Woman Built A Business Worth Millions But Didn’t Tell Her Parents She Was Working On It, Fearing Their Reaction To Her Quitting Her Office Job
What are people willing to do to make their dreams come true? Someone leaves a prestigious business school for a career in movies or sports, someone, on the contrary, sacrifices a career for the sake of love, and someone leaves a big corporate job, setting off on a “free float” on the stormy waves of own business…
In fact, there are a lot of stories about how a person left a large corporation to start their own business. Suffice it to recall, for example, Larry Ellison, who worked long and successfully at Ampex before founding Oracle. But the story we are about to tell you is incredibly special.
Twenty-eight years ago, as a little girl, Jane Lu and her parents left China and moved to Australia to start a new life. Now running a successful fashion sales business, Jane shared her success story on her TikTok blog, going viral with over 2.8M views.
More info: TikTok
The author of the video runs her successful business in fashion sales
Image credits: thelazyceo
Jane says that when she was growing up, her parents told her that she should definitely become a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant. A fairly typical story for a family of immigrants who do their best for children children to get a prestigious and highly paid profession. However, in the case of Jane, things turned out quite differently.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Jane’s parents wanted her to become a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant so she started working at a big company
Yes, the girl successfully graduated from college and went to work as an analyst at Ernst & Young. However, as she herself recalls, working in a large corporation did not make her happy at all, and every day she dreamed of her own business in the field of fashion sales. At her 24, Jane made up her mind – she finally quit her job and opened two pop-up stores.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
If you were expecting something along the lines of “things went up and Jane got rich,” then you’re wrong. No, this business went bankrupt, and the woman literally felt as if she had hit rock bottom. The most annoying thing was that she continued to live with her parents and did not want to disappoint them by leaving her corporate job and the failure of her own business.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Jane’s first business failed but she started her second one, pretending that she still works at her corporate job
But Jane Lu did not lose heart – she opened a new business, as well in the field of fashion sales, and so that her parents would not suspect anything, the woman put on a business suit every morning, told them that she was going to Ernst & Young, and went about her business. Finally, the second company took off – and Jane realized what she was doing in sales more money per day than her old yearly salary.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
When the daughter told the truth to her parents they were shocked but then turned happy and proud for her
Now the most difficult thing remained – to tell her parents about her success and, of course, about the long hoax. Jane recalls that they were literally shocked – but then the daughter bought them their first new car, paid off their mortgage, and the parents, after decades of hard work, were able to retire early.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Now Jane’s business is booming, her company works with millions of customers around the world and is now one of the largest online fashion retailers globally. “Twenty-eight years ago, we immigrated from China to Australia. I had never expected that we would actually live the immigrant dream,” summarizes Jane Lu.
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
Image credits: thelazyceo
@thelazyceo I went behind my parents’ back and quit my corporate job, and well, the rest is history 🫶 #startup #businessjourney #immigrantparents #girlboss #showpo #entrepreneur ♬ original sound – Jane Lu
People in the comments were also happy and proud for Jane as she succeeded in her business
The vast majority of commenters were extremely happy for Jane. According to them, she did the right thing, hiding from parents the risk she’d taking and sharing the good news when she produced good results. People in the comments are glad that the author of the post succeeded.
It also turned out that many of the commenters also wear clothes from the company founded by Jane, so they were incredibly happy that their favorite brand had such a fascinating story. “Happy for you! Hope my day will come too”, one of the people in the comments wrote.
In fact, many successful businesses have similar tales behind them. It is important to just be persistent, think outside the box and be confident – and success will definitely come. So what are you willing to do to make your dreams come true?
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Just googled and apparently they are linked to the Hunger Project. This lady rocks
I'm stunned - how much money did she have to not only open up stores in general but two, have them fail, and then *try again*? Good for her, honestly she sounds awesome (charity supporting and all), but it seems like that job she hated was necessary for that funding. It's super lucky!
Great story, but I love that Grandma had sneakers with her beautiful dress! Go for comfort, madam. I wore ivory sneakers with my wedding dress!
Just googled and apparently they are linked to the Hunger Project. This lady rocks
I'm stunned - how much money did she have to not only open up stores in general but two, have them fail, and then *try again*? Good for her, honestly she sounds awesome (charity supporting and all), but it seems like that job she hated was necessary for that funding. It's super lucky!
Great story, but I love that Grandma had sneakers with her beautiful dress! Go for comfort, madam. I wore ivory sneakers with my wedding dress!
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