Jing Leng and Brian Li: Power Couple
ModeSens
Education (both): Bejing Union University
The marriage of Jing Leng and Brian Li brought together an ideal business model.
Jing, a personal fashion shopper, struggled for years juggling the amount of time spent finding the perfect outfit for her clients, often going to several stores for one contact. Brian, a software engineer, knew an internet platform would help speed the process along. So, he built one.
That grew into ModeSens, a thriving digital shopping assistant helping people shop for fashion around the world.
“ModeSens aggregates information from more than 200 global luxury stores, and adds a service layer to help our users shop efficiently, save time, and save money on the styles they love,” Jing said.
The company has been a revelation not only for the Highland Park couple but for their clients, as well. ModeSens helps shoppers who visit the site every step of the way, and purchase decisions are also made “pretty quickly,” Jing said.
“Everything they wish to know or do during the shopping process is available to them in one place,” she said. “We now serve more people, who also love fashion, by allowing them to feel more knowledgeable and smarter when shopping online, or in store, with ModeSens on their side.”
Working for themselves, Brian said, has been fulfilling, exciting, and rewarding.
“There is always so much to do, and you never feel bored,” he said. “We have a big vision for the future and are working hard to make it happen. Seeing people using ModeSens and saving time and money with our help makes all the hard work worth it and makes me feel very accomplished.”
Once completed, Brian introduced the site to Jing with a rather romantic gesture.
On the day ModeSens launched, Brian sent Jing a link. It was to a page on the site that had a pair of shoes Jing had been looking for: a pair of LeSilla crystal sandals, in her size, marked down 60 percent from the original price. Immediately, ModeSens had come through.
“I felt so surprised and lucky that my husband, using the website he coded by himself, found exactly the right style I wanted,” she said.
Later, Jing said, she began receiving member comments on how easy it was to use ModeSens, and how the site led directly to finding designer items for fair prices.
“[Members] were finding their loved pieces too, such as Valentino dresses, and Jimmy Choo shoes,” she said. “Working for myself was my dream since I was in middle school. I feel so lucky that I could turn my love of fashion into a career and a profitable business.”
Jing Leng
Q: What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?
A: I was a food service sales representative in charge of the Beijing Hotel niche for Hormel China. Working in a big corporate company, I learned how to coordinate with a different department, from the factory to accounting, and always find my way to reaching the sales goals and solving problems.
Q: Where do you see yourself and/or your career 10 years from now?
A: Personally, I see financial freedom and traveling around the world. From a career perspective, I see every shopper enjoying the ModeSens service with so much more on our roadmap.
Q: What was your “lightbulb moment” that lead you to your career?
A: When I figured out my husband and I could make a good match in this business. I was adept at fashion and he was adept at computer science.
Q: Which leadership skills were the most challenging for you to develop and why?
A: Saying no to the employee who could not handle the position.
Q: What do you love about the Park Cities or Preston Hollow community and why?
A: The community is very friendly and active. People love fashion and are very stylish.
Q: What is your favorite local store?
A: LOCAL Market at Highland Park Village
Q: If someone made a movie of your life, what would the title be and who would play you?
A: Title: “Unpredictable” Actress: Kristen Stewart
Q: If we looked at your social media accounts, what would we learn about you?
A: A boss girl, mother of two, and a fashion blogger. I’m always multi-tasking, challenging and pushing myself to make progress step by step.
Q: If you could, what advice would you have for your teenage self and why?
A: Work harder, play harder. Whatever you dreamed now will all come true with hard work.
Q: What, to date, has been your most impressive or rewarding accomplishment in both your professional and personal life?
A: Professional life: Having two profitable, healthy businesses, one being ModeSens and the other is being a personal shopper for movie stars and celebrities in Asia.
Personal life: A real, confident, and strong woman who can take care of the family, business, and myself. My childhood dreams all come true.
Brian Li
Q: Where do you see yourself and career 10 years from now?
A: I see growing ModeSens into the next Google and becoming the digital shopping assistant for everyone. Shoppers will just need to tell ModeSens what they wish to buy, and ModeSens will take care of the rest.
Q: What was your first job and what did you learn from it?
A: I was a software engineer at Microsoft for five years. The experience taught me a lot about how to manage large scale projects and how to operate within a big company. It also confirmed that working for someone else would not be my path.
Q: What was your “lightbulb moment” that lead you to your career?
A: When I discovered it was so inefficient to shop and I thought I could create a scalable solution for it.
Q: Which leadership skills were the most challenging for you to develop and why?
A: Always improving myself along with the company growth. For now, the most challenging thing is to institutionalize the team and build a good foundation to grow the company into the next phase.
Q: What do you love about the Park Cities or Preston Hollow community and why?
A: The community is very friendly and active. People love fashion and are very stylish.
Q: If we looked at your social media accounts, what would we learn about you?
A: Anti-social media
Q: If you could, what advice would you have for your teenage self and why?
A: Explore as much as you can and find out who you want to be.
Q: What, to date, has been your most impressive or rewarding accomplishment in both your professional and personal life?
A: Professional: Built ModeSens from a side project without raising any external money.
Personal: Have a wonderful wife and two lovely kids.
