Right About Now with Ryan Alford - The Future of Fashion Technology: AI, Branding & Live Shopping Trends | Anya Cheng

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan Alford Join media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.     Resources: Right About Now Newsletter | Free Podcast Monetization Course | Join The Network |Follow Us On Instagram | Subscribe To Our Youtube Channel | Vibe Science Media SUMMARY In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford interviews Anya Cheng, founder and CEO of Taelor.style. Anya shares how her company uses AI and human stylists to offer personalized, subscription-based wardrobe rentals, making fashion convenient and sustainable for busy professionals. They discuss the shift toward casual, flexible clothing, Taelor.style’s partnerships with global brands, and the environmental benefits of reducing fashion waste. Anya also explores the future of live shopping and invites listeners to try Taelor.style with special promo codes, highlighting the blend of technology and service that sets her company apart. TAKEAWAYS Use of AI in personalized wardrobe styling and clothing rental services. The concept of a subscription model for clothing, likened to "Netflix of wardrobes." Target audience focus on busy professionals who need convenient fashion solutions. Importance of identifying the right problems in business before implementing solutions. The balance between performance marketing and branding in modern business strategies. The role of proprietary data in enhancing AI-driven recommendations. Customer experience and the process of selecting and renting clothing. Environmental impact of the fashion industry and sustainable practices in clothing rental. Trends in live shopping and its slower adoption in the U.S. compared to other markets. Future of social commerce and integration of shopping with social media platforms.

Today's episode was a fun one. Talk to Anya Chang. She is the founder of Taylor. Dot Style. Talking about how they're using AI to help you style your wardrobe. And again, hey, this is the Netflix of wardrobe wearing online. What does that mean? It means ultimately you rent before you own. You don't even have to buy it. You don't have to do laundry. Are you kidding me? No laundry? Stylish clothes? Saving time? Check, check, check. All that and more. All right about now. Look, we get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything. these days without hearing about AI this or AI that. And you're like most people, when it comes to AI, you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people better? AI from SurveyMonkey is designed to do just that from crafting the perfect survey. It's harder than you might think to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns, and

surfaces trends quickly. SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities make it throw. faster and easier than ever before to get insights from real people, helping you make confident decisions for your business. Try it today at surveymonkey.com slash Ryan. We have those unique data. We put it together and we buy two companies their styling information from their 10 years' operations. Then we layer on top of larger language model. As they grow, we also grow, but we always one step ahead. If you are small business, we're starting the company, now is your time because building AI is easy. All you need is unique defensive data.

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Write About Now. We're here to help you get right now. Hey, we can talk about what you should have done.

We can talk about what you should do. We need to talk about right now. You know what's right now? It's AI. It's lots of it. It's every day. It's in front of us. But ultimately, hey, I like to look good.

It's hey, my style, my image. That's why I go straight to the source. It is Anya Chang. She is the founder and CEO of Taylor. She's making everybody look good. What's up, Banya? Hello, this is Anya from Taylor AI. We use AI to pick clothes for you.

In the past, only celebrity has human stylist. Nowadays, who is AI, everybody, has your personal stylist in your fingertips. But in addition, we send people real clothes for you to wear for a couple days, couple weeks. No more shopping, no more laundry. After starting a company, I help you Facebook, Instagram shopping for META, head a product for eBay, also senior director at McDonald's, run their full delivery business. When you are ordering McDonald's from your phone, there was my product,

and help target to build their tech office here in Silicon Valley. Excited to be here today. You really are 40 under 40. I'll tell you what, girls in tech, 40 under 40. She's got it going on. You've been around the blog. That's right. That's right.

Yeah, and I'm also teaching at Northwestern University. I teach marketing and product management there. So excited to share some example in case studies. Anyo, I want to talk mainly in our short time together about what you're doing with Taylor, how you've grown that business, the future of all AI is related to your business. But let's at least because you do have an impressive background. You've worked Facebook. You just named the who's who, some tech.

brands and otherwise. What's the one thing that our audience could know about you and what you learned working at some of those giants? And maybe one of the biggest takeaways that then led you to your own path. I think the one thing is the reason that I started a company was that when I was working for big tech companies before. I was a female leader for a big tech company. I came from data scientists and marketing background. But I did do let large technology teams. So I always feel a little bit impassive syndrome. Am I ready for the day? I'm sure many people like me who have a dream feel that sometimes. I start feeling like maybe at least I need to look great. Dressed up, looks presentable. When I'm freaking out, nobody will find out. I started using some

subscription boxes like stitchfix and some other subscription boxes out there, but you all have to buy. They do style you, but once they send you the box, within a few days, you have to decide if you're going to buy. It's almost like Netflix show versus buying a DVD of Home Alone. If you're watching a Netflix show, you don't have to decide, right? You watch for three minutes. You don't like it, move on, who cares? It's subscription, tons of options out there, versus buying a DVD you have to really short. And I didn't like the pressure of a commitment. When I started renting clothes, a company like newly, 500 million revenue in just five years, backed by Urban Outfeiter, rent the wrong way on more, lots of women's rental company. All of them require me to pick.

Hundreds of thousands of garments, pick, pick, pick, spend two hours. And it was a hard moment for me that I realized I do not like browsing and shopping. And I don't know fashion. I don't have strong fashion sense. I don't know what to pick. And most of fashion companies seem to have the design for people who are into fashion. Not for people like me. Just want to get ready for the day and be successful. And that's what Taylor was for. But for your questions on, what did I learn from big tech company that end up by here? I think one thing that I learned really important in big tech company is always focus on

finding the right problem versus only focus on figuring out the solution. Because when you are fixing a wrong problem, no matter how great your solution is, it's going to be wrong. For example, when a target, they thought of the one problem, which is mom, when they go to the store, sometimes they forget one thing. Yes. How about we build something called shopping lists? You list the shopping list, you go to the store, the app become an in-store GPS.

Turn right, turn left, never forget one thing from the store. The launcher features spent six months, lots of money, geo-fencing all of the products in the locations in different stores. Eventually, nobody use it. Why? Moms, they are going to the store to get lost. They like to wander around the store. And they have been in store for 10 years.

They said they get away from their noisy kids. They want to be lost in the store so they can buy something and spend tights their meantime. Solving the right problem is extremely important. And that's why we found that these busy men who are not into fashion, but single guy, salespeople, recruited faster, professor, really don't care about fashion, but need to look good. And we are solving the problem to help them to be more successful.

Smart. Got to solve the right problem that starts there. Anya, before I turn a little bit more to Taylor and some of the specific, you got things you guys do with AI. One question for someone is astute is yourself on the marketing side. We're in this world now, and obviously sales is everything for a company. Where do you fall on the performance marketing versus branding? Do people care about brands anymore? Is it just about, hey, you solve my problem?

a product, boom, don't really care about the brand. For someone like yourself that's in tech, I can easily see you falling into solution sale. Does brand still have a place? Yeah, I truly believe so. Example was my old company, Sears. Sears, when we were at Sears, Kmart, our website actually faster than Amazon.

The feature, the performers, every single website content 10 years ago is actually personalized. Not everybody see the same website, Not everybody see the same email. Not everybody see the same ad, 15, 10 years ago. Sears was more cutting age than eBay. Most people don't believe so, but Chen Hai, when I joined eBay, I realized so it's so true. However, people don't like the brand.

They never really attached to it somehow. It's a great, amazing website with some product. But then when you don't have a brand, people don't have relevancy to you. So, for example, what we found that in our model, people are not really just buying clothes. They are buying the chance to succeed. But we say, Man, where a rental subscription, nobody care. But when I say, hey, I can help you to dress up for your day night,

which you don't have to worry about your day and night, just focus on a conversation. People buy the service, people use your service. And I can tell you at META, at one point, they actually do blind testing. They sell the glasses. And at one point, they just put down the hydroglars, they put like oculus versus other brands on,

apples and some others. We see people actually choose different. I do think that both are equally important. We know the marketing funnel. You don't have a consideration, there's no performance marketing needed. However, it's also if you only have branding, but you don't have performers marketing, you can never convert those awareness in consideration. We recently won the American Marketing Association Award of Excellence in Marketing

by doing very well on CHETGTPT. Nowadays, people say Performance Marketing, more and more get into like CHETGPT SEO versus Google SEO, because more people are asking questions there. How we do it is that we use human and machines in the loop and exercise. We start with identify the user journey, why people search for something, even on CHAPT. Identify the question people will ask. We have human to write down the overall outline.

We use AI to generate content. From there, human stylists, revising the content with their point of view. And then when we send the customer's outfit with a styling node, the customer provides feedback, put you feedback into the nodes. the notes with the content and then those content generating too automatically to the website which would get more traffic coming in from chaty PDN as regular as CEO and it become an automatic fly

well so that we won the award we got 10,000 impression for free from there but I truly still believe brand is important so does the performance marketing woman after my own heart talking about the purchase funnel here I love to talk about purchase funnel you got awareness consideration intent And then you got to make a purchase. Yo, man, heart beating. I'm the marketer at Hard On. I will say, it's really smart what you're doing because people are moving from SEO.

Hey, all about all this list. No, just give me the answer. It's about answers. It's about solving the problem. It does lead to a fascinating discussion is when there's only one answer, what happens to SEO. We'll let someone else smarter than me. I solve that one.

Anya, you just talked to a little bit of how you're using AI. It's been at the core of the business. I take it since day one from what I heard and what you described. What's been the biggest learning lesson being on this cutting edge of AI? Era of AI is very different from the era of algorithm. If you look at last generation, Google is a black box of algorithm. What's rent high is important. But nowadays, unless you are Elon Musk, Mark Zucker, otherwise, most of you are going to use Open AI,

the CzechPT's parent companies where Elon Musk's AI's or Google's AI, etc. So nobody is going to build your own algorithm. Means what? It means data is way more valuable nowadays. Building AI is easy. It's like building websites. 20 years ago, you need a whole bunch of engineers. Nowadays, you need $10 on Shopify.

You're done. Nowadays, the key things is you have your unique data. So you can bring your data later on top of whatever large language model, the Elon Musk's same Marxic review. At Taylor, we know customers' true preference. Why? If you go to a store, Macy's Nordstrom or Amazon, You buy your spy, don't buy something, largely because of price.

Your decision is polluted by the price. But when you watch your Netflix show, the show is not on discount. You watch which show is you truly like it. The same thing for our membership model, we pay people $100 per month. Whatever the clothes they pick along with our AI, our AI actually pick for them, but when they work together on doing, deciding that is what they truly like. We also get feedback every hour of week because the customer wanting to make sure

next month is better. Versing in the past, we're not working for Target with eBay. People never give feedback on this is one star and they're so pissed off about that. Right? And we also know future. AI don't know the future. AI know the past. But we are working with 300 fashion

brand. They are designing something for the future. Next year's trend. This year, the most popular color is mocha. Like not brown. Moka. The mocha color. What's the next year's color? They are designing that. They are deciding that. And we also have human styleless. They have know-how. Why you don't just search? Why you

fight celebrities still use human stylists? Because they are still better. We have those unique data. We put it together and we buy two companies their styling information from their 10 years operations. Then we layer on top of larger language model. Because they grow, we also grow, but we always one step ahead. If you are small business, we're starting a company, now is your time because building AI is easy. All you need is unique defensive data. For example, my friend is a doctor. He's a dentist. All he does is you just have one practice for 15 years. But he has those images for 15 years with different teeth issues. So now he's building his AI to detect T's issue because he has those images. Those unique data, they know what else has. Think about

that. And then for your previous questions on the SEO for CHAPT, one thing you should know is that in the past for Google, they only consider structured data. means copies. Remember a image, like Google doesn't read Ryan's image, but we have to write Ryan, write about now, show behind the image so then Google can read. However, nowadays AI, they read both. They read image, they read videos, they revotes.

Multimedia become a lot more important. User-generated content become a lot more important. And that's a difference doing SEO nowadays on CHGP versus before. That's good. Hey, that means I'm out there, man. I got thousands of episodes and highlight clips and smart people like Anya coming on the show telling us all the good stuff. Hey, we're covered on you. We're good.

Exactly. Walk me through. I'm a busy executive. My wardrobe sucks. Not mine. I'm stylish because I got things like Taylor and other things that I use. But talk to me what that process looks like. Yeah.

Our customers, they signed up just like Netflix show. They signed up for a membership, $79 or $98, however program they pick. So then they can't get to wear like 10 clothes per month, for example. So they start with a simple style quiz. How are our AI know about you? We ask you some questions. We do ask you your high and weight, which we don't always use because a lot of customers, they think they are taller and thinner.

They will put, I am definitely size median. No, no, no. Go to your closet. Pick your favorite outfit. Oh, my God. When did I become a size lecture large? Yes, you are. I'm 6.5-265. So believe me, I know. It's not, no mediums in the closet for me.

That's right. So we do also ask them to go to their closet and look at their favorite outfit, what size is. And then most important question we ask is your purpose. Because our customers, they don't care about looking good. They care about looking good so that they get a job, get a day, a close the deal, order your show. number one, every single day. They want to get 5 million followers, like following and traffic every single episode. That's what they care. They care about success. No matter what's their definition of success. Some people's success means more time with their kids so then they don't need to worry about

their farmer's outfit, a farm market outfit. Some people's success means they close a deal, won a $10 million deal with this new client. Our job is to make sure we dressed up to success to project the best image that you want. And then from there, we ask you to upload a few pictures. You like this, like certain items. And if you like, we get a 15-minute consultation call with human stylists. Our human style is a good on Zoom call, and then we'll talk with you. You can show the closet on your body or whatever you want to show.

From there, we sent you the first shipment, seven items, for example. You already miss and match to multiple outfits that fit with your upcoming schedule. And then from there, if you wear after you wear for whole weeks, if you're traveling, give it back to the hotel lobby with the return envelope that's prepaid. You go home without doing any laundry when you get home. The next day, the new coast has arrived. So no more shopping, no more laundry like your Netflix show. Subscribe.

You can watch a lot of things. So you get to try it. You don't have to buy it. And you get to trade in and out the clothes that you want. And do you get the option to keep it or is it just renting no matter what? You get an option to keep it. And the good thing is that for most of a busy man, never go to a trade store. So we all know sustainability, buying second hands grays and

extra, but nobody have those times. So in this model, after you wear for a few weeks, usually it's quite on discounts, 10, 20, 50, 70% off. So then most people just buy it. They looks like still very new, just like your airport rental car. They tend to be very, very new. Average renting three times is already so. And we pounded with over 100 brands, Marine Layer, Johnson and Murphy, Bonobos, all kind of brand, you name it, for both the most famous American brand, but also we source globally, best brand in Italy, best brand in Netherlands, in UKs, in Japan, so you get those amazing brands come here and then you can try.

I can tell you most of our customer thinks, I would never wear pink, and I'll tell us, how about this, I give you a bonus item for free, try this one. And they were like, okay, this is great, can I buy two of that? So many of us never know our true style because we have been wearing the same thing again and again in the last 10 years. Hey, real men wear pink. I like it. I love this because you get to try stuff, you just hit the nail in the head. You try stuff that maybe you wouldn't feel comfortable buying. And you know you're not stuck if you don't like it. But a lot of times it forces you into trying something a little different and you can sample it. And then you get to at least expand your horizons of what you might wear.

a black t-shirt guy. I come back to the black v-neck a lot, but I've had to expand the palette. My wife's like, all right, black v-necks, it's time to take a little break. And you've got to have a little splash of color. That's right. That's right. Most of the things that they don't, we ask like, what color you usually wear? Blue. Everybody's blue, right? But this year, the famous color is mocha. And last year, famous color was a red wine. Do you have those color? If not, check it out, these are still very, very trendy. And the good thing we don't have to No, our human style is without AI will pair for you. We even tell you, okay, what shoes, you should pair with, what belts, you should pair with,

and that's where we are expanding into as well. Our customer uses more like executive assistant, concierge service, or more like the gadget guy behind superhero in those movies. So you ask a question about branding and what we are really selling. I think we are not really just selling clothes. We are selling the peace of mind, the convenience, the chance to succeed. and that's what our customers are really buying for. That makes a lot of sense.

What about like, okay, tuxedos or, because I think sometimes you think of rentals and you think of suits or something. Is this a service to use for those types of single one-off events? No, not at all. Our customers, we don't have suits. We don't have tascitos because most people don't wear it nowadays. We have blazers, sport coats.

We have t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters, and all kinds of things for everyday wear. Our mission is how people get ready for the adults. days. So our customer user is more like your Netflix show. In the old time, you buy the DVD once a year like, okay, holiday, we will do this. But nowadays, you open your Netflix show, you become every day. In the old time, you only rent the car once a year when you go on a road trip, it's your family. Nowadays, you open Uber's and live. You're renting car every single day. So the sheer economy is getting a lot more getting into everyday life. And also,

we partner with fashion brands and from all the world. So instead of burning the inventory, today 30% of clothes go directly from factory to landfill, generating 10% of carbon emissions, 20% of polluting water. Fashion is the most polluted industry in the world. Instead of burning those inventory, we also help them to find a new outlet and also a lot of brands send us the latest collections. Over 100 brands we partner with a lot of them, they will be sending testing their latest collections through the platform. Then they get feedback right away. they can design how to produce next year. Our customer, on the one hand, helping to solve the environmental issue.

On the other hand, become the guinea pig to try the latest collections. It's not even out there. Maybe you are wearing the most trendy shirt for next year. Hey, win, win. Well, to wrap up here, Anya, I got a question for you about a trend that's been taken off, especially in the, it's a little late in the States, been overseas a lot more. Just want your perspective. Live shopping.

Where does Anya fall on this? Are you a proponent? Do you think this is a trend that's going to expand? I personally do, but I'd love to know someone like yourself what you think about what's happening in the live shopping space. You're asking a right person because I view live shopping for META. So I built live shopping, Instagram, Facebook shopping. I help to build the team. I actually build a live shopping feature for META. I think for sure it's going to expand.

Most of people ask me the question differently, though. They say, I ask me why is so slow in the U.S. As you know, it's been super popular in China, Southeast Asia, most of the countries there, like shopping is their everyday life. And every year, I heard VC investors come to me and say, Anya, can you do diligent this company? We really think that it's going to blow up next year. But then after a few years, still not yet. Like, not everywhere yet.

I still truly believe it will be very, very popular. But the reason why it haven't been, I think it's many reasons. Number one, I think in the U.S., we tend to be. be a little bit more fragmented in terms of platform, like commerce platform or payment platform. Most of people don't feel comfortable giving Facebook your credit card. In China, Southeast Asia, many of those companies, their platform for payments is exactly the same platform for their e-commerce. That's where they shop, where they do the payment, where they book appointment for doctor appointments.

They're a super app. There's all of those things. While here, we feel like Amazon is Amazon, eBay is eBay. Instagram and Google Map, they are all separate functions. Customer behavior takes a while on being emerged. The other thing I think is also because of talents. If you look at those countries that have very strong live shopping, their engineers, the same thing, they are engineers who build payments and shopping.

I are the same people who build chat conversations. While in the U.S., I can tell you a lot of Google engineers or Facebook engineer in their entire life, They never built anything that was a physical product. Live chatings or other stuff, whatever, Google Map, there's no physical product. So it's very different from the engineer who work in Amazon. They need to consider the warehouse, the shipping time, the physical product, which is a very, very different user experience technology, collecting taxes, collecting returns, make sure you arrive on time, in lifetime in the offline environment. So also talents are very, very different. However, despite those things, I still super believe that either commerce company,

like Amazon's company, will incorporate a lot more social into it. I also do believe social company, meta, Instagrams, and TikTok will still incorporate a lot more commerce in order to pull their attribution that they actually make an impact for the sales for advertisers. And I also still do believe there will be stand-alone commerce, social commerce platform. emerge. Today you see, like, for example, Sephora, I do see a lot of startup doing just a Sephora type of company, but entire side is native from social commerce with social contents over there. So I truly believe this is still the future. Yes, what not. It's taken off. I'll tell you where it's taken off and there's no looking back and that's trading cards and

collectibles. Yes, I have a business in that. And let me tell you, people are hook, line, and sinker on live shopping. We'll see, maybe in Taylor's future, who never knows. But ultimately, they're already breaking the mold using AI. Taylor, where can everybody keep up with you and Taylor and learn more? If you are investors, if you are suppliers and retellons, or partner, dating side, fitness center, career center, shows who need office, feel free to reach out to me. I'm Anya at taylor.a.a. at taylor.a. That's T-A-E-L-O-R.A-I. or if you are just customers want to get ready for your day

no more shopping or laundry always looks great, have human and AI style list to style you then go on taylor.style let's T-A-E-L-O-R-S-T-Y-L-E-Taylor style. Use a code podcast 25, podcast 25 to get 25% of your first months

or use a goal on a gift card to go in podcast gift to get 10% of gift card. holidays around the corner, best gift is saving time. Love it. Podcast 25 and podcast, is that gift? That's right. There it is.

We got those. We'll have those in the show notes for everyone to take advantage of. Anya, it's a pleasure to meet you. Nice meeting you, and thanks everyone. Would you all be very successful and saving time? No more laundry. Who say, yeah, I cannot do your laundry. This is Anya from Taylor.com.

Thank you. Hey, guys, you know to find us, Ryaniswright.com. We'll find highlight, clip, show notes, and all the links that Anya, us so graciously shared for savings on Taylor. You know, it's always here. It's always right. It's always now. We'll see you next time.

This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.