From founding a translation agency at 23 to building a real estate practice in New York City
July 31, 2025
From founding a translation agency at 23 to building a real estate practice in New York City
Dear friends,
The air conditioning was freezing in the Hong Kong office where I signed the incorporation papers for my first company at age 23. I was excited, but nervous. The AC helped calm me down, but my fingertips were ice cold.
I had put down HK$10,000 (about USD $1,300 today) for the initial company shares, and received a heavy emerald green binder box with my company ink seal and a clip seal with “Cantos Translations Limited 融意专业翻译有限公司” carved out in what looked like gold.
Starting a company felt a little glamorous, and unexpectedly easy.
What I didn’t realize was that over the next 10 years, things were going to get a lot harder, and messier.
I would run my first business, Cantos, for six years, and in the process growing it into a recognizable name in the industry.
Then at the age of 30, I would put Cantos on pause to start a second new business, learning everything from scratch as a real estate agent.
This post gathers five lessons I wish I’d had taped to my laptop a decade ago. I wanted to share 10 lessons for 10 years, but less is more, so I condensed them into five and I hope some will resonate!
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1. Starting a business isn’t the hardest part. Turning a profit while scaling is.
We all love a good up-by-their-bootstraps story of entrepreneurial success: So-and-so started their business empire in their parents’ garage and one day it becomes Amazon or Microsoft. But how long did it take before their business was growing and also profitable? My first business, Cantos Translations, was profitable from day 1 because the investment was $1,300 and a laptop I already owned. But it never scaled.
For my second business, my real estate practice, I wanted to do something different. I’m heavily investing in growth. This means that while I’ve already broken my annual revenue record (and we have five more months left), my take-home thus far has still been less than in my first year in real estate!
That’s because I work with a team of talented people to improve all aspects of my business from marketing, finance, workflow optimization to coaching, and I have to be patient that it will pay off (easier said than done)!
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The day Cantos became official…
2. Know your value. Don’t give away too much for free.
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I am eager to please, and I want to be impressive. I also believe in educating and providing value without asking for things in return. However, I am also running a business that is based on the expertise that I have honed through time and effort.
I once had a friend refer a potential client to me. After I realized they didn’t want to pay for a tenant broker, I still talked with them multiple times, giving them advice and sending them resources, and I even dutifully responded with my analyses when they sent me listings they found. When I updated my friend on how I had followed up on their referral, thinking I had made them proud, my friend said: “Aren’t you doing too much for free?”
I’m still trying to find the right balance today!
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My not-so-secret way of ensuring my listings make a great first impression
Telling the story of each property I get to represent has been so important to me. Not only is it a fun challenge for me find the unique story of each home, it is an effective way to leave an impression on a potential buyer. To create a conversation.
Watch how this works in my video below!
3. Don’t focus on being liked. Be honest.
Growing up, I always wanted adults to like me. My parents, my teachers, and random “aunties” and “uncles” I would meet in my parents’ world. As a business owner, I transferred that desire to my clients and people I hire. I want to be liked, and I want everyone to be pleased with everything I say and do.
But sometimes, my job is to tell a client what they don’t want to hear: that they may not break even on their sale, that they need to declutter and repair if they want to sell, that their budget is unrealistic for their criteria no matter how hard we keep looking or try to negotiate. Same goes with vendors and others who I hire to help me.
When something isn’t working, it’s scary to tell the person the truth.
I still feel a lump in my throat and sweat in my palms when I need to have the talk. I have been threatened before, I have lost out on listings to other brokers who promised higher prices, I have even had to have lawyer letters sent to vendors when my talking to them didn’t work.
I know deeply that being honest is the only option for me. So I push through the throat lump and open my mouth to speak honestly, wiping the palm sweat away on my pants.
4. Be authentic and be yourself. You’ll attract the people who align.
I grew up in mainland China, spent my teen years in England and France, and landed in New York for college. For a long time, I tried to “blend in.” I wanted to speak English without a foreign accent. I cut my hair really short to try to look more mature.
Perhaps it’s because I have the privilege to live in one of the biggest melting pots in the world. Perhaps it’s because my friend pulled me aside and told me point-blank that I didn’t need to keep trimming my hair to seem professional (and that she didn’t really like my short hair—which, while harsh, was something I secretly agreed with lol).
Recently, I have been relishing sharing parts of myself (long hair and all) and my culture. What have I found? My clients and colleagues light up when food stories, language quirks, and cultural nuance enter the conversation. The same instincts I honed translating meaning and emotions across languages help me decode what buyers and sellers really mean—even more so when English isn’t everyone’s first language. When a client’s mom switches to Mandarin or Cantonese to ask the question she’s embarrassed to ask in English, I can answer it. When a family member wants to understand why a co-op board cares about post-closing liquidity, I can contextualize with examples from both U.S. and Chinese financial norms.
Culture isn’t a side note; it’s part of the service. And everyone (Chinese and otherwise) always wants to know where I got those cumin lamb skewers from!
5. Get used to hearing no. And stay consistent.
Even as I entered my sixth year of running an industry-recognized translation agency, people often voiced objections. “Why is your price more expensive than [some other translations company]?” “Can’t you give me a discount? I’m your friend’s cousin’s sister-in-law, and I will give you a lot of future business.”
But when I started my real estate practice, I only heard more of the same! “But how long have you been doing this?” “You haven’t sold in my building before?” “Why should I work with you instead of someone who has 20 years more experience?”
Over the past 10 years, no matter how many times I have heard it, and no matter the business I was running, translation or real estate, it still stings to hear the word “no.”
What I learned in the past decade is this: “No” usually means “not yet,” “not sure,” or “show me.” If you can hear the feedback inside the rejection—and respond with generosity—you’ll be first in line when the situation changes.
Stay with it. Be consistent. Keep putting in the work to hone your skills and be the best at what you do. And keep reminding people what you do by showing up in person and online, checking in via texts and emails. Grab that coffee or take that walk in the park together. None of these actions work in isolation, but they sit inside a larger rhythm I keep.
Entrepreneurship is an endurance sport; taking care of the machine is what keeps the wheels spinning.
From the Brooklyn Heights promenade. I took this pic in July 2025, 10 years into my entrepreneurial journey!
Bringing It Home
If I could go back to that 23-year-old girl signing her first LLC papers, I would tell her: you are not building a business so much as building yourself. Every risk you take will sharpen your instincts. Every mistake will carve out resilience. Every “no” will teach you the language of “yes.”
Translation taught me to hear what’s unsaid. Real estate lets me act on it. And entrepreneurship has been the bridge between the two: risk, resilience, reinvention, repeat.
Ten years in, I’m still learning. Still iterating. Still grateful.
If any of these lessons resonated with you, I’d love to hear which one—and how you’re applying it in your own life.
Send me a note or DM me on Instagram @judyyizhou. And if you’re considering a move in New York City, let’s chat—I promise to bring both data and heart to the table.
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Xo,
Judy
