How this first-time founder landed a $630 million exit

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0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. I tried to launch it.

1:41 I had a name, I had source of the manufacturer. You know, I had the packaging And then I just I took it out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's a lot. It's a lot of commitment.

1:56 A shelved idea. It took years for Ju Ryu to work up the courage to launch Hero Cosmetics and its signature acne fighting product. The Mighty Patch. Soon after, she faced another big decision. Should the company take on outside investors?

2:13 They were already profitable, but what could they unlock with even more resources? The answer? A whole new level of scale. We went from Just like nickeling and diming everything. We had to do it on the cheap.

2:29 But once we put a little money into the company We were like, this isn't now an investment. This week on the show, Hero Cosmetics co-founder Ju Ryu takes us inside each critical inflection point along her extraordinary scale journey. From the first product sold on Amazon. to getting on target shelves, to exiting the company.

2:51 After it hit a hundred million dollars in sales. You gotta have incredible talent at every position. It's like this gives a huge push. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. Working out of a three-bedroom apartment. We haven't made it just how you do it. This

3:27 His masters of scale. I'm Jeff Berman. Your host. After a rapid rise in the skin care space, Ju Ryu sold Hero Cosmetics in 2022 for$630 million. Before we get her insights about scaling and selling a business, let's hear how she finally found the courage to leave her steady corporate job and become an entrepreneur.

4:00 Drew, welcome to Masters of Scale. Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been really excited to have this conversation because I have three teenagers, so I'm deeply familiar with your products. But before we get to hero cosmetics and pimple patches and all sorts of other interesting things, I'm curious about your entrepreneurial roots. Mm-hmm. You come from an immigrant family. Um talk about what it was like growing up and where your entrepreneurial spirit came from. I think it comes from my dad. I my dad is an entrepreneur. We moved from Korea when I was three. This was Yeah, the eighties.

4:33 And he actually moved to Seattle as an expat. So he was working for a big Korean company and then he moved the family to Seattle as an expat. And then Just sort of saw the writing on the wall for himself as a kind of salary man, I guess, at this um big Korean company. And then he decided to leave and start his own business. So he's in the the logging industry. He's a log broker. And

5:00 just growing up with that influence in my life and seeing how he worked from home and he was able to control his schedule and and he was able to fit work into his life. I think those are all things that I grew up with and then one of the things that we're going to do. A lot of kids who grew up in families like that will go in another direction because there's a lot of uncertainty with an entrepreneur parent and some lean really into it. Um it almost feels like you went in both directions. So you didn't become an entrepreneur right away. It's not like you dropped out of college to start a company. Um, will you will you take us through a bit of your journey leading up to becoming an entrepreneur? So I had an internship at Craft Foods Mondeleys, worked on the Planters brand and back to Nature, and then went to American Express. So I worked for these big companies, getting the experience, getting established, but inside I always like had the entrepreneurial drive. A lot of times like these big companies, I would just get frustrated because they would move slow, where I had all these ideas that just I couldn't get anywhere. And so the drive was always there, even though I had more of a classic corporate career. Did you think about like could I become an entrepreneur? Could I work at one of these big companies and and Yeah, that's what I called myself. I called myself an entrepreneur because

6:13 craft foods, for example, like I love working on the back to nature brand. It was smaller A lot more entrepreneurial. I loved new product innovation. Like I loved ideating and finding the white space and really learning about consumer needs so that we can meet them with new products. I always gravitated towards New businesses, new products, the new thing, sort of. So many big companies struggle with innovation, right? Whether it's because they're disrupting their own business or you know, you have to do forty seven turns of a budget deck before anyone will be willing to approve your budget. What did you learn about what works in moving innovation forward in big companies while you were working at places like craft dynamics? You know what? It takes a lot of support from the top, actually. And I mean I'm sure we'll get to this, but so my company, Hero Cosmetics, we got acquired by uh a company called Church and Dwight, and they are a a big company, not unlike

7:04 you know, the Procter Gambles or the the Unilevers of the World, but I've seen them move really fast. I've seen them move really fast, especially with our international expansion, but I think the reason why they were able to move so fast is it was a priority at the top. This is the number one priority. We have to get this into, you know, fifty countries in two years or whatever. Really does have to be embraced, I think. At high levels. It's sort of a trope, but for a reason that you get what you measure and you get what you incentivise. Okay. So let's go back. So you go from craft, you're at Amex. I think you then went back to Korea. What led you back to Korea? So I worked as an expat at Samsung. Samsung In Korea, I think we all know it as an electronics company, but in Korea they have many, many different branches of this ginormous conglomerate. So I work for the financial services arm. It was a big move. I

7:55 I'd never spent a lot of time. I mean, the most amount of time I spent in Korea was probably like a month every summer. It was not without risk. The big question actually was, if I go, how do I come back? Would I be stuck there forever? I don't really know. Um just because your relationships and your Yeah, like and is that experience going to be desirable for American companies? And and at the at the end of the day, it was sort of like why not? I was pretty confident that It would give me good experience and I could somehow figure out if I wanted to come back a way to come back. What did you learn in Korea? Oh gosh. I learn a lot.

8:32 About corporate culture there. just societal culture. I learned a lot about myself too. So I'm Korean American. I moved to the US when I was three, but when I'm in Korea, I feel so American. The cultural gap is really big. How does that show up? I mean, even in communication, like I have an accent, I have a an American accent when I speak Korean. I think American society and Amer American culture is a lot more about the individual and in Korea, it's more about the family unit or the community. Like you're part of a bigger community that you need to worry about.

9:08 The role of women is different too. So I mean it's changing in Korea, but I think like traditional roles for women in Korea tend to be a lot more common still. A lot of big differences. Gotcha. And so you're at Samsung, again, you're sort of on this trajectory with these bigger companies. Is there an aha moment? Is there an epiphany where you say, I'm now at a place where I really want to go do my own thing? What happens that leads you to Launch Hero? You know, I actually try to launch it. before. So I lived in Korea from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen And after like six to eight months of living there, I did notice the acne patches back then. So people were wearing them in public, like to the office. And you know, you go out to a cafe and you just see them on people.

9:51 And this is a good moment just to explain what the acne patches are for our audience who don't know. So the acne patch, it's a Patch made out of something called hydrocholoid. Hydrocholoid is technically uh a wound dressing. And so the way that it works is A it creates um more of a moist environment because when the skin is dry, it doesn't heal as well. The hydrocholoid, it pulls moisture out. Someone along the line uh you know, along in this journey realized that, oh, the hydrocholoid, this wound dressing, you could actually apply it to a pimple. And when you do, it absorbs out the inflammatory pus and it creates that sort of seal over so you're not like touching and picking.

10:34 And it just really became popularized in Korea. And so what you were seeing in Korea back in twenty twelve, twenty fourteen range was, Oh, here's an acne solution. But people are not embarrassed to have something on their face covering acne and curing it. Yes. And and that was where sort of the the coin dropped for you that there's an opportunity here. Well, I used it myself and I mean that was my transformative moment where when I peeled the patch off. And it just got all that gunk from my pimple. My pimple literally was flattened overnight. And it just worked better than anything I had used before. I just I kept asking myself like why is this not available in the US? It should be available in the US. Why wasn't it available in the US? Sometimes ideas

11:19 Take You know. an entrepreneur to see the opportunity and bring it over. I mean on Reddit, I saw a lot of people saying, My sister is going to Korea, so I'm asking her to buy me all these boxes of these acne patches. And so I saw the demand, but there was no one that really owned the category. Right. Right. And so what happens,'cause you don't launch the company until twenty seventeen. Yeah. So what happens between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen? Yeah. What took that time?

11:46 So I tried to launch it. I had a name, uh, I had source of the manufacturer, you know, I had the packaging And so this was probably like two thousand fourteen, two thousand fifteen. And then it came time to place that first PO, which was like 10,000 units and however many tens of thousands of dollars. And then I just I just chick I check it out. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of commitment. I was by myself.

12:13 And I remember I had some um co workers and friends in Korea at the time and I kept talking it up to them, like, Oh, you know, we could do this and I really think this is a big opportunity and I don't know, I just couldn't really get anyone else sort of on board. And then I move back to the US and I just I shelved the idea. More with Ju We You about how she got her idea off the shelf and onto the faces of millions of customers. In just a minute. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

12:53 Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't how do we build a future. That is human centered. I'm Rana El Chayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future.

13:20 And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely for From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

14:08 Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and more. On our YouTube channel. What happens where you're able to to restart the entrepreneurial process.

14:20 For me, it was finding co founders. And there are a lot of solo founders out there and I respect them a lot because having been through the whole process, it can be a very lonely, difficult journey. And I realized, yeah, I think for me I'd rather have co founders'cause it's it's actually more fun. Especially the first time, like you don't know what you're doing. And it's just it's nice to have other people to talk to and bounce ideas off of. So

14:45 So really, I mean, the idea was still there. I'd shelved it, let's say 2015, two years past, 2017, and one of my co-founders, we have dinner and I tell him, like, Oh my gosh, like someone needs to do this. I think it's such a great idea. ' I'll do it with you. How did you know him? So he was a colleague turned into a friend. So him and his brother who were His brother um is also a co-founder. It was the three of us. They had a digital agency. And that digital agency I had hired. They were a digital agency where they did ads, they built Shopify websites, they build apps, anything digital they they really did. So I was her client and

15:24 In that capacity, we had experience working together. And then we became friends and they had been running this agency for like seven years and I think they were also ready for a new challenge. And then so Dwight, uh, who I had dinner with, he was really interested in the Amazon marketplace and being an Amazon seller and I had this idea and I thought it would be really great on Amazon. And so that's kind of what kicked it off. It's a big decision to start a company with one person, much less two people, who happen to be related to each other. Was it just instinct? How did you get to a point of saying

15:56 Great. This is the right partnership. This is what I want to do. These are the people with whom I want to do it. This is where I feel very lucky because I did not consider any of that, but ended up working out. I mean, I know there are a lot of like founder divorces. I've seen them and they're very difficult. They can be super messy. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, thank God we never went through that, but In hindsight, actually the reasons why it work out. I actually think a co founding team of three, it's actually great. And I remember someone told me like oh three is one too many. But I think it's great because there's always a tiebreaker. So if two people, you know, don't agree on something, I think there's always a third person who can kind of Tip it over.

16:34 And in retrospect, I think we had really complimentary skill set. So I knew this category, had more of a marketing background, I had that corporate experience, had some finance experience, and then One co-founder, he he's a he's a technical engineer. So anything related to like DDC, Amazon operations, that was great for him. And then the third, Andy, he's a creative guy. So anything design, packaging, all that was his responsibility. And so, you know, we didn't always agree, but

17:09 I think we always had a willingness to like talk things out and then there was always a tiebreaker to kind of Help make the decision. And so the three of you decide you're gonna do this together. What's the vision for the company? You know? In the beginning we did not have like grand visions of like, Oh my gosh, we're gonna build this like huge company and it's gonna be, you know, this big and we're gonna conquer the world. We were very practical. There's this product out there. It does really well in Korea.

17:34 There's early demand in the US. We think it's gonna do well in the US. So let's just start with one product and let's test it out. So we tested it out on Amazon. What was the first product? It was the Mighty Patch 36 count. We priced it at twelve ninety nine. It's still the OG, like the classic, the original. And put it on Amazon. We're like Let's see what happens. And really, I mean, it took off. What does taking off look like at that time? So one of the things that we did that I tell people to do and I would do again is you have to define what is success.

18:10 So we came out with like different scenarios. We said, What is You hit it out of the ballpark and it's a home run. What is that? Is it a million dollars in a year? Is it more? Do you have to be profitable? And what is feeling? So When do you say, Okay, this is not working out? We had a theory, a thesis, but

18:30 It's not turning out as we thought. And then what sort of like the middle ground and when you're in that middle ground, then what do you do? Because it's not a home run. But you're not really failing and I can't remember the exact like metrics, but I think success for us was something like half a million dollars in the first year, and we're making money. that would be like success. And then failing was this is just gonna take way too much more money. We're doing maybe a hundred thousand dollars and unprofitable and it's just gonna be a slog. So the idea was

19:02 Test, put it out there and kind of feel fast. Yep. Did you quit your job to go do this full time or was this a side hustle first? It was a side hustle first. How much did you put into the business among the three of you at that point? I think it was fifty thousand initially. So that's what got us up and running. And then we were growing really fast. So we had to make loans to the company just for cash flow. But we bootstrap for the first three years. As you're watching the sales climb there, what's working for you? How are people finding the product? Like you don't have a big marketing budget. No. So how were people discovering the product? What were you doing it to get it out there? We did

19:41 earned media. We seeded a lot of micro influencers, asked them to post, ask them to talk about it. Just send them free product. Just gifting, gifting, gifting as much as possible. And then where we saw a lot of success also was with press. BuzzFeed had a lot of like the fifty top products you need to buy today, or I think the New York Times wire cutter is also a good example. Okay. So you you're on this three year initial part of the journey where the business is growing, you and your co founders are making loans to the business to be able to stay ahead with your purchase orders and what have you. At what point did you say, Gosh, we really need more capital and we should take on an outside investor? It was always a a question, like, do we raise money? Should we raise money? Do we do it now? We seriously started to think about it. That was in year three. So that was in twenty twenty. Great year to be. Oh yeah. Well, our term sheets were due.

20:36 The week in March. when the lockdown started. Wow. So it that was a disaster. The raise didn't happen. But fortunately we didn't need the money. Right. Uh so we were okay. Why had you decided that was the time setting COVID aside and what the craziness that happened that year. As a profitable company that's growing, why did you say now's the time to raise capital? It was more about needing the strategic guidance. So we were kind of on this rocket ship projectory and we entrepreneurs in this category. And so we're like, we don't know what we're doing. We should get some smart money around us so they can help guide us and make sure that we have a a successful outcome. So it's really about the partner and less about the money.

21:22 It really transformed our business. Because when you're growing really fast, that cash flow sort of chase is always tricky. Like you get paid, but then you need to buy more inventory and just the timing of it all can be really tricky. And then it can impede you from making investments like hiring investments because good people, they're expensive. And so When we put the money into the company, I remember our mind shift changes because we went from

21:49 Just like nickeling and diming everything. So like photo shoot, like everything, we just we had to do it on the cheap. But once we put a little money into the company, we were like, you know what? This isn't now an investment. And so instead of like nickeling and diming and try to find affordable talent. I was like I want the best VP of marketing. I want the best VP of sales. And so we were able to invest in areas

22:12 Like people. So that was really nice. What was the inflection point where you went beyond Amazon? Yeah, we're kind of weird because we launched on Amazon at one point. It was like 100% of our revenue, then it became like nine ninety, and then maybe became eighty. But I remember I went to a conference and these bankers were talking about channel diversification. And they were saying the ideal channel diversification is a third retail, a third Amazon, a third D to C. I was like oh They're probably right. Because of course relying on one channel For most of your business is always risky. Right. This is the PayPal problem back in the eBay days. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. I remember we tried really hard to make D2C work. We're like we have to grow DDC to be more than whatever percent of the business. It was a small percentage of the business. And then we have to get into retail. Those are gonna be the three pillars of this business.

23:01 So early on, yeah, we tried to diversify and got into Target. We were exclusive at Target, grew very deeply with them. With the exception of Amazon,'cause you already sell them there, would you Okay, so for retail you're exclusive to Target. Correct. Okay. There are other retailers who matter. There's one really big one that matters. How do you make the decision that we're we're willing to go exclusive with you in in the retail category? I always thought Target had a really great brand image. I thought they had really smart merchandisers who were merchandising like cool new hip indie brands that, you know, these challenger brands. I knew this was going to be a mass market brand. And what better kind of elevated mass market retail partner than Target? What does the scale journey then look like? You got to north of a hundred million in sales, right? Before before you exited the company. So what were the next set of inflection points where that up to the right kind of hockey stick curve is happening for you?

23:57 building out the team was a big big one. So I had touched upon it before, but because you know, when you're a small company and you're bootstrapping, like you can't afford expensive talent. And so what you tend to do is you hire the interns, you hire the twenty two or twenty-three year old who just graduated. And they're great because they're hungry, but they don't have a lot of experience. So you tend to have to coach them and train them and work really closely with them to help develop them. But when we took on the growth round We knew we needed to level up talent. And so some of the first hires were these VP levels, like experienced people. And it changed my life. Changed my life as a founder because

24:40 I didn't have to have 10 one on ones with people anymore. It was now the VP of sales or the VP of marketing. It was their responsibility and their team. And I always say, like I hired people who would tell me what to do. I didn't want to tell them what to do. So I wanted people who had the experience, who We're experts in their fields and I would just you know, I just let them go. So we're we're now into twenty twenty two, the company's continuing to grow, you're still profitable, you're going north of a hundred million dollars in revenue. The future is bright. There is all sorts of opportunity ahead. You all decide to sell the company. Why? Part of it was we took on growth money.

25:21 So we had outside investors who They want their money back. With return. So and actually I mean, even before that, earlier on, again, I have two co founders, you know, just thinking long term. lot of times unless it's a family business, it's hard to have that sort of continued legacy, like'cause you know, who do you pass it down to and things like that. So early on with the three of us, we knew ultimately we did want to go for an exit. We always had that hundred million dollar revenue mark as the threshold. So the idea was like once we get here

25:56 we're going to start our process and and see where that takes us. Now I know why that's a threshold is because there is something called too big to buy. You know, we were growing really fast and and so the worry is once you you know, get to like 200, 250 in terms of revenue, then you're gonna be you know, people might want a billion dollars for valuation. And there just aren't that many people who can write that kind of check. It's better to have a larger pool, I think, of potential market. Yeah, I mean, this is a really important point that I'm not sure a lot of founders think about. Two companies ago, for me, we were on the verge of taking a pretty sizable private equity investment and we mapped the last decade of exits in category and saw a concentration in a in a certain range. And above that range, boy, they were really outliers. And if we were gonna take that size of investment, we knew we're gonna have to return in that upper range. And that's a pretty scary place to be, right? Because to your point,

26:54 If there are only four prospective buyers and three are like not for us, tough in a single party negotiation. You don't have a lot of leverage there. Yeah, for any entrepreneurs out there it's something to consider. And sometimes like bigger isn't always better is what I've I've learned. And yeah, and I feel like the press, it's it can be misleading because they always lead with like the valuation and like, oh it was great. You ended up selling to Church and Dwight for a reported six hundred and thirty million dollars. Why did you sell to Church and Dwight? You're talking to all sorts of people, trying to find the best fit. All the puzzle pieces have to come together. And so Trish and White was the buyer where everything came together. We were happy with evaluation, we're really happy with their culture and their team. I mean, this is a company where people stay like decades.

27:42 Their capabilities also were important to us because We knew this brand had the potential to be a global brand, but we didn't have the capability to take it to different markets, but they did, and they do. In two years, they've taken us to fifty countries. How did your life change, your your work life change going from being an entrepreneur Scrapping every day, doing all the hard things, even the company that's doing great. Now being back inside a big company, but leading a brand that you found at. You have to like emotionally detach.

28:12 'Cause I've heard there's there's founder depression. Sure. You work so hard. at building this business. It's it takes up your whole life. It is your life. And then boom you sell and You're not the boss anymore. And I've heard people can really struggle with that, actually. Like it's like a loss of identity because your identity was your business. And so I just, you know, I tell people sort of like, you know, a breakup, you you just have to like emotionally detach early on.

28:38 And um yeah, and I just I recognize like I'm not the owner anymore, like they are. And you know, I mean, we don't always agree with like everything they do, but I have to tell myself They're the owner, they're the steward. I'm here just to help in any way that I can. And so it's kind of a process. So we're sitting here in the second quarter of twenty twenty five. It's a few years post acquisition. Not many founders stick around long term at the company that acquired them. Are you thinking about what's next? Is there another another entrepreneurial act for you? Yes, definitely. I you know what, you just you can't turn it off. Sometimes like

29:16 people always talk about like oh which are super powering for me. I think I think it is innovation. Like I love looking at white space and just thinking thinking of ideas that can fill these opportunities. And so Sometimes I just go to Target and I'll like walk the shelves, walk the aisles and see what I think they need. And so yeah, I would like to do it again and I would also like to do it again because I'm interested to see what it's like to be a A second time founder.

29:40 I think some things will be easier. And I think you can short circuit a lot of things. What do you imagine will be easier? Hiring because now I know people, you know, I could even hire like some of the hero people who left, like potentially um we could work together again. Funding I think won't be

29:59 As much of a an issue. You know, now I have like relationships with these retailers where before I was just going cold. I had a meeting with Jeff Krull from Stent Sox years ago where he talked about Part of what he does is he walks up and down the aisles at Target, much like you just described, looking for What categories do all the products basically look the same? And he sees that as an option for white space.

30:18 When you're walking through a retail location, what are you looking for to identify white space for you? Obviously I walk mostly the beauty section. I will look at I look at a lot of packaging because your packaging is your billboard in retail. And so I'll look at like the dermatological section and I look at What are the colors that they're using? What's gonna stand out? What are the claims that that they're making on pack? I study the pricing and all that. Every time they do like a shelf reset, I always like to go to see what's new. If you're looking at that dermatology section, you see in my mind's eye, I see a lot of white and blue and right. Are you assuming those are all really well tested and there's a reason for this? Or are you looking at, oh, the homogenous nature of this is just stunning. There's an opportunity to to really break through and stand out with something that that zigs when everyone else is aggregated.

31:10 I'm a big proponent of zigging when everyone else is zagging. So it's all about differentiation. So you wanna be different from your competitive set. So how will you stand out? How is your formula going to be different? How is your price going to be different? Like what is the value for the guest or the consumer? And so if everyone looks the same, it's your opportunity to be different. Yeah. Well, we hope you'll come back and tell us about the new product when the time comes. Thank you so much for being with us. Yes, thanks for having me. There is so much to take away from Juyu's story, but Two lessons really stand out.

31:43 First, the importance of thinking about the Goldilocks moment. That right moment, that just right moment to exit your startup. Try to exit too soon and you might not have enough buy interested, but wait until you've scaled too big. And you might have priced yourself out. from most potential buyers and lose leverage as a result.

32:02 Second, it pays to be observant. Ju saw people wearing makeshift pimple patches, followed her curiosity. and found a lucrative gap in the market. I love that she's back to scouring for opportunities and itching to get back into the founder seat again. And I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

32:21 We look forward to having her back when she's ready to tell us all about it. I'm Jeff Berman. Thank you for listening. Masters of Scales await what original. Our executive producer is Eve Tro.

32:41 Our senior producer is Trisha Bobida. The production team includes Masha Makotunina and Brandon Klein. Our senior town executive is Stephanie Stern. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli and Brian Pew. Original music by Ryan Holiday.

32:57 Our head of podcasts is Letal Lalad. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter.

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