Beyond Form Team Spotlight: Peter Jeun Ho Tsang
Hello there fashion tech enthusiasts!
In this final spotlight post, we look at the journey of our founder and CEO, Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, and how his experience in fashion led him to building our fashion tech venture studio. Since launching Beyond Form in 2020 he’s guided the studio team with supporting the fashion tech startups into growth, but what prior experiences have been pivotal in helping him do that?
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, Founder & CEO
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: Intertwining Fashion and Tech
Believe it or not, tech was not always on the horizon when Peter started his training and career within the fashion industry. Having formally trained as a designer at London College of Fashion and being influenced by his family’s garment production roots where they manufactured for large brands like Urban Outfitters, he thought that product development was going to be his career path. Fashion Tech was not yet a term in the industry and certainly not a category in its own right. That all changed as smartphones, online shopping, and digital fashion design really advanced in the late 2000s.
Beyond Form is Peter’s third business, the first being a fashion brand that revealed the dark sides of the fashion system, and the second a retail tech lab that initiated his learnings into how tech could be integrated into the industry in many different ways. Those two experiences helped to crystallise the concept behind Beyond Form. Peter realised that tech can help the fashion industry transition into a more digitally savvy one that can solve many problems such as overproduction and overconsumption. As well as solving problems, it can also create new opportunities.
Opportunities are plentiful with fashion tech. To date, Peter has met with hundreds of fashion tech founders or individuals looking to break into the industry. The studio’s founders comprise more than 80% from outside of the fashion industry, have experiences or training from unrelated fields, and nearly have never built a fashion tech startup previously. However, they all have one thing in common, ambition and grit to make it in the fashion tech industry. This is why the studio exists, to support, guide, nurture and spot the next fashion tech unicorns.
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, Speaker at Saudi Fashion Commission Roadshow NYC 2023
Peter’s Take on What Makes a Great Fashion Tech Idea
If you’re a regular listener of the Beyond Form podcast show, Venturing into Fashion Tech, you’ll know that there’s been a dedicated episode on what Peter thinks makes a great fashion tech idea. It’s also an indication of what we look for in founders wanting to join the venture studio. You can listen to the episode here:
A taste of the main takeaways discussed:
The fashion tech idea needs to solve a real burning challenge in the fashion vertical. This takes careful listening to the market, the industry, and collation of deep insights from individuals working at ground level - not just the executives in boardrooms.
The proposed tech to be applied to fashion needs to be scalable, can work through the system - you can develop pilots, obtain (paying) clients, and can be integrated into existing legacy systems.
Has the right timing. For example, 15 years ago digital fashion was not regarded as a serious part of the fashion system. The technology was there and it worked, but there was no catalyst for industry-wide adoption.
What do you think makes a great fashion tech idea?
Fun Fact
Peter is a certified Les Mills BodyCombat instructor.
As always if you’re an ambitious fashion tech founder then we’d like to hear from you. Get in contact with us:
