SOMA Magazine SOMA Fall Fashion Issue Oct 15 | Page 48

Feature

The Influencers
Jing Zhou
TEXT BY KYLE THORNBURG
PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANCISCO ARECHIGA

Jing Zhou, 31, is a reporter by trade, but it’s her entrepreneurial
instincts that are writing her life’s work as of late. Using the cultural perspective she has gained from living in the urban settings
of China and the United States, Jing has built a comprehensive
and lucrative career within startup companies ranging from
mobile advertising to social media apps. Jing’s most recent
venture is called Elemoon. Founded by Jing in 2013, Elemoon
is luxury wearable technology that works in concert with user’s
smart phones to feature health, creativity and elegance.
Your degrees from Nanjing University and from
Northwestern University suggest your distinct interest
in communication. In what ways has your career abided
by or veered from this initial interest?
Everything is about communication. Every problem can be
solved through communication. To me, the essence of journalism, fashion and technology is the same. It’s storytelling. It’s
building a community for the like-minded. When I was working
with our engineers on the bluetooth protocol of the Eelemoon
bracelet, I reconfirmed my theory. Humans build machines to
act like humans. It boils down to what messages you want to send
out and what results you want to achieve through communicating. So I’m very glad that I studied people and communication
before I got into technology. Technology is just a tool.
What types of skills from your past as a reporter have been
transferrable to your career as an entrepreneur?
I worked as an investigative reporter in New York for uncovering
the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. The biggest criminals on Wall Street then reflected on the nature of investment. It
should be about good people with good products. Simple as that.
But it’s a trillion dollar lesson. That gave me a lot of confidence
to be an entrepreneur. I love working with extremely talented
people to create great products. As a reporter, you need to be
able to identify problems and opportunities quickly and learn
things fast. My challenge then was to navigate a new country,
the U.S., writing in a second language about something that the
local audience would care about. My challenge now is not just
identifying problems and opportunities, but also creating the
solution and product.
In the last five years you have spearheaded projects in
advertising, app development and wearable technology.
How do these areas combine to reflect who you are as
a professional?
When I did mobile advertising. Our clients wanted female
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consumer data. I learned that women are the majority buyers
of products, including digital products. But very few tech products are built for women. After we sold the ad company, I started
making a mobile app for young women in China to better communicate and gift each other. Women loved the app but they
wanted something more. They wanted us to marry the app with
a consumer product, a plush toy, something more tactile. So we
decided to get into wearable tech. We want to use technology
to empower women and creativity. Technology is an enhancer.
It makes fun things more fun, beautiful things more beautiful.
Describe the biggest challenge you faced in making the
intangible idea for Elemoon a wearable reality.
I didn’t know making hardware would be 100 times harder than
software! In the last two years, I’ve been living out of a suitcase,
traveling back and forth between the U.S. and China. Since we
were the first one to marry high-end elec