00:00The first purchase order for the brand was around 10,000 units and we probably sold through the 10,000 units in about 90 days.
00:10I know personally when you break out or have acne, there are a lot of negative emotions associated with it.
00:15You feel insecure, you are more introverted, you feel like everyone's staring at your face.
00:20I'm Ju Ru, I'm one of the co-founders of Hero Cosmetics. I'm 45 and this is my secret to success.
00:26Hero Cosmetics is a functional skin solutions brand. We're focused on acne and best known for our Mighty Patch Hydrocolloid Acne Patches.
00:33I really love the Hydrocolloid Acne Patches because they are tough on the problem but gentle on your skin.
00:39I got recruited to work for Samsung in Korea as an expat for two years.
00:44And then that experience, living in Korea for two years, is where I used my first Hydrocolloid Acne Patch,
00:50which eventually became the inspiration for Mighty Patch and Hero Cosmetics.
00:53Korea is really known in the beauty industry to be very ahead of the curve in terms of beauty innovation and adoption.
01:00So back in 2012, people were already wearing them out in public.
01:05The Hydrocolloid Acne Patch format was already pretty widely used.
01:10So I would go to the office or just walk around and I saw a lot of people wearing them on their faces,
01:15asked someone what they were for, was told that they were for acne.
01:19So I went and I bought some, tried it for myself and was just blown away by how well it worked
01:24because I put it on at night, by morning, it got all that gunk out.
01:29I knew more people needed to know about this product.
01:31That was really the aha moment for what is now Mighty Patch.
01:35I was probably 37 or something like that when we first launched.
01:39We actually did not fundraise. So at the time, back in 2017, this was very against the grain.
01:47And so I tell people sometimes when you zig, when others are zagging, it can work to your benefit.
01:52So back then, raising large rounds and raising VC dollars was very, I guess, trendy or it's what a lot of people did.
02:00We did not do that. We decided to bootstrap.
02:03I have two co-founders. All three of us, we put our own money into the business.
02:07And the philosophy was this business needs to stand on its own two feet.
02:11This product needs to be cashflow positive and be profitable.
02:14So we were very, very efficient with our dollars.
02:16The first product was created pretty quickly, actually.
02:20So I had contacted a lot of hydrocolloid patch manufacturers, probably contacted while I was in Korea over 10.
02:29But only two, I think, responded to me.
02:31And then of those two, the one that we ended up working with, we still work with today.
02:35They're obviously a really important partner to our business.
02:39And worked with them to really develop what is now known as the Mighty Patch.
02:45We've made some iterations since then.
02:48And a lot of brands in beauty and personal care will work a lot with their co-manufacturer to co-create and develop their products.
02:57I credit a lot of my corporate experience to, I think, the success at Hero Cosmetics
03:03because there were a lot of learnings that I had at places like Kraft Foods and Mondelez and American Express that I really still use to this day, actually.
03:11And one of them is really paying attention to consumer behavior.
03:15So one of the consumer behaviors that I noticed was that the hydrocolloid patch format or the bandages were actually already around for quite a long time.
03:26But they were in the band-aid aisle.
03:28And if you think about it, your breakout can be considered a type of wound.
03:33And so there was nothing at that time in the beauty section.
03:37And really the idea was, can we take this hydrocolloid bandage that sits in the band-aid aisle and really make something very specific to acne?
03:48Because I had already seen that people were buying the big bandages and cutting them up into small squares or small shapes and putting them all over their face.
03:56And so the behavior was already there where people were buying them in one aisle but using them for a beauty concern.
04:03And that was really the insight of, hey, I think we can take this, which exists in the band-aid aisle, turn it into a beauty product and really market something that's specific for acne.
04:15There were a few other acne patch players on Amazon at the time.
04:20Not as many as today, but there were a few.
04:22So I saw that people were buying this type of product on Amazon.
04:25And the demand and the behavior was there.
04:28So it made a lot of sense for us to try it out there.
04:31It was also easiest, fastest, and cheapest because we were bootstrapped.
04:35So it didn't take a lot of money or investment or resources to get up and running.
04:40You can get up and running probably in a day with the right images and copy.
04:46And it was a place for us to test and learn, to validate the thesis that, hey, we think people would really be into this type of product and this type of brand.
04:57Will it be true? Let's try it on an Amazon.
05:00And it turned out to be very true.
05:02To this day, we're the number one acne patch brand in the U.S.
05:06I think we have a superior product.
05:09We do have a very special formula that actually we own.
05:13And the product differences, people can tell.
05:16So when they use ours versus competition, I think they can tell the product difference.
05:20I think traveling is a really great place if you want to be an entrepreneur to get ideas, just to observe what other people in different countries are using and doing and paying attention to those things because they can be inspiration for ideas.
05:35It's nice to have smaller ambitions and to exceed them and be thrilled about sort of where the business has gone compared to where you thought it might be.
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