jane lu’s success started like many others she got up early each morning, put on a suit, waved goodbye to her supportive parents and left for work the only difference was that the 28 year old didn’t have an office to go to, a formal job title or a boss to report to keeping her ventures a secret in fear that her parents wouldn't approve, ms lu would venture into the city each day under the guise that she was still working hard as an accountant and sit down in a cafe or the state library and secretly contact wholesalers, organise marketing campaigns and find new, affordable fashion as she built her online shopping empire scroll down for video  business is booming: ms lu's online shopping business has turned over $10 million in the last calendar year  ms lu’s story is one of perseverance, determination and achievement with her successful online shopping venture showpocom reportedly turning over $10 million in the past calendar year she distributes clothing to 45 countries, has 420,000 followers on instagram and 464,000 friends on facebook, attributing her success to dominating the social media platforms ms lu said even though she may not have been completely honest with her parents at the start of her career, she knows they are beyond proud of her accomplishments ‘at first they said ‘i don’t understand how you had the guts to do this’ but in reality it was them who left everything to take their young family to australia,’ she said 'they quit their great jobs to work as cleaners and in factories, now that is gutsy,’ she added she said she knows it was their initial investment and support that helped her put herself out there and maintains that she doesn't know anyone that's worked as hard as them ms lu completed a business degree and gained an elusive graduate position before throwing it all away for her dream  after reading about her triumphs it will surprise you to know that her road to success was paved with a few failures ms lu would be the first to admit that things don’t always work out the first time you give it a crack she started her professional life in corporate finance first securing an elusive graduate position with kpmg and then moving on to accounting firm ernst & young after spending some time pondering her future life as a corporate go getter, she said she was left feeling unfulfilled ‘i wasn’t getting much out of my day to day and a uni friend said they wanted to start a business so i quit my job and blindly followed,’ she told daily mail australia ms lu took advantage of social media saying it was the perfect marketing opportunity for someone without much capital  ‘the small quick and nimble can really dominate a market like that because big business didn’t know how to capitalise on it' ms lu’s family, in a show of unwavering support, lent her money for the start up venture, a pop up fashion shop in the city it took some time but eventually ms lu saw that the business wasn't taking off and she was left with $50,000 of debt ‘it was really devastating when my first attempt failed i’d quit my job so i couldn’t really go crawling back to my old employers 'it was also right in the middle of the global financial crisis so i really had no other option but to continue on,’ she said being faced with the option of flight or fight, ms lu secretly soldiered on in the hopes that she would have better news to give her parents soon from humble beginnings: ms tu worked on bended knee scrubbing out her first warehouse,right, and she put in the hard yards before getting her first office, left ‘my parents lent me money to start up my first business and after it failed it felt really hard to justify to them why i didn’t want to go back to business, which was their dream job for me 'selling clothes online was completely foreign to them they don’t even use email,’ she said in a few short years ms lu has managed to take her business from a dream to cold hard reality she said if she had given up when she first failed she would have never achieved what she has today ms lu now has 10 employees and says she loves that she has the opportunity to have fun each and every day  try and try again: ‘so many young people have a fear of failure but having failed, i can tell you it’s really not as bad or as scary as it seems' ‘so many young people have a fear of failure but having failed, i can tell you it’s really not as bad or as scary as it seems ‘it is worth the risk and you should always back yourself,’ she added ms lu said although she could have spent a lot more time on the couch after her first disappointment she found it really motivating to get up every day with purpose, as if she had a boss to report to, and work for the job she really wanted ‘it can be so easy to sit at home and watch tv or go to the beach with other friends who aren’t working but you can’t let yourself do that it's about being productive every day’ after being brought up in a ‘very academically focused’ environment ms tu said she wasn’t once taught how to be successful if you pursue a creative career ms lu said she saw a gap in the online shopping market for affordable garments  even after becoming a front runner in australian online business ms tu said she still finds it ‘bizarre’ to think of herself as a role model  ‘life is long and people have to stop thinking that you can’t spend some of that time time when you are young to investing in yourself and what makes you happy’ ‘your work life pretty much takes up the majority of your life so why not work to live instead of live to work,’ she added after taking the online shopping market by storm ms tu said it was social media that catapulted her to success her online community and small group of staff became the unofficial face of her brand as she encouraged clients to post photographs of themselves wearing their recent purchases to further showcase the latest merchandise her social media reach was only further extended each time a satisfied customer posts a picture on instagram and facebook ‘basically, i had no money when i started the business so i needed social media to get the brand out to our community’ coming into a market where big businesses hadn’t quite grasped the power of social media ms lu said there was a huge marketing sector that could be taken advantage of ‘it was really devastating when my first attempt failed i’d quit my job so i couldn’t really go crawling back to my old employers' ‘the small quick and nimble can really dominate a market like that because big business didn’t know how to capitalise on it' she said while she was starting out social media remained relatively unknown with big businesses blowing it off as ‘a fad’ ‘it’s about building a loyal community who are genuinely interested instead of paying for advertising to just make sales’ ms lu used facebook to start her social media campaign but says a lot of consumers are migrating to insagram  ms lu was born in china, left, and was eight years old when she first moved to australia, right ms lu said she came from a 'very academic' environment with her parents dreaming she would find a job where she could be financially stable  ms lu’s family immigrated from china during political unrest in 1994 when she was eight years old and she said it was that initial sacrifice which gave her the opportunity to flourish in australia even after becoming a front runner in australian online business ms lu said she still finds it ‘bizarre’ to think of herself as a role model for women who are out there working hard to achieve their dream ‘it is so bizarre, i mean, i don’t really have any experience, my first business failed so really if i can do it, anyone can do it’ her positive attitude caught the attention of the league of extraordinary women and they asked ms lu to take her story to the 'run the world' conference where several of australia’s most successful entrepreneurs will tell of their trials and tribulations in the hopes of motivating a new generation of young female go getters winners are grinners: ms lu said she has an amazing team who have become a huge part of her sucess  chiquita searle, general manager of the league, told daily mail australia that they knew they wanted ms lu to speak after hearing of her overwhelming perseverance in the face of crushing adversity ‘it’s so important for young entrepreneurs to see someone in jane’s position who didn’t have the perfect run ‘it really wasn’t an easy journey for her, she quit her job, her first business failed leaving her with $50,000 of debt and she spent years working before she gained any traction,’ ms searle said ms lu said throughout all her academic pursuits she was never once told she could be successful by chasing a creative dream 
over $10,000,000 the last calendar year australian show pony 6 months ms lu jane lu
jane lu quit her job and started show pony after a failed business venture  she lied to her parents for 6 months about working on the site  the online store took off and now ships to 45 countries  her business turned over $10,000,000 in the last calendar year  ms lu successfully leveraged social media to help market her brand  she wants people to know that her success didn't come without failure  ‘it is worth the risk and you should always back yourself’ she is speaking at a conference that showcases achievements of  australian female entrepreneurs 