How Shan Shan Fu age 33, Living On $226K A Year in a San Francisco, California by selling Quality face masks, gaiters and socks ( Inspirational story and Financially way of Women Empowerment )

 How Shan Shan Fu age 33, Living On $226K A Year in a San Francisco, California by selling Quality face masks, gaiters and socks  ( Inspirational story and Financially way of Women Empowerment ) How to create Millennial Money 

Shan Shan Fu, 33, lives in San Francisco, California, and earns $226,000 a year as a business owner. She owns her company, Millennials In Motion, which sells quality face masks, gaiters and socks. Shan Shan also has an O-1 visa, which is for individuals who possess extraordinary ability in science, art, education, business, or athletics. 

 Image of Shan Shan Fu (Women Entrepreneur)

Shan Shan Fu can pinpoint the exact moment she was inspired to become an entrepreneur.

It was March 2020, and the Covid-19 pandemic was quickly spreading across the U.S. Fu, 33, remembers watching a news segment that showed a long line of people waiting outside a food pantry, while the anchor detailed how Americans were getting laid off in droves.

As she watched, the San Francisco resident realized that doing nothing didn't feel OK anymore. So she decided to start a side hustle. Her idea: sell quality face masks. "When the surgeon general said everybody should wear face masks, none of my friends had good face masks," Fu tells CNBC . 

She launched Millennials in Motion in April 2020, working on the business at night and on the weekends while maintaining her full-time job at a consulting firm during the day. 

For the first few months, there was no time off. I worked seven days a week, every waking minute.

"I would work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the consulting firm and 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. [on my side hustle]," she says. "For the first few months, there was no time off. I worked seven days a week, every waking minute."

After six months, in October 2020, Millennials in Motion's income was close to what she earned at the consulting firm, so Fu decided to focus on it full-time. Overall in 2020, Fu earned $115,000 from her consulting job and her business brought in another $111,000, for a total of $226,000.  

Growing her business

One of Fu's favorite quotes comes from Margaret Mitchell's 

"Gone With the Wind."

 "When a civilization is growing, you make slow money, but when a civilization is crashing, you make fast money,"

 Fu paraphrases.

Although the onset of a global pandemic was a risky time to start a new business, Fu saw an opportunity to help people while capitalizing on a burgeoning industry. She knew she could make "fast money," while also helping others. Millennials in Motion donates a portion of its proceeds to Feeding America.

Fu had no prior experience in ecommerce when she decided to launch her business, so she turned to YouTube. "I swear I learned top to bottom how to start an ecommerce company for free from YouTube," she says. 

She leveraged family connections to find a factory overseas that could produce masks, and she invested $3,000 in inventory and supplies. She started out slow, selling a few masks a week. But within a few months, she was selling 20 to 30 masks a week. 

As the business continued to grow, she got a feel for what products her customers liked most and began selling them through Amazon and Walmart as well. 

To keep the business viable long-term, Fu wants to branch out into other projects, she says. Because masks appeal to such a broad consumer base, she expects she'll need to sell a variety of products to continue to generate the same amount of income. 

"Eventually, I want to have any products that a millennial would want, especially a trendy millennial," she says.

Building a better life

Success is important to Fu in part because of how she grew up. For her parents, "money was probably the number-one thing that was a stress factor," she says.

Fu was born in China, where her parents were educated and well-respected in their careers; her father was an engineer and her mother was a doctor. They moved to the U.S. when Fu was six, and found they were no longer able to use their degrees to get jobs, so they ended up working in grocery stores to make ends meet.

"I remember my dad told me when he was working at the grocery store, all of the workers were Asian and they all had master's degrees and PhDs," she says. "There were a lot of people struggling at the time.

Her Story How She built own Business in this COVID 19 pandemic (Inspirational)

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.

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.

Conclusion

I hope you feel Inspire after reading this women entrepreneur story . Shan Shan Fu age 33 is really a inspirational and better example of women empowerment . Her hustle or hard work is really appreciable . She have positive mindset you can learn from her life journey .

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