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🇭🇰 From London to Hong Kong: How Louisa Dearlove spotted a gap in Hong Kong's fashion market and turned it into Fengxiang, a clothing rental platform aimed to give women in Hong Kong access to affordable contemporary fashion and to drive sustainable fashion habits. Could shared wardrobes be the future of sustainable fashion?

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In this episode, we chat with Louisa Dearlove about building Hong Kong's first peer-to-peer fashion rental platform. She shares honest insights about launching an MVP instead of chasing perfection, how she has had to adapt to the local market, and how being a generalist became her entrepreneurial superpower.

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Transcript

Kimberley Lau (00:00)
Welcome back to the Unsensible podcast, where we dive deep into the journeys of inspiring founders and their game changing ventures. Today's episode features Louisa Dilov, who's disrupting Hong Kong's fashion industry with Fengxiang, the city's first peer to peer fashion rental platform. From working in corporate roles to launching a tech startup, Louisa shares invaluable insights about building an MVP, adapting to market needs and scaling a business in a new market. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this conversation offers a practical lesson in product development, customer validation, and the realities of being a founder.

Welcome back to the Unsensible Podcast. I'm Kimberly and I'm your host today. I am joined by Louisa Dearlove, not only a friend of mine, but a female founder of Fengxiang. Fengxiang is Hong Kong's first peer-to-peer fashion rental platform. So today we're going to be talking about all things fashion, tech, and sustainability. Welcome to the podcast, Louisa.

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Louisa Dearlove (01:04)
Thanks for having me, excited to be here.

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Kimberley Lau (01:06)
Excited to hear all about Fengshang, but before we jump in to what it is and what you do, I thought it'd be good just to kind of learn a little bit about you, your background and your journey so far and how you've ended up in Hong Kong starting Fengxiang.

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Louisa Dearlove (01:20)
Absolutely. So I'm originally from London and I've always had kind of an entrepreneurial drive, but it definitely took me some time to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. So I did actually start my career in fashion, but then I went on to work in a variety of sectors, kind of both in large corporates and smaller impact startups, mainly working kind of as a chief of staff. And I think when I started working as a chief of staff, that was the real turning point for me. I always felt kind of throughout my career that I didn't really have an expertise. And I've always been a generalist, which I used to be really self-conscious about. And then I had an amazing boss that kind of taught me actually that my ability to wear many hats was kind of a superpower of mine. And actually, this has benefited me hugely as a founder, kind of having that diverse range of experience. And I think kind of what I've found that the one thing that does kind of loop through my career is what really drives me is working for a mission. So I first moved to Hong Kong with a Fintech working as a chief of staff, and then I moved to a sustainability events company working as a chief of staff there. And that really kind of opened me up to the entrepreneurial startup, sustainable landscape in Hong Kong, which has been fantastic. And yet definitely kind of led me to wanting to start Fenxiang.

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Kimberley Lau (02:38)
Wow, what a colorful background you've had and career to date. It's something that we always talk about, know, being generalists, working in startups and wearing many hats. And it's great that you finally realized yourself that that is a superpower because it definitely is. And you see a lot of similarities between, you know, working in startups and all the sort of skills that you learn and taking all of that to start your own thing. Cause you've got the experience and you know what you're doing. So it's really inspiring to hear that you've started your own thing out in Hong Kong.

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Louisa Dearlove (02:56)
That's it.

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Kimberley Lau (03:08)
So we're all dying to learn about what Fengxiang is and what you do. So if you could pitch Fengxiang in 30 seconds, what would you say?

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Louisa Dearlove (03:17)
Absolutely. So, Fenxiang is a peer-to-peer clothing rental and resale platform really designed to make borrowing and sharing clothes from others easy and accessible. So offering that sustainable alternative to shopping, contemporary fashion and Funxiang is the first peer-to-peer circular fashion concept of its kind in Hong Kong. So think kind of the Airbnb of fashion and Funxiang actually means to share some of the good and is really focused on building a community of sharing clothes in Hong Kong and that circular fashion economy. And we really want to make fashion accessible to all whilst also driving those sustainable fashion habits.

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Kimberley Lau (03:57)
Great. So you essentially make fashion accessible to everyone. Yes. And with that, why fashion? Why Hong Kong? What problem did you see? What problem are you trying to solve with Fengxiang here?

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Louisa Dearlove (04:12)
So I've always really struggled with shopping in Hong Kong, feeling that there was only really Zara or luxury designers with real limited access to kind of affordable contemporary brands. So Finch Yang was really born out of conversations with friends. And when I was looking for an outfit for a wedding, one of my friends invited me to come and look at her wardrobe and I ended up borrowing a gorgeous dress from her. And it really just got me thinking, you know, why couldn't we all do this? Why couldn't we all share some of the good we had? And particularly in Hong Kong, where we all have limited space. And I think something that really stuck with me as well that she said is I, you know, I looked around and was like, wow, you have so many incredible clothes. And she said, I'm so bored of everything. Like I don't really want to wear everything. And that really resonated with me. How many of us just have cupboards full of clothes that we never wear or we're bored of, or we kind of buy and then wear once. And I've always been a real believer in quality over quantity. And I think what kind of has really helped me to drive this business is that kind of I am the customer as well. So I really kind of understand what that customer pain point is. I'm at that age where I'm attending weddings kind of all summer and you don't want to just keep buying new dresses, but you're going to weddings with the same people and you want to buy something that's lovely and special. definitely that has been a big help and kind of I feel like the customer and also really kind of understanding that need in Hong Kong for amazing dresses, amazing outfits.

But also we cannot ignore the fact that the fashion industry is the third largest polluter in this world and the especially that the landfill and the water usage issues, especially in Hong Kong, there's this incredible stat that two in five Hong Kongers actually discard their clothes after a year or less. So really wanting to try and help drive their sustainability habits, as well as just giving Hong Kongers access to incredible clothes.

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Kimberley Lau (05:58)
I think it's truly amazing what the platform does and all that you stand for. And I'm definitely your ideal customer profile right here. Just a little bit about, you know, the platform itself and the community that you're building. How are you engaging with your customers and how are you really sort of understanding what their key pain points are?

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Louisa Dearlove (06:17)
Absolutely. So I think this was the best decision we made in is that we just decided to put together a MVP, so a minimal viable product and just really go out there and start to understand our customer. And we did that through kind of focus groups and surveys, speaking to friends as well, kind of understanding the fashion landscape a little bit more, obviously looking at kind of competitors and what they have in Hong Kong, what they don't have. And I think it's just so important to get that kind of real life customer feedback because you can start building something and it actually just doesn't serve the needs of your customers at all. Actually going out there from the beginning and speaking to them about what they want is so important. And a big thing that came up was we assumed everyone would want delivery and collections. So we spent ages putting together this whole process for SF Express. And what we have found throughout the past year and a bit is that no one has ever selected SF Express. Everyone always selects the other options which are the meet in person or going to our drop off or collection point. And this is something kind of so unique to Hong Kong because, and I should have mentioned this before, but obviously the fashion rental market has really taken off kind of in Europe, in the US, and I've kind of did a lot of research with, like on those companies, but also speaking to people, working those companies and one of the biggest things that they say is always their pain point is to hold out operations and logistics. But Hong Kong uniquely, you know, everyone lives and works very close to each other. It's a very trusting, safe community. So it's kind of, you know, it feels more normal to meet up with a stranger and do that exchange and go to the kind of drop off and collection point. And if we had continued to go down that route of building this, you know, and I think maybe in the future, as you know, as we scale, definitely SF Express needs to become an option.

But at the moment, the kind customer we're serving, which is very, you know, like community, like sharing with your friends. Definitely people are very happy to meet up in person, meet the customer and have that drop off point. But again, unique to Hong Kong because not many cities you have this level of convenience around you.

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Kimberley Lau (08:20)
Absolutely, I was going to say if that was in London or Sydney, for example, that just wouldn't happen. So I think the insight that you've got there is super valuable. And the fact that you're speaking to customers, really finding out what they need and how to serve them best and how different it is in each market.

In terms of the customer experience and how someone actually engages and uses Fenxiang, could you just talk me a little bit through that and, you know, if someone was to go onto your platform, talk through the kind of experience that they would have.

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Louisa Dearlove (08:53)
Absolutely. So I think the biggest thing for us from the beginning is that we wanted to create something that is simple to use and that has the same user experience as online shopping so that the whole process can feel very familiar. So you can go to our website and you can immediately start browsing on the first few pages. But then to get access to kind of all our items in the full wardrobe, you need to sign up, which it's free to create an account. And then once you create an account, can see all of our items and you can filter that through kind of different sizing of brands, categories. We've got various edits as well on there to help you guide your way through the wardrobe. Everything is available to rent and then we also have selected items that are available to buy as well. And again, that came from customer feedback of sometimes you do just kind of want to resell items, but again, you know, so much better kind of to resell those and list them.

And then, yeah, so obviously you can then select your items, select how long you want to rent it for. And I think the key thing as well is we have a messaging platforms. If you, I think one of the biggest pain points we get is difficulty on sizing and fit. So you can go onto the item and you can message the lender immediately and ask them questions around sizing and fit. You can say like, I'm a UK 10, will this. You know, how does this fit come up? Obviously some things are different, especially with different brands. So, know, immediately being able to contact the lender and kind of have that, you know, have that sharing, that community feel. And then once you've selected the item, you kind of have three different options. As I said, SF Express is one of them, or you can message the person and meet them in person, or we have a drop-off in collection point at the Women's Lounge, which is run by Women of Hong Kong. So we have a great partnership with them. And one of the benefits of going to the Women's Lounge is that you can immediately try on the item. If you love it, take it with you. And if you don't, you can leave it at the drop off point and you'll get a full refund on that. And then yeah, we do kind of all our payments through Stripe. Then, so that's sort of your rent experience as the lender, you know, wanting to list your wardrobe, getting as many items as you want on there, which are all items that you're probably not wearing at the moment. You can, yeah, you just need to have photos of your items, you can list those, you can control how much you want to price those as, whether that's rental or resale, we take 20 % from that rental or the sale, and then the payment is sent to you after seven days. So it can be a great side hustle, know, making some money from your clothes, making your clothes work harder. So yes, that's kind of the way that it can work for you on both sort of rental and lending.

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Kimberley Lau (11:20)
Wow thats truly incredible that you've built this in such a short amount of time. So tell me a little bit more about the tech and the platform and the team that you've got to build this.

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Louisa Dearlove (11:31)
Yes, so I'm incredibly lucky that my co-founder and my sister is a software engineer. she helped, well, she fully kind of built this platform. And I think, as I said, one of the best pieces of advice she ever gave me, I wanted to like, I was like, right, we have to build an app. And she was like, no, we need to build an MVP. We need to start on a website. We need to test the market. And she was absolutely right. So we have, yeah, we have built everything through a website to start with. And she's kind of developed the whole tech side of that. And she's more of a backend developer. So we worked with the front end developer as well to make kind of the whole user experience and everything look beautiful as well. And just making that as, you know, the whole technology as seamless and easy as possible. And as we kind of iterate, you know, we'll keep obviously improving the platform. But as I said, you know, making sure that we're taking in all of that customer feedback as we continue to develop it. So yes, we kind of work very closely on constantly improving the platform and there's lots of, know, as that is always the way with technology and products, there's always more you want to do and the to-do list is never ending.

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Kimberley Lau (12:36)
we see that quite a lot and it must be rather interesting working with your sister as your co-founder as well.

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Louisa Dearlove (12:41)
Yes, but also we feel like you can be very honest with each other, which I think is really great. And like, there's no kind of like zigzagging around. It's like, right, this is what we need to do. And yeah, being accountable to that.

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Kimberley Lau (12:53)
So with all the growth in technology and the speed of which AI is developing, what are the plans for new features that you're building on Fengshang and the platform for the next year or two?

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Louisa Dearlove (13:04)
I'm so excited about this and I am a big advocate of AI is fantastic and kind of what we can really do with it and about it kind of making everything more efficient. And what I really want to build into the platform is those algorithms to make the user experience as seamless, but also kind of targeted of what you what your, you know, your sizing or preference on brands, you know, kind of categories that you're looking at. Are you someone that comes on a lot to look at like beach rentals or like wedding guest options?

So there's so many kind of exciting kind of advancements that we're going to be implementing into that. So working very closely with my co-founder to make sure that we're developing the best product possible and can have the best user experience for our customers when selecting their rental choices.

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Kimberley Lau (13:47)
and I'm sure there's lots more to come. In terms of, I guess, the biggest challenges you're facing, because I know you've been working on Fengsheng for, would you say, a year or two now? What are the biggest challenges that you've faced with Fengxiang?

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Louisa Dearlove (13:57)
Yes, just over a year and a half now.

So there's been a number, obviously, which anyone who's a founder can attest to. There are so many highs. The highs are so high and then the lows are so low as well. And I think the biggest one with Finch Yang is really getting people to understand the ease of it and the education piece. I think I was a bit naive coming from the UK where fashion rental is really kind of part of that, and people not really kind of understanding exactly what it is and also that.

idea that it's kind of like used old clothing kind of having to like change that that messaging around it and really getting people to understand that, you know, it's it's that same kind of Airbnb sharing community. So real challenges around the education side of it. And just getting people to see, you know, it by renting, they can have more variety, it's more cost effective, as well as of course, you know, driving those sustainable fashion habits. So it's a challenge every day and always. Yeah, building to just kind of pushing the dial forward a little bit every day.

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Kimberley Lau (15:02)
Absolutely, 1 % better every day is what we like to tell ourselves. In terms of the community in Hong Kong, I know you were a little bit nervous, obviously, starting something on your own here. How has the community responded to Fengxiang and the types of partnerships that you're doing?

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Louisa Dearlove (15:22)
The community has been incredible and I was really nervous before about starting in Hong Kong. But what I found so much in Hong Kong is that people are so supportive, people are so ready to help. And I think that's really, again, a unique thing to Hong Kong. People are ready to kind of, you they'll go and have that coffee chat with you. They'll introduce you to that person. And I've been really opened up to the kind of the entrepreneurial community. And as I said, you know, being a founder, you have to be so resilient and so disciplined. You really have to keep going and keep pushing. And I've really found a community here that kind of helps that, that can be real cheerleaders around that. And in terms of partnerships, that's one of the best things that we've done, really working with people who have the same kind of mission and ethos as us. So firstly, the women of Hong Kong who have been so supportive. And obviously we've now got this kind of drop-off and collection point partnership with them as well as them constantly promoting us to that community. And then also kind of aligning with other businesses and brands that have kind of the same mission as you. So for example, Top Swap and Swap Society, we've worked very closely with them on partnerships as we obviously have those same missions around sustainable fashion. But then also kind of partnering with amazing women in Hong Kong who are doing incredible things. So for example, Carla, who's the founder of Chomp, which is driving sustainable habits in food.

You know, our mission's really aligned on that and, you know, she's really come on board as an advocate and it's listed on our Fuzhiang edits where she rents out her wardrobe and users can come and see what she's renting in her wardrobe as well as another, a number of kind of women in Hong Kong. The community has been incredible and really, I think driving those partnerships on people that align with your mission is so important when starting out.

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Kimberley Lau (17:05)
Absolutely, and there's so many talented female founders in Hong Kong doing incredible things for the world. And in terms of what advice you'd give to somebody who's maybe trying to start their own thing or thinking about starting their own thing, what advice would you give them?

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Louisa Dearlove (17:22)
I think the main advice I'd always give everyone because this was given to me and it was definitely the right thing was just get started. I wanted to have this perfect app and this perfect business plan and it all to look shiny and amazing and just kind of absolutely go for it. Whereas I think there's just so much value in just like getting an MVP out there, testing your markets, speaking to customers and really getting out there. And it feels really exposing because you know naturally you want it to be perfect. But I think it's so important to do so absolutely if you're thinking about it, just get started. And I can tell you now as well, it's been the most rewarding experience ever. And you kind of constantly like always thinking is this gonna work, but you know that kind of this journey has been amazing anyway. And then something else which another founder friend said to me, she said, she was like, just be bold. She was like, if you're not feeling a little bit embarrassed, then you're not putting yourself out there enough. And I love that because whenever I'm feeling a little bit embarrassed, which is a lot recently. Like, okay, this is clearly the right feeling that I should be having because I'm putting myself out there. So yes, those are, I'd say, are the main things. And just, yeah, resilience and just doing a little bit every day and, yeah, having some patience as well. It's something I'm working on.

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Kimberley Lau (18:34)
The drive you have and your entrepreneurial spirit, you'll definitely succeed in everything you do. So with that, I would just like to say thank you very much for coming on the Unsensible Podcast. It's been super inspiring letting about your journey and how you've gone from corporate all the way to starting your own thing. And so we wish Fengsheng all the best and thank you for coming on the podcast.

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Louisa Dearlove (18:54)
Thank you so much for having me. I loved that.

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