Former Facebook Product Lead Anya Cheng Launches Taelor — Menswear Rental Service That Helps Men Look Good and Save The Environment

Many aspiring men face a dilemma: They want to look good so they can impress a date, land a deal or get a promotion at work, but they don't know how to improve their style, and they don't want to spend time shopping for clothes.

That's where Taelor comes in. Taelor is a new clothing rental subscription service that allows men to look good without having to chase after their clothes. Unlike other clothing subscription services, such as Stitch Fix, with Taelor, customers don't have to make a commitment to buy something from each box, allowing them to own less stuff and help save the environment at the same time.

Newly launched, Taelor and its CEO Anya Cheng have already received lots of attention and recognition — legendary investor Tim Draper's startup competion Draper Demo Day's first place winner, 500 Global (500 Startups) accelerator Taiwan Tech Arena Silicon Valley program selected team, Rising Star Entrepreneur Award, University of Chicago Polsky Entrepreneurship Center startup competition west coast region championship, SPARK Accel accelerator selected team and more. Taelor was also featured on Apparel News, ABC News, Chicago Maroon, Bloomberg, RobbReport, Daily Northwestern and Vogue.

Taelor was founded by Anya Cheng, a former product lead at Facebook who helped create Facebook Shopping and previously held digital innovation positions at Target, eBay, McDonald's and Sears. Cheng is also an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University where she teaches software product management, entrepreneurship and marketing at business, marketing and law schools.

Cheng said she originally got the idea to start a clothing rental subscription service for men after becoming a huge fan of other clothing rental subscription services, such as Rent the Runway. Cheng, who says she's not very into fashion herself, appreciated clothing rental services that could make her look fashionable, which made her feel more confident in her career.

"I used to live near a Rent The Runway store, and I would go to the store every day and pick out a new outfit to wear the next day. I became such a fan of renting clothes that I haven't purchased any clothes for myself except underwear for the past five years,"Cheng says. "But I realized that none of the clothing rental services really served menswear nor focused on helping people to achieve career or personal goals in their everyday life. I thought, men should be able to enjoy this service too so they can feel ready and confident for their day."

To better understand potential customers, Cheng worked with an ex-Nordstrom researcher to interview more than 500 men, and they found that many of them have the same problem: They want to look good, but they don't have the time or fashion expertise to do it.

To turn Taelor into reality, Cheng teamed up with Phoebe Tan as COO, who previously worked for a company that was an operation partner with Amazon Go and Starbucks, and assembled an experienced team of experts in execution, including an engineer who previously worked on Google's AI and a stylist who previously worked for Stitch Fix.

When customers first sign up at Taelor, they fill out a style questionnaire and then receive a personal consultation with one of Taelor's stylists. Then the stylists, along with Artificial Intelligence, select clothes for the customers based on their sizes and personal preferences. The clothes are shipped directly to customers, who can either wear them for two weeks and return them or purchase them for up to 70% off the regular retail price. Customers then receive another box of clothes.

For a flat monthly fee of $88 per month, customers get up to two boxes of clothes per month, including four items in each box. Dry cleaning and shipping is free both ways — making the process of renting and returning clothing easy and effortless.

"Many guys hate shopping and laundry,"Cheng says. "And my time working for Instagram taught me that the younger generation is a lot more fashion-conscious because of social media. They also support sustainability and buy second-hand clothes. That's why Taelor is really the perfect solution for many young men who want to look good but own less."

Surprisingly, however, many of Taelor's pilot customers do like to purchase many of the items they receive in their shipments. In fact, out of the approximately 1,000 items that Taelor has shipped to customers since its pilot program launched in the summer of 2021, almost one out of four ended up being purchased.

Cheng says that proves that men like being introduced to new styles, they just don't like shopping. "Before using Taelor, many of our customers didn't buy many clothes because they didn't have time or interest in going shopping. After signing up for a subscription to Taelor, however, our customers spend a lot more on clothes, which shows the market was underserved,"Cheng says.

However, Cheng believes consumers aren't the only ones who can benefit from Taelor's business model. Since Taelor collects feedback from every subscriber about which clothes they like and which they don't, the clothing brands that partner with Taelor can use that unique and rich data to their advantage.

"The problem we are solving for brands and retailers is the difficulty for them to know what's going to sell. There is no fast, easy way to test whether there will be demand for new styles,"Cheng explains. "With our rental subscription service, however, brands can give us a limited quantity of clothes and then we can collect feedback from our subscribers about how they liked each item, and then give that data back to the brands."

Plus, smaller brands can also use Taelor's platform to be introduced to new customers, who may become lifelong fans. "Taelor is like a launching pad for clothing brands,"Cheng says. "As a SAAS (software as a service) data company, we help them test products, find new customers, and discover consumers' true preferences."

Taelor launched its nationwide paid pilot program in 2021 and is currently offering size small and medium shirts, sweaters and jackets. The company plans to expand to include pants and larger sizes in the coming months so it can start serving all of the customers who are currently on the company's waitlist. Taelor is also hoping to work with corporations to offer subscription deals to their employees who need to look good for sales meetings or when dealing with the public. "We believe this will be a new corporate gifting perk that employees will love,"Cheng says.

With these two initiatives on the horizon, Cheng hopes to be able to serve 3,000 customers in the next 18 months, which will allow Taelor to have 100,000 data points for AI and enable Taelor to monetize the data via a B2B SAAS model.

Cheng says that Taelor's unique business model makes it a company that is poised for success.

"Yes, there are many places consumers can get clothes, but subscription boxes require customers to buy, and traditional retailers don't offer styling services. We have one competitor, but they focus on high-end brands for fashionable guys who read GQ. Resale platforms are booming, but our customers are busy men who don't want to spend time browsing through thrift stores,"she says. "We are the perfect solution for men who aren't into fashion, but who want help to look good."