Entrepreneur Chip Wilson is active in real estate, private equity and philanthropy, but is still best known as the founder of apparel retailer Lululemon. Though he parted ways with the company in 2015, the 69-year-old Canadian remains its biggest individual shareholder and holds an estimated fortune worth $4.6 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires today.
lululemon founder Chip Wilson spoke via video at the Forbes China Under 30 Summit held at Longfusi in Beijing in July.
Forbes China
Wilson, speaking by taped video from Vancouver last month, won applause in China as he shared success tips for success with an in-person audience of more than 300 at the Forbes China Under 30 Summit held in Beijing on July 3-4. Wilson’s business ties in China include investments in Chinese sportwear brand Anta Sports and Anta-backed Amer; the Chinese-language edition of his book “The Story of lulumon” was published earlier this year. Here are seven of Wilson’s tips for business success:
*Go all out in life. Wilson recalled how his father once suggested how to win a swimming competition: “Why don’t you just go all out right from the start? The approach of going full out from the beginning was very different.” He did it, and broke a swim record.
“What I got from that is that it is important to give 100% in everything I do. And actually I have a fear. My fear is that if I don’t give 100% — I only give 97% and fail, I will be on my deathbed one day going, ‘Geez, I wish I would have gone the next three percent.’”
*Read voraciously. “I might read about 100 books a year, and I’ve done that since I was very, very young. I think my base of knowledge is very strong. If there’s anything to be done as an entrepreneur, I’d say that’s number one.”
*Look out for fresh trends. Wilson discovered the idea for lululemon through reading and keeping on the lookout for new trends. For instance, in the 1990s, he said, the number of women graduating from college were beginning to outnumber men; they were delaying marriage, and creating “a new market that had never existed before. And that was a young, single, professional woman who no longer got married and had children at 24, but would wait until 32.” That insight led Wilson to the market for yoga and technical apparel that lululemon is known for. “I didn’t know that yoga was going to be as big as it was, but when I look back, the women’s market was incredibly underserved in athletics,” he said.
*Don’t try to be everything to everybody. The definition of a successful brand is usually very specific, according to Wilson. “You (have to) know exactly who you are selling to,” he advised. If a brand’s e-commerce site looks like it’s made for a 40-year-old, its retail store looks made for a 35-year-old, and designers are designing for a 28-year-old, “there’s no continuity and nobody knows what they are doing,” he said. “And the customer doesn’t really know what the brand is or what the company stands for.”
“It is important to give 100% in everything I do,” said lululemon founder Chip Wilson.
Forbes China
*Do what you love, and don’t obsess on money. “I was willing to work for no money” when starting lululemon, Wilson said. “I really loved what I did. I loved my product, and I loved the people I was with every day.”
*Scale up in China. China’s domestic market is among the world’s largest, and affords winners competitive cost advantages globally, he said. “Your production numbers are so high,” he said. “Once you have a stranglehold on that kind of production, your ability to go into other parts of the world in phenomenal.”
“Focus on China, get your production numbers up, get your costs (down), and have a brand name that will go across China, North America and Europe,” Wilson advised.
*Embrace change. “You might feel the world has changed a lot from 1920, 1940 and 1980. There are some things that will always remain true, but definitely not is the speed at which the world is moving,” he said. The evolution of a market in the 1950s might have been 50 years,” Wilson said. By 2000, “that would have been 10 years. And now you’re moving into the 2020s. You probably need to be thinking about pivoting every three years. I would be prepared to pivot faster.”
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
