Jennifer Chong ’10, Co-founder of Linjer, talks starting a business and creating your own adventures
Where did you grow up? What led you to Dartmouth?
I grew up in Hong Kong and Toronto. I first heard about Dartmouth through a friend whose aunt had gone to Dartmouth and loved it. When my friend heard that I was thinking about applying to universities in the US, she told me I had to look at Dartmouth! I was very fortunate to be able to attend Dimensions weekend. I love the outdoors and I loved how down-to-earth the students were – I was instantly sold.
What did you do during your time at Dartmouth?
I majored in economics, and eventually did an honours thesis related to child labour. I taught drill in Spanish and Italian and chaired Dartmouth Ends Hunger (not sure if that still exists :P). I also played ultimate frisbee until I tore my ACL. My favourite course was Design Thinking (ENGS 12). It was in that course that I developed a strong interest in design and entrepreneurship.
How did your experiences here help to shape your career path?
I think all of my experiences in college have shaped who I am today – particularly when it comes to feeling empowered to try something new on my own. I was always so impressed by how resourceful my peers were and I loved that at Dartmouth you could find ways to get support for things you wanted to do.
How did you decide to work at Oliver Wyman after college?
I’d always had an interest in business, and management consulting was a great way to see many businesses up close in a short period of time and learn from smart people. I probably knew deep down that I would start my own business one day, but I wanted to get some real world experience working for others – and pay off my loans – before taking that kind of risk.
Can you talk more about your experience at Oliver Wyman? Was your job what you had expected it to be? Did you focus on a particular industry?
I enjoyed working at Oliver Wyman. I loved the analytical work, I made lifelong friends and learned a lot. I couldn’t have asked for a better business education. I worked in a variety of industries; my clients included a large supermarket chain, an airline, a telco and a trade association.
I noticed that you worked in both San Francisco and Dubai—what made you decide to transfer?
I transferred to the Dubai office after a year in San Francisco because I wanted more international exposure and because I wouldn’t have to pay taxes there! I was really eager to pay off my loans quickly and start saving.
I eventually left Oliver Wyman because I didn’t like the culture in the Dubai office. It was difficult working there as a woman because there were no women in senior positions in that office at the time. I knew about this challenge before my transfer, but I naively underestimated just how much it would affect my career opportunities. I enjoyed the actual work, but knew that if I wanted to climb the ladder I would need to move back to the US, and it didn’t feel like the right move for me at the time. At the same time, I got an entrepreneurial itch, so I decided to leave altogether.
Was there a particular path that you thought you wanted to follow after working at Oliver Wyman?
Not particularly. I actually imagined that I would stay at Oliver Wyman for many years. I might have, had I not had such a bad experience in the Dubai office. But who knows what would have happened if I had stayed in the US. It’s hard to plan life.
How did you decide to found Linjer? Have you always been interested in accessories?
I am actually not into fashion at all, and neither is my cofounder. We dread shopping and we are skeptical of consumerism. That I started Linjer came as a surprise to many of my close friends. (But we consider ourselves more a design studio than a fashion company)
We started Linjer out of a personal need – my boyfriend had a corporate job and he was looking for a bag for work. He wanted to look professional and put together, and he is quite picky about things that he buys and wears. He wanted something well made, that didn’t have a huge garish logo on it, and that didn’t cost thousands of dollars. It seemed the choices were between fast fashion (which is not sustainable) and luxury brands (whose products are overpriced and often somewhat obnoxious). I had had the same problem when I worked in management consulting, so I knew where he was coming from.
After months, he couldn’t find a briefcase he liked. In the meantime, we learned about how luxury brands inflate their prices like crazy. We wanted the same quality without any of the fluff. Why was it so hard to find?
Our idea was to replicate the supply chain of luxury brands and sell our products directly to our customers. In this way, we could design quality products – to our taste – and sell them for a third or a quarter of the price of traditional luxury brands.
Did you have reservations about starting your own business? If so, how did you overcome them?
I didn’t have any reservations about starting the business. I had saved up money so had some runway and I was lucky to have my partner as a cofounder. We were both really energized about the problem we were solving. My partner is a fearless entrepreneur and extremely capable; throughout the years we’ve supported each other a lot.
If starting a business had been something you envisioned yourself doing, was the reality different than you had anticipated?
I hadn’t envisioned starting a business. But I will say that the reality of running a business is that you will probably be stressed for a long period of time. And it’s not the kind of stress that you can turn off on Friday evening and turn on again on Monday morning. So be ready for that, and make sure you’re passionate enough about what you’re doing to put up with that!
Can you talk a bit about Linjer’s products and its business model?
We design leather bags and watches and sell them on our website (www.linjer.co). We want to make it easier for people to own well made things that last. That comes from 1) using top quality materials in our products and 2) selling our products at much more accessible price points versus traditional luxury brands. For instance, our flagship Soft Briefcase sells for $489; a luxury brand selling a comparable product would sell the same thing for $1,400-$3,000. We can do this by selling directly to our customers through our website (saving the costs of middlemen and real estate) and also by just choosing not to mark up our products like crazy.
What is a typical day like for you at Linjer?
My partner and I did not raise any outside funding from angel investors or VCs. We started the company with $20,000 and were able to start production with the help of a crowdfunding project, where we essentially pre-sold ~$150,000 of product in 40 days. Over the years we have crowdfunded more than $3 million for our new collections and we’ve sold more on our webshop.
It was just the two of us for a few years – and in the beginning we took turns working full time jobs so that somebody was reliably paying the bills and feeding us. It was stressful keeping up with the growth and we didn’t take a full weekend for many years. We finally hired our first in-office employee in Hong Kong in January this year and our team still remains small. We are trying to hire more people but it’s been slow going.
Together, my partner and I take care of all of the functions of the company. While he is focused on marketing and high-level growth, I take care of everything else. I manage our suppliers, our fulfillment operations, our customer care team, product design and development (which is only about 2% of my time; something that surprises a lot of people), website, email marketing, etc.
On a given day I could be forecasting our sales for the next year to prepare a purchase order, creating the instruction manual for a new watch model, talking to our developer about a change to our website, working with our product photographer to colour correct an image, implementing a new returns process with our warehouse, creating an email campaign…the work is really diverse, although I wish it were not so fragmented. I wish I had more employees to help take some of these things off my hands so I can focus on bigger things.
What are your goals for the future?
Linjer is still young as a company. We launched four years ago. There’s a lot we need to do to reach the next level of maturity and that’s what we’re focused on. Hiring is a key priority and we are working on new marketing channels and new products.
What is the best advice you have ever been given?
When you start working with a new manager, very early on, ask her/him, “What can I do in this role to be successful?” In one go, you communicate that you care about doing a good job and you find out exactly what the criteria are from the very person who will be evaluating you.
What is your number one bucket list item for Dartmouth seniors?
Rent a canoe from Ledyard and camp out at Gilman Island!
