Insight
Mei Xu advises founders against working with their spouses
“It is very hard to work with your spouse in a business that is so intense, so I suggest you look elsewhere.”
Insight
Mei Xu: Static dolls cannot scale without interactive features
“Because just making a doll at some point, you know, there, if there's no interaction with people they get tired of it and you can't really expand on just a doll.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mei Xu: Small retail boutiques outperform department stores
“Small boutiques are doing much better than department stores.”
Insight
Mei Xu: Consumer startups must pursue omnichannel distribution rather than single-channel sales
“I don't think one can try only one channel these days. We really are in a, in an economy where you need to meet people where they shop and people shop everywhere. They shop on TikTok, they shop on Instagram, they shop in store, they like what they see in a hot…”
Insight
Mei Xu: Market research cannot prove an idea until product launch
“There's no amount of research that can prove an idea. But there's one thing you can always do, which is to take your product to the market.”
Insight
Xu: Design trends trickle down from fine art to home decor
“So it started from a very high level of art, and then it trickles down to fashion, and finally it goes to home.”
Insight
Mei Xu: Consumers buy scented candles to signal a clean home
“Many people say the reason why they burn fragrance is the finishing touch to cleaning their home. When they want to finish and sense that the home is ready for their, you know, friends and family to come for entertaining, or when their husband and children com…”
Insight
Xu: Immigrants inherently share key entrepreneurial traits like risk tolerance
“I think immigrants are self-selected group. They are self-selected group that is very big on taking risks. In some ways, they have the same traits as entrepreneurs already. Instead of taking what's easy, what's already familiar, They choose the unfamiliar, the…”
Opinion
Mei Xu: Uniformity in 1970s China Created Happiness by Eliminating Jealousy
“Life was very happy in a sense that you don't have to be jealous of each other. You don't have to be wanting things you could not have.”
Opinion
Xu: 1990s Department Store Home Goods Were Completely Disconnected from Fashion
“Furnitures were very ornate. It has a lot of very, you know, gilded finish. And then the plates are like Laura Ashley prints, you know, very small, grandma's wallpaper floral. And I'm just wondering, the person who is so confident walking on the street will go…”
Insight
Xu: No amount of research proves an idea like launching to market
“There's no amount of research
That can prove an idea.
But there's one thing you can always do, which is to take your product to the market.”
Insight
Xu: Design Trends Flow From Fine Art to Fashion to Home Decor
“So it started from a very high level of art, and then it trickles down to fashion, and finally it goes to home.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Xu: Initial Target order topped $1M with $3M+ annual forecast
“That order ended up being over a million dollars, and the forecast for the year ended up being over three million dollars.”
Insight
Mei Xu: Immigrants share the same risk-taking traits as entrepreneurs
“I think immigrants are self-selected group. They are self-selected group that is very big on taking risks. In some ways they have the same traits as entrepreneurs already. Instead of taking what's easy, What's already familiar, they choose the unfamiliar, the …”
What-if
Mei Xu: Early Fundraising Would Have Provided Crucial Scaling Insights
“I did not do any fundraising when I was building my first business, and I feel it could have given me a very interesting sort of insight into how to scale.”
Opinion
Xu: Uniform living conditions in 1970s China eliminated jealousy and fostered contentment
“When we grow up, there was absolutely nothing. Everyone wore the same thing. Everyone would be eating the same food. Everyone had the same small apartment. Life was very happy in the sense that you don't have to be jealous of each other. You don't have to be w…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mei Xu: Chesapeake Bay Candle generated nearly $500K in first 4 months
“We probably will take 50% margin on them, so it was almost half a million dollars of business we did in four months.”
Insight
Mei Xu: Candle manufacturing requires balancing five interdependent components
“If you want to make it a business and you want to make sure it doesn't burn someone's house down, you actually have to study how to make it because a candle is both a piece of art and a lot of science. It's Five things that are interacting with each other. It'…”
Assertion Supported
China lacked domestic home fragrance and chemical compounding facilities in the 1990s
“I was frustrated because at that time, China did not have a home fragrance industry. To produce that kind of oil, you need a chemical compounding facility, and they were not used to that. They used to sell their cinnamons and their jasms overseas. The French a…”
Insight
Xu: Candle buyers smell candles from the bottom where oils settle
“Candle buyers Usually want to smell the candles from the bottom. That's when the oil settle into the bottom, and you smell the most from the bottom.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Xu: Target's first Chesapeake Bay Candle order exceeded $1 million
“That order ended up being over a million dollars, and the forecast for the year ended up being over three million dollars.”
Assertion Supported
White House invited Xu alongside Ford and Intel in 2012
“In 2012 I was creating jobs in the United States because of our factory and the President's office Took note, and he invited 13 of the biggest manufacturers, such as Ford, Intel and I was invited because I was a small business, and I was giving advice as to wh…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Xu: Chesapeake Bay Candle did nearly $500,000 in sales in four months
“It was almost half a million dollars of business we did in four months.”
Insight
Xu: U.S. competitors drive year-round candle sales through fragrance, not patents
“My competitor in the U.S., they sell candles in the millions and probably the billions. And I asked myself, why do they buy it all year round? It's not because they have a patent. It's because of the fragrance.”
Mei Xu