Growing up in rural China and watching my family struggle has really taught me how to be good with
money. I think the key is to just not have expensive taste.
I spend money and give gifts lavishly to friends and family because I don't want
to die just by saving money.
I'm Shan Shan Fu, I'm 33 years old, I make $226,000 a year and I live in San
Francisco, California.
At the time, I did not have any experience starting an e-commerce company.
So what I did was I watched YouTube videos and I swear, I learned
top to bottom how to start a e-commerce company for free from YouTube.
First I got the products.
And because my family works import/export, it was fairly easy to find some factories
overseas and get really good quality face masks to my door in two weeks.
I would work 9-5 at the consulting firm and then from 5:00 p.m.
to 1:00 a.m., I would work on Millennials In Motion.
For the first few months, there was no time off.
I worked 7 days a week every waking minute.
And then eventually, when my income from Millennials In Motion
matched the consulting firm, after 6 months, that's when I felt safe to focus just on
Millennials In Motion.
I grew up in a little village in China with my grandparents.
Life was really simple.
I remember there was no electricity, no plumbing, no refrigerators.
And ultimately, I think it was the best way to grow up because it made me really
grateful.
Watching your parents struggle was really hard.
I remember kids would make fun of me for wearing the same clothes every day.
I only ever got clothes from thrift stores.
So all of that was just motivation.
Not succeeding was just not an option.
And because we grew up like that, I never want that to be a problem in my future family.
Hey, so I'm launching three new thigh-high socks tomorrow and I was hoping we can get a photo shoot.
Yeah, absolutely.
When do you when do you want to meet up?
Let's do it at 3 o'clock and let's do it at the Fillmore and Haight mural because I think it's a great
background. Yeah, I love that place.
I think the photos last time worked out great.
So yeah, 3 o'clock works great.
The one expense that I spend a lot on is rent.
One, because San Francisco is just a very expensive city to rent.
Another, because as a child, a lot of times I lived in cold, dark basements and now
as an adult, that is the last thing I want.
Normally when you start an e-commerce company, everything is saturated.
There isn't a lot of products that you can sell that people don't already have.
But because the pandemic, there was a huge shortage in quality face masks
in March and April of last year, most people didn't have good ones.
So I saw that gap and I was able to fill it very quickly.
I want to live in a place that is beautiful because I work from here, I entertain from here,
I live here. And that is the one thing that I will always pay a premium for.
My current rent is about $2,600 a month for a one-bedroom, and that is with a
very good pandemic discount since a lot of people left San Francisco.
I don't have a lot of expensive tastes.
I don't like bags or cars or shoes or anything.
For me, it hasn't affected me too much as I just focus on what makes me happy, which is family and friends.
Al right Brad, so this is our new...
New thigh-high socks line.
When I was in my mid-20s, I worked at digital agency that had unlimited commission.
So because I was able to sell pretty well, I was getting these big commission checks that I didn't know what to do
with. And I found this really great property where the penthouse is a
communal area for everyone to hang out in, which had a rooftop, a rock climbing
gym, a lounge.
And it overlooked Vancouver downtown.
And I knew this was, like, the millennial dream.
So I purchased a condo there.
And since then, it's almost doubled in
value. Since moving to California and really wanting to stay here,
Vancouver is just one property that I'm just going to allow appreciate and to grow and eventually to sell.
I think Vancouver is a market where that is growing rapidly and is really good for real estate because tech is
also growing there. And I'm looking for other real estate properties in other cities across
North America that is the same.
My father has a mantra that if somebody gives you $1, then give
$10 back. And that's something that the Fu family really believes in.
So one thing I learned about money is to see how does it make people generous.
How do they share the money?
And what that says about them.
It has helped me meet a lot of people who all think the same.
Who all believe in FIRE.
Because my initial product was face masks, I thought it was really important to make sure
that any benefit I got from the pandemic boost was given back.
So I donate 20% of the proceeds to Feeding America Food Bank.
The biggest money mistake I made in my life was not starting sooner.
In my entire 20s, I did not invest at all.
I just put all my money into savings.
The only thing was the real estate that I invested in.
But other than that, I didn't do any stock market.
I didn't do any side hustles.
And part of it was because I think with a lot of my friends, we didn't talk about investing,
especially with women.
It might be the stigma with not talking about finances.
So I really want to empower women to focus on investing and taking risks.
My goal is to eventually get a green card and live in the United States forever, but it is
really, really tough to do that.
The challenge that I found is that I was born in China, but I
moved and became Canadian for most of my life.
My goal is to double Millennials In Motion's revenue in the next year.
Once I have enough passive income streams, then I'll have a lot of flexibility.
And with that flexibility, I can do consulting for companies.
I can help others build their business.
I want to focus on real estate as well.
Also, investing has been a big part.
I love trying to find the companies that are destined to grow.
I think it's really important to have open discussions about money with friends
and be able to share your income and your net worth goals.
Because I think if we do that, we can help each other.