episode 30: Victor Hsu - Finding Bliss

In fall of 2012, when I began to look hard at where I was in life, I made a list of people that I felt had it “figured out”. Although they would be the first to say that they have nothing figured out, you can’t help it but feel their positive energy and confidence.

Periodically, I will hand over the car keys to these guest bloggers for a change of pace. Some I’ve known for years and some I was fortunate to meet a few times for various reasons. (not sponsored posts)

The first guest of this series is Victor Hsu, Vice President and Creative Director of Jump Corp, a fast-growing footwear brand that is making waves in both North America and Asia.

A chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw” talked about Nolan Meyers, a recent college graduate that Gladwell simply liked and was convinced would be good at whatever he chose to do. Gladwell was just impressed with the young man even though they had only met once for 90 minutes.  

I always think of that section of the book when I meet Victor. I remember following his highly entertaining blog before meeting him in person, and thought that this guy was pretty cool.

He epitomizes the term “people’s person” and has the ability to balance work and play to benefit two often conflicting aspects of life. I sent him four questions, but it turned into a week-long email exchange. Below is a summary of our conversation. 

Working, eating and playing - Victor's specialty

On the ups and down of his fashion career

Upon graduation, I was met with a crossroad to pursue a marketing research job or to go after an opportunity at a department store as an assistant buyer. I'm not sure how I'd developed a proclivity to fashion though I think I can trace it back to watching a TV show called Fashion File as I was entering puberty in middle school, when a boob almost, kind of popped out of a blouse while a model was walking down the runway. I was thinking, YES! That combined with an interest in the 90s Grunge scene and the fashion that came with it were likely what spawned what's now become a career.  

While the subject matter of clothing, for me, was more interesting than finance or computer programming (the other hot thing at the time), I couldn't help but feel that there was more for me out there. I couldn't help but feel I was underutilized and the fact that all these products said "MADE IN CHINA" and because I spoke Chinese, made me feel like something was missing in the equation.  

I thought I needed to be more creative - I've got all these great ideas just waiting to come out!  So after a few years and promotions, to my HR manager's dismay, I quit and took a job in product development for Express, an American specialty retailer. Here, I thought, well now you're really in fashion, boy! I was being exposed to designers and the development process of the actual garments and it was pretty cool. Eventually, I found out that both my and my boss's roles at the company were largely superfluous as our department had only been started a few months before I joined the company.  Our job was to act as an intermediary between the design and merchant teams though they were already so capable of communicating that we weren't really needed.  

I found myself trying to kill time, filling my blog (http://vixstar.xanga.com/ - you have to go back into the archives to find anything interesting) with all the mischief my buddies and I got into the nights before only to look over at my boss's screen to see him shopping online. I felt that I was too young to be in a job like that so when I was presented with an offer for a planning position back with Lord and Taylor (expert number cruncher), I allowed greed to take the cockpit, even though I knew I most likely would hate it. A year later and only after waiting out a year to receive my retention bonus, I again found myself wanting something more interesting.

At this point, it was roughly 5 years since I graduated and I'd already had three different jobs, which isn't uncharacteristic of fashion, with each move bringing you a better salary and an expansion of your network. Though this time, I thought it needed to be something more dramatic. I began contemplating moving to Asia, which was quite popular for many ABCs at the time. I started interviewing and again was met with a crossroad: take a pay cut to work for the venerated Hong Kong based retailer, Lane Crawford to be their lead buyer for women's footwear, handbags, jewelry and accessories or pursue a planning director position at Saks which would've been a nice salary but also what I already hated increased, geometrically.  

It was at this time that I started talking to our mutual friend, Larry, whose dad Harry, I'd known was in the shoe business. It was always somewhat surprising to me as I knew he was very successful in his field but his overall Chinese style of business always seemed completely mismatched from the largely woman dominated industry we were in. Yet he had been the President of Steve Madden Mens so I figured it would be good to get some advice from him.

So we met, and I explained my situation, seeking his wisdom on which career path to take. After speaking for a bit, and a few carafes of sake later, he let me know that he was planning to bring his brand, Jump, to the US and asked if I would be interested in helping him launch this brand. Things got interesting at this point and while I'd always dreamed of being a brand builder, I was always on the other side as a buyer. After giving it a bit of thought I decided to take him up on the offer. I felt this would be the way to fully utilize all my innate talents and skills amassed from being in the fashion business all these years. This was it!!  

Not long after I joined the company however, I realized that I was only hired to entice my friend, Larry, to join the family business, which he did. Ha! I'd finally released myself from the shackles of the corporate world to fully allow my creative and strategic mind to blossom though no one was really interested in my blossom. Sad face. It was actually a rather frustrating time but a challenging one, which, interestingly, made it worthwhile for me. When trying to impress the boss didn't really work or matter, it became more about taking ownership of the business for my own edification.  

Although I didn't really have an equity stake in the company (some convoluted algorithm where once calculated, I really held less than 1%), I treated the business as my own and put in the effort and creativity as though it was such.  Eventually, Harry, the CEO, couldn't help but take notice of what had been something of an opposing school of thought to his and began to support it. He became a tremendous mentor to me and cooperatively we made some really interesting things happen for the brand.

On how to balance work and play

I remember very clearly the words of the American mythologist and writer, Joseph Campbell, who said, "Find your bliss."  It sounds so simple, doesn't it?  It's not hard to be good at playing, which I'd developed quite a knack for and you could, to some degree, find some bliss in so doing though it's not always the fulfilling sort of bliss nor does it provide long lasting happiness, but perhaps some good, fun memories.  

It was only when I looked at the business as my own that work became play to me. All the things I was good at, the analytical side of the business, negotiation, product development, networking (drinking), sales (partying with clients) became my work. I felt very alive and Jump very much became, in essence, my life. When I tore my ACL on a camping trip and was coming out of a morphine induced surgery, my girlfriend was utterly dismayed when the nurses told her, "yea he kept talking about something about Jump."

However, work and play can't be all there is to life, can it? It's quite easy to relegate life as such, however, especially when you've amalgamated your play into your work and your work has become your life. Well then what's left?  That's when I started looking at things from another perspective and this is very recent, nearly 5 years after I started working for Jump. With Jump, I always had sort of a "make it or break it" approach to the job and had everything going full throttle to achieve results. And actually, in all honesty, I have to attribute many of my successes to having had this approach to it. But of course, there are costs.

Obviously there's time, the most limited resource. There's health which of course, with all the traveling, wining and dining catches up to you. And perhaps, most importantly there's the relationship with your loved one, which is easy to neglect when you believe your end goal is to build for your future. I thought about all those Taiwanese guys living in China who never spent time with their families and devoted their lives to the job and I realized well, it's time to redefine your concept of "bliss". The temporal aspect of it all; the reconciling the future and the present and the sunk costs of the past to achieve a real balance in life, became the focus. So, here I am now, in the midst of doing just that.     

On rebranding Jump

Harry, CEO of Jump, had been tapped to establish the men's division of Steve Madden in the late 90s early 00s. That business instantly became a huge success, with turnover of $58 million in its second year. All the while, Harry felt like he was doing his own brand an injustice by not distributing it in the US. Finally, in 06, he decided he would leave Steve Madden and bring Jump to the States. In his mind, it should've been easy to basically sell the same product line under a different brand name through his existing distribution channels. It was an important lesson we'd learn of brand equity which was what was missing for Jump under this equation. We realized that the most fatted segment of the footwear business, the mid-tier of the market, had also the most barriers to entry.  

Harry's son and my best friend from college, Larry, and I then initiated what began as sort of a project. Rather than going the traditional route of trying to a hit a competitive price point by using cheaper materials and the like, we decided we would simply build the kind of shoes we'd like to wear using the finest materials we could source in China. At the time, the fashion sneaker trend was hot and all the high end designers were coming out with their renditions of the look. 

Our inaugural collection was almost all patent sneaker, which made quite a big statement and we felt the market react immediately. Tradeshows were exciting and soon celebrities began wearing our shoes which was also exciting. In so doing we established a new brand extension we called Jump Deluxe which has now become my focus as I expand the brand internationally. The lesson was that in order to "become a brand" in the market, it's not as simple as putting your product out there; a story needs to be crafted and told in order to make it compelling.

On collaborating with Taboo from Black Eye Peas

When we showed our first collection of Jump Deluxe in Vegas in 2008, a stylist came to our booth and inquired about our brand. She said she was the stylist for the Black Eyed Peas and that she thought they would love the shoes. You encounter all sorts of people at these shows and sometimes it's hard to tell who's legit and who's just looking for free schwag. So anyway, we sent some shoes over and didn't hear back from her at all.  

A year later, Jump Deluxe was starting to make some strides and we'd already begun selling to Bloomingdale's with our eyes set on Saks. The buyer from Saks was really iffy about the brand. One minute he was in it and ready to write an order and the next minute he got cold feet. Of course this was a bit discouraging. While this was happening, I finally received an email from the BEP stylist. She let me know that the Peas were coming out with a new album and asked if we'd be interested in styling them in Jump - so we agreed to it.  At the same time, New York Magazine wanted to feature one of our shoes which was a big deal for us. Unfortunately, that particular style wasn't carried at Bloomingdale's so I contacted their buyer to see how we could get that style in so we could tag the NYM feature shoe as available at Bloomingdale's. We considered shipping it out to their warehouse but then it wouldn't get to the store in time. Finally, we came up with the solution to just bring a size run over to the SoHo Bloomingdale's store which conveniently enough, was located down the street from our store.  

So I personally hand delivered eight pairs of shoes to the SoHo Bloomingdale's to facilitate this PR maneuver. After I had delivered the shoes, I thought I'd go take a look at the shoe floor and see how we were doing. There were a bunch of hipster-looking club-kid types checking out our display saying, "oh shit that's Jump."  I thought that was pretty cool but upon closer inspection, I realized one of them looked to be kind of familiar. That's when I realized the one guy was Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas. So I introduced myself to him and let him know that I work for Jump and had just spoken to their stylist the day before. He had thought I was just some fan at first but when he found out I worked for Jump, he flipped out and told me about how much he loved our shoes. I was brimming with excitement and didn't know how to really contain it, feeling like a big dork.

I invited him to stop by our store, gave him my number and he said he would meet me there after shopping. I went back to the store with a crazy story and sat there waiting, hoping he'd show up.  After about 30 painstaking minutes later, he and his whole entourage end up making it to the store. They were all super excited and I figured well, let's be a little generous and gifted them all with Jump shoes. Amidst all the excitement Taboo says to me, "Let's do a collabo, son."  Of course I agreed to it though I never really took it that seriously because everyone is always talking about collaborations and nothing ever happens. They all left super happy and I kept my eyes peeled to see if the shoes would turn up in magazines, paparazzi photos, etc.  

And then it happened. They released their first single, BOOM BOOM POW, and all of a sudden, the Black Eyed Peas whom had been on break for about 5 years came back to the music scene with such a vengeance.  And what I'd hoped for actually materialized and soon I was seeing our shoes in music videos and in the press and it was amazing. Admittedly all the excitement of this began to overcome me and I thought well why don't  we make some special one-offs for him and his bandmates. This way they'll be more compelled to wear them for all those special appearances.  So we came up with two special colors of our best seller at the time, the Zeto.  

It seemed to take weeks to get these done and finally they were ready and in my hands in NY. The Peas happened to be in town for Good Morning America, and I had arranged to meet Taboo at our SoHo store to present him with the one-offs. That evening we were driving down 5th Ave to get back to the store when I noticed the previously mentioned Saks buyer with his team trying to hail a cab during rush hour, which I knew was impossible. We pulled over and I asked him if he needed a ride, and they were happy to oblige. I asked where they needed to go and they said some restaurant downtown to have dinner with Cole Haan. He asked me where I was going and I told him we were going to the store to meet Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas to show them these one-off shoes. Everyone from the Saks team's eyes lit up and they were now considering ditching Cole Haan!  Haha.  

He asked to see the shoes and immediately asked for the wholesale price. He then went on to say, "OK I want these exclusive to Saks and we gotta do some kind of event with the Black Eyed Peas."  It was a bit much to take in all at once as we'd tried for months to break this account and in a random car ride, it was all going down. I basically just agreed to everything and dropped them off. When I got down to the SoHo store, I had one hell of a story to tell Taboo. I let him know that while originally I was only planning on giving him the shoes as gifts, in the car ride from Midtown to SoHo, they'd already gotten a distribution deal at Saks. Taboo was floored as well and that's basically how the collaboration between Taboo and Jump happened.  

The Jump team and Black Eye Peas

On meeting and networking with people

In business, I've learned from my mentor, Harry, to always be preemptive in keeping an open mind to other people, even those whom you might consider to be unworthy of your attention. You never know how someone can be helpful to you, and when you begin to observe people based upon potential as opposed to presupposed judgement, your whole world begins to shift as your world is ultimately comprised of people. Much of it also goes back to the very tradition of the Chinese term, "好客", which means being hospitable and courteous.

On his typical workday

About 3 years ago, I realized that because so much of my business had become international, going to an office seemed unnecessary as almost everything I needed to happen at the office could be handled through emails. 

That's when I began working from home which gave me something of an aberrant schedule. My typical work day starts around 7am on the toilet. As I'm almost perpetually jet lagged, most days I can't sleep past 7am and usually the first thing on my mind are emails from Asia, updates and responses, etc. That and of course my body's biological needs. I can generally get through about 15 emails during this time and consider this to be the most lucid time in my whole day. By around 10am, I've pretty much answered all the emails from Asia so I take this time to go to the gym and get some exercise in which usually goes for about an hour. After that I make a lunch, which these days is always almost a salad.

Generally, I'm busy until around 5-6pm. Then I have a lull where I have a drink, eat dinner and by 8pm, the emails start coming in again and I spend this time to respond or to Skype as necessary until around 11pm.

On writing

I gotta tell you, your questions have rekindled my inner writer! You know when I started doing Jump it just took control of my life and I realized at a certain point all the blog posts were related to it and I started to get bored of it - even embarrassed that I'd become so one-faceted. I have tried to write since but it's been hackneyed and contrived. Only when I wrote the answer to your questions did things start flowing more naturally.  

Also oddly, having a girlfriend seemed to hinder my ability to be candid on my blog. Not that she's in any way a hindrance to me intellectually but I just felt like I couldn't be as open as I used to be, which was ultimately what was most liberating and therapeutic about writing for me. Back in the days, I'd write shit and reread and think damn am I really going to say this?  Then I'd think f#$k it, click. Haha. I hope I can find someway to get there again.  

You can also follow my running adventures on https://www.facebook.com/pages/3-dudes-on-ultra-mission/271137916280936 or https://twitter.com/williewenli