We were lucky to catch up with Tanya Zhang recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tanya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My co-founder, Wesley Kang, is Taiwanese-American. At the time of our venture’s inception, he was immersed in the finance sector, requiring him to wear a dress shirt daily for work. However, being of a slimmer build, standing at 5’5” and weighing 140 lbs, he struggled to find a well-fitting off-the-rack dress shirt.

Similarly, my father, an immigrant from China, and other slim friends encountered the same struggle with US sizing. While there are many options for petite women like myself, men’s sizing fell short. This shared experience fueled our mission as Asian American founders to bridge the gap in menswear, leveraging our unique narrative to create a truly inclusive slim-fit solution that resonates with underserved markets. We created Nimble Made in 2018 in New York City to cater to an underserved market by creating our one-of-a-kind Actually Slim Fit for a better slim fit off-the-rack.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m originally from Los Angeles, born and raised. My educational background is rooted in STEM, with a focus on Interdisciplinary Computing & the Arts from UC San Diego, alongside a Minor in Writing. My professional journey began as an art director, where I honed my skills in crafting integrated creative ad campaigns at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY NY. Transitioning from there, I ventured into the startup world as the first brand hire at Better.com, a fintech company. Before founding Nimble Made, I was working in the realm of user experience and design, serving as a Senior UX/UI consultant at Ernst & Young LLP.

In late 2018, we launched Nimble Made in NYC, taking just six months from concept to market. With only $5,000 and a lot of sweat equity, we navigated the initial stages, including ideation, product development, testing, website creation, branding, and inventory procurement. By late October 2018, we debuted with a live website and a small inventory batch, celebrating with a launch party in NYC before bidding farewell to our corporate jobs by year-end.

The first year was the hardest. We both lacked a marketing background that would’ve helped us understand how to find and talk to our customers. We spent a lot of time and money testing marketing channels and different strategies and worked with many contractors and agencies to find our path to success. There are always new challenges at every stage of a business, so being able to stay resilient and never give up is the most important characteristic to have.

Today, Nimble Made remains entirely self-funded and bootstrapped. We have thousands of orders and customers and have expanded to over 35 different shirt styles in our 6 unique Actually Slim sizes. We’re a multiple six-figure business and hope to continue to grow and take our business to the next level.

I’m proud of how far we’ve come, as a business that’s bootstrapped since day 1 that now nets six-figure yearly revenues and continues to grow. As Asian-American founders, we believe in bringing representation to our community and beyond. We strive to create more dialogue by redefining sizing standards in the clothing industry and use Nimble Made to spread more awareness of our culture.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I wish I had more hands-on experience with crafting garments and the clothing industry when I first got started. Finding a manufacturer was a lengthy process that took a lot of trial and error. Starting with Google searches, I reached out to vendors and suppliers to request samples, which I tested on friends and family to get feedback. Eventually, we were able to find a vendor that matched our needs, in terms of both quality and fit.

Throughout this process, my partner and I learned important lessons about ourselves and each other. It’s vital to have a partner you can build trust, set goals, and communicate. The challenges that we faced have shaped us to be resilient and data-driven, while also being very empathic business owners for our customers. Getting to know myself has been the most helpful part of growing Nimble Made, because I’ve come to learn what risks I’m willing to take, what motivates me, and how to continuously push myself out of my comfort zone.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We sell directly to consumers on our website, which is powered by Shopify. One of the biggest benefits of hosting our site is that we have total control over our products and marketing. Our website also hosts an extensive library of SEO-optimized blog posts which help direct consumers to our products.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nimble-made.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nimblemade
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nimblemade/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nimble-made/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nimblemade
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nimblemade

Image Credits
Image credits to Nimble Made