Inspiration can strike anywhere. For Jimmy Chiang, the big moment came, well… in the bathroom.
“I was walking out of the bathroom at work and I hate touching the trashcan, and I thought what if you could throw the whole thing in the recycling bin without having to touch it?”
At the time he was working as the Vice President for Development at an eco-friendly automotive accessories company and was about to get married in his home country of Taiwan.
“I was at my wedding reception and talking about my idea and one of our guests said I should check out a store nearby that was making paper furniture,” Chiang remembered.
That chance encounter in 2007 led Chiang to the Taiwanese factory that now manufactures everything for his company, Way Basics. The California-based modular storage company was founded the very next year in 2008. They make everything from storage cubes to litter boxes to bookcases. And all of it is made from recycled paper. The products have been sold on lowes.com since 2019.
“It’s been great. I’m a Lowe’s customer myself and we really like Lowe’s merchandising. It’s clean and fits our aesthetic.”
But the father of two says the best part of the business is the connection to his hometown and his heritage.
Chiang was born in Taiwan and came to the U.S. with his family when he was in the second grade. “My aunt was living here and my parents saw this as the land of opportunity.” The Way Basics factory is in his hometown which means he gets to go home and visit his parents when he checks on the factory. “It’s very rewarding,” he said. “I always knew I wanted to source the product there.”
Chiang says while he knows some people see him and immediately identify him as Asian American, for him that’s never really been the way he sees himself.
“Where I’m from doesn’t define who I am. Our experiences and our viewpoints define who we are. I view the world as a global place and it doesn’t matter what color you are or where you were born. And I know that I’m fortunate my experience happened this way. I want to be more inclusive of everyone and I wanted to help Taiwan and Way Basics make that happen.”
Chiang believes we all have the power to be global citizens. “Heritage is cool and it gives me diversity and different viewpoints, but we can all have that. It just depends on our experiences and where we allow them to take us.”
Chiang says he’s just grateful his own experience has now taken the company he came up with... all the way to Lowe’s. “Having Way Basics in Lowe’s is great. It really gave us validation as a brand.”
