20VC: How SHEIN Got So Big So Fast: Behind the Scenes at One of the Fastest Growing Companies in History with Donald Tang, Executive Chairman @ SHEIN
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Tang is the Executive Chairman of SHEIN, with oversight of public affairs, business strategy, corporate development, and finance. Donald began his career at Merrill Lynch & Co. He later joined Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. in Los Angeles as Senior Managing Director of Investment Banking. At Bear Sterns, Donald quickly rose to become the Vice Chairman of the firm, as well as Chairman and President of Bear Stearns International Holdings, Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns Asia, Ltd, and a member of the board of directors at Bear Stearns & Co.
In Today's Episode with Donald Tang We Discuss:
1. How SHEIN Became a Global Giant:
- As specifically as possible, what did you and the SHEIN team do that enabled you to be one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet?
- Real-Time Retail: What is this? How is it the core of SHEIN's growth and efficiency?
- Supply Chain Innovation: How did SHEIN innovate on the supply chain to give them such an advantage over the competition?
- Price King: How does Donald respond to the statement that SHEIN wins due to price, not quality?
- Social Media: What social media tactics allowed SHEIN to grow so fast? What did not work?
- Paid Media: How have SHEIN approached paid marketing? What works? What does not?
2. The Big Questions: IPOs, Impact on Climate and Worker Conditions:
- IPO: Why does SHEIN want to go public? Is London the right place for the company to go public?
- Climate: How does Donald respond to the common idea that "SHEIN is bad for the climate" and encourages fast fashion like never before?
- Tariffs: How does Donald respond to the common question around tariffs and SHEIN benefitting from being under a certain tariff threshold?
3. Marriage, Fatherhood and Happiness:
- Marriage: What have been Donald's biggest lessons on how to have a successful marriage?
- Fatherhood: What does being a great father mean to Donald? If he could call himself up the night before his first child was born, what would he advise himself?
- Happiness: How does Donald think about happiness today? What does everyone get wrong about happiness?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you want your business to thrive on the global scale, you have to become a local community business. |
| 0:05.6 | In Great Britain, you want to be a UK company. You want to be part of the fabric. You don't want to be |
| 0:10.4 | some company parachuting in just making money. That's not the trend anymore. You are profitable. |
| 0:15.2 | You are growing insanely fast. Customers love the products. Why IPO? We wanted to embrace public diligence. We're operating |
| 0:23.0 | in more than 150 countries. Once you're a public company, transparency is no longer an option. |
| 0:29.5 | It is a responsibility. How do you answer the question that people always ask, which is that |
| 0:33.9 | you are bad for the climate. |
| 0:42.5 | Today's show is the show that every journalist wants. |
| 0:46.4 | She-in is one of the fastest growing companies in history, |
| 0:49.4 | $32.5 billion in revenue, |
| 0:53.9 | 100 million shoppers, and 1 million items produced per day. |
| 0:55.6 | There are so many questions to ask, and today we sit down with Sheehan's executive chairman Donald Tang for his first ever podcast episode. |
| 1:03.5 | But before we dive in, this episode is presented by Brex. The financial stack founders can bank on. |
| 1:08.8 | Brex knows that nearly 40% of startups fail because they |
| 1:11.8 | run out of cash, so they built a banking experience that takes every dollar further. It's a stark |
| 1:17.4 | difference from traditional banking options that leave your cash sitting idle while chipping away |
| 1:22.4 | at it with fees. To help you protect your cash and extend your runway, Brex combined the best things about checking, |
| 1:29.8 | Treasury and FDIC insurance in one powerhouse account. |
| 1:33.6 | You can send and receive money worldwide at lightning speed. |
| 1:37.1 | You can get 20x, the standard FDIC protection through program banks, |
| 1:41.7 | and you can earn industry-leading yield from your first dollar, |
| 1:44.8 | while still being able to access your funds any time. Brex is a top choice for startups. In fact, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.