RISING ICON #72: Janice Tam
What name do you prefer to be called?
Janice
What are your pronouns?
She/her/hers
Where did you grow up?
Barrington, RI
What city are you currently based in?
Rochester, MN
How do you typically introduce yourself to new people?
I’m the founder of a startup that I’ve been building with my sister – we’re 15 months apart in age! I grew up on the East Coast, moved to Chicago for business school, where I incubated our company and got it off the ground. I recently moved to Rochester, MN with my husband who is a psychiatry resident at Mayo Clinic and have been building our company here since.
What’s one thing you wish more people knew about you?
I was born in Cambridge, England and my family is from Hong Kong, so I am a dual citizen of the UK and US and have permanent residency status in Hong Kong.
Who do you help?
I help apparel brands and designers achieve the perfect fit for their customers. I also like to help fellow founders who are getting their businesses off the ground, in whatever way I can. I know I couldn’t have gotten my startup this far without the generosity of my mentors who are just a couple steps ahead of me in their journey.
What are you building now?
I’m building TrueToForm, an AI startup that helps shoppers find clothes that fit using digital mannequins created from our award-winning body scan app.
What were you building ten years ago today?
10 years ago I was in undergrad, working toward my degrees in economics and biology. You could say I was building resilience and a strong work ethic.
What do you predict of yourself 10 years from now?
I hope that I would have built a product that makes a lasting impact on people’s lives, and that I would still be working with a passionate team and doing what I love every day.
What’s a fact or statistic you wish everyone knew about your industry?
Nearly 30% of consumers fit within what we call the “hard-to-fit” categories – think petites, plus sizes, fuller busted, big and tall. These are the customers that are particularly underserved when shopping online.
Why do you believe the work you do matters?
I see an opportunity for our work to make a lasting impact on three different fronts – the bottom line for our brand partners, who are suffering $18B+ in fit-related returns every year; the planet, which suffers from the 5B pounds of returned goods that are being sent to landfills every year; and the everyday consumer, who suffers from the frustration of finding clothes that fit online.
Who is your mentor and what is the best advice they’ve given you?
I have many mentors but one of the best advice I’ve received is from my sister, who is now our co-founder and CTO. The advice was “just delete it”. This was in the context of an essay that I was trying to write when I was in high school, that wasn’t going well. I was trying to rework the draft I had written previously, but nothing seemed to work. She told me to delete everything and start fresh. This taught me an important lesson in my career to not get bogged down with what has been done previously and has helped me tremendously in my ability to problem solve creatively.
What piece of content about you or your company are you most proud of?
We were featured on the front page of the Star Tribune last week. It was surreal to see our faces in such large print in the news.
What publication do you hope to appear in next?
I’d love to be featured in a longstanding fashion magazine like Vogue to show that you don’t have to be a “fashion insider” to make a difference in this industry.
Who would you love to be interviewed by?
It would be fun to be interviewed by Sean Evans of Hot Ones. I love his interviewing style and those hot wings look pretty tasty.
If you had to give a TEDTalk tomorrow, what would the title be?
What growing up with Asian-American parents taught me about the art of persuasion.
What award would mean the most to win?
I would love to win an award for my company being a great place to work.
What makes zero sense to you?
Why Americans have to file our own taxes just to have the government check whether we did it right and then audit.
What’s a word in your industry you hope gets re-evaluated?
“Fashion tech” – I think it does a disservice to the founders in the industry building in this space to be lumped together in this category that investors tend to shy away from.
What game are you changing?
We’re changing how you shop.
What’s the next thing you’re a part of that you want to invite more people to participate in?
We just launched a consumer facing search engine called Fitsearch where you can shop with your TrueToForm avatar to find clothes that fit your body dimensions. It’s the only online search engine that provides 3D fit predictions for all listings to help shoppers determine their best fit before making a purchase. You can check it out and join our community at thefitsearch.com.
Where can we follow you online?
@truetoform_fit on Instagram
What’s one thing that makes every leader better?
Being a good listener.
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We’re grateful to each Rising ICON for their transformative work. Thank you, Janice, for sharing your story!
LAUREL is a media relations partner for bold leadership. For nearly a decade, we’ve helped leaders build effective strategies for scale and growth specializing in key opinion leadership and go-to-market strategy for emerging brands. To follow along with the RISING ICONS series, nominate a leader or subscribe to our weekly email newsletter. To accelerate your own rise, get our free guide to elevating your leadership profile, FIT(lite). RISING ICONS is made possible by grant funding from Knight Foundation.
“You don’t have to be a ‘fashion insider’ to make a difference in this industry.”
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