Jane Lu’s success started like many others. She got up early each morning, put on a suit, waved goodbye to her supportive parents and took off to start work.
The only difference was that the 28-year-old didn’t have an office to go to, a formal job title or a boss to report to.
Keeping her ventures a secret in fear that her parents wouldn't approve Ms Lu would venture into the city each day to hold up in a cafe or library to contact wholesalers, find new and exciting styles and build her online shopping empire.
Ms Lu’s story is one of perseverance; determination and achievement with her successful online shopping venture ShowPony.com reportedly turning over $10 million in the past calendar year.
She distributes clothing to 45 countries, has 420,000 followers on Instagram and 464,000 friends on Facebook, attributing her success to dominating the social media platforms.
After reading about her triumphs it will surprise you to know that her road to success was paved with a few failures.
With Ms Lu being the first one to admit things don’t always work out the first time you give it a crack.
She started her professional life in corporate finance first securing an elusive graduate position with KPMG and then moving on to accounting firm Ernst & Young .
After spending some time pondering her future life as a corporate go getter, she said she was left feeling unfulfilled.
‘I wasn’t getting much out of my day to day and a uni friend said they wanted to start a business so quit my job and blindly followed.’
Ms Lu’s family, in a show of their unwavering support, lent her money for the start up venture was unsuccessful.
‘It was really devastating when my first attempt failed. I’d quit my job so I couldn’t really go crawling back to my old employers. It was also right in the middle of the global financial crisis so I really had no other option but continue on,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
Being faced with the option of flight or fight Ms Lu secretly soldiered on in the hopes that she would have better news to give her parents soon.
‘My parents lent me money to start up my first business and after it failed it felt really hard to justify to them why I didn’t want to go back to business, which was their dream job for me.
Selling clothes online was completely foreign to them. They don’t even use email,’ she said.
In a few short years Ms Lu has managed to take her business from a dream to cold hard reality. She said if she had given up when she first failed she would have never achieved what she has today.
‘So many young people have a fear of failure but having failed, I can tell you it’s really not as bad or as scary as it seems.
‘It is worth the risk and you should always back yourself,’ she added.
Ms Lu said although she could have spent a lot more time on the couch after her first disappointment but she found it really motivating to get up every day with purpose, as if she had a boss to report to, and work for the job she really wanted.
‘It can be so easy to sit at home and watch TV or go to the beach with other friends who aren’t working but you can’t let yourself do that. Its about being productive every day.’
After being brought up in a ‘very academically focused’ environment Ms Lu said she wasn’t once taught about how to be successful if you pursue a creative career maintain that passion can get you through.
‘Life is long and people have to stop thinking that you can’t spend some of that time time when you are young to investing in yourself and what makes you happy.’
‘Your work life pretty much takes up the majority of your life so why not work to live instead of live to work,’ she added.
After taking the online shopping market by storm Ms Lu said it was social media that catapulted her to success.
‘Basically, I had no money when I started the business so I needed social media to get the brand out to our community.’
Coming into a market where big businesses hadn’t quite grasped the power of social media Ms Lu said there was a huge marketing sector that could be taken advantage of.
‘The small quick and nimble can really dominate a market like that because big business didn't know how to capitalize on it.
She said while she was starting out social media remained relatively unknown with big businesses blowing it off as ‘a fad’.
‘It’s about building a loyal community who are genuinely interested instead of paying for advertising to just make sales.
Ms Lu said even though her she may not have been completely honest with her parents in the start of her career, she knows they are beyond proud of her accomplishments.
‘At first they said ‘I don’t understand how you had the guts to do this’ but in reality it was them who left everything to take their young family to Australia,’ she said.
Ms Lu’s family immigrated from China during political unrest in 1994 when she wa
s eight years old.
'They quit their great jobs to work as cleaners and in factories, now that is gutsy,’ she added.
She said she knows it was their initial investment and support that helped her put herself out there and maintains that she doesn't know anyone that's worked as hard as them.
Even after becoming a front runner in Australian online business Ms Lu said she still finds it ‘bizarre’ to think of herself as a role model for women who are out there working hard to achieve their dream.
‘It is so bizarre, I mean, I don’t really have any experience, my first business failed so really if I can do it, anyone can do it.’
Her positive attitude caught the attention of The League of Extraordinary Women and they asked Ms Lu to take her story to the 'Run the World' conference where several of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs will tell of their trials and tribulations in the hopes of motivating a new generation of young female go-getter's.
Chiquita Searle, general manager of the League, told Daily Mail Australia that they knew they wanted Ms Lu to speak after hearing of her overwhelming perseverance in the face of crushing adversity.
‘It’s so important for young entrepreneurs to see someone in Jane’s position who didn’t have the perfect run.
‘It really wasn’t an easy journey for her, she quit her job, her first business failed leaving her with $50,000 of debt and she spent years working before she gained any traction,’ Ms Searle said.
