In the case of Strawberry resident Sherene Chen, who has turned her passion for helping friends with professional wardrobe styling and personal shopping into Style by Sherene, a burgeoning business doing just that and much more, the answer is decidedly yes.
But in the course of building a successful business, Chen’s had a trusty ally to lean on when having to answer tough questions in managing her business: herself.
Chen, a native of Utah who has lived in the Bay Area for 15 years, spent the early part of her career at Goldman Sachs and doing corporate finance for Agilent Technologies. As a result, she’s just as well-versed in balance sheets as fashion, so when she’s at the precipice of making a major decision about the business, she just puts her finance cap on.
“The finance part of me is always telling me to stop and think,” Chen says. “That helps me reign it in when necessary.”
“It’s been very scary process the whole entire time,” she adds. “Coming from a finance background, it gives you the necessary caution. I’m not the kind of person that’s going to just jump into something without a plan. And you have to hustle every single day. It’s def been quite a change for me from the corporate world.”
A self-described “fashion psychologist,” Chen began scratching her fashion itch while attending Haas School of Business, helping friends find clothing that met their needs, their style and, of course, their budget.
“Those friends started referring me to other friends and it turned into something,” she says.
Chen continued to do personal wardrobe style and shopping for clients on the side and then launched Style by Sherene officially in 2011 after she left Agilent. Wanting the flexibility to be with her young sons Jackson and Harrison, she built the business methodically. Over the years, she’s regularly consulted on print magazine fashion shoots and for Bay Area and San Francisco Fashion Weeks.
Chen says her clients run the gamut and that an initial consultation and professional measuring are enough for her to get a strong sense of their needs.
“Once I’ve sat down with someone, it’s easy to get a sense of what works for people,” she says.
The 411: Go here for more info on Style by Sherene and to get in touch with Chen.