogilko?

  So many cool stories. Thank you, Jenny. And looking forward to seeing more of your bags in New York and Bay Area. I see them everywhere. Huge congratulations on that.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun.

• 32:02Marina Mogilko?

  Awesome. That was great.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  That's my favorite podcast ever.

• 32:06Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, really?

• 32:06Speaker 03

  I love your questions.

• 32:07Marina Mogilko?

  Thank you so much.

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