Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Your Hype Girl: Day 3 + my key takeaway from Hero Cosmetic Founder Ju Rhyu: “Bootstrapping puts focus on profitability.”

Transcript

Your Hype Girl: Day 3 + my key takeaway from Hero Cosmetic Founder Ju Rhyu: “Bootstrapping puts focus on profitability.” · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hello, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. It is Wednesday. We are halfway through the launch week and I'm sitting here feeling like, who the hell was I to launch this book?
• 0:17
  And I'm also thinking if you needed a sign to get cracking on your side hustle or your side project, if you needed a sign to start a business or to make a big life decision and to go after what you want, take this as your sign. This is it. This is your sign. If I can do it and nobody from the middle of nowhere with no money can,
• 0:42
  you can do it too. That's the energy we all need in our life right now. The support and the hype to take that one tiny step towards your goals. So let me be your hype girl. Okay. So for today's mini episode, I'm flipping through the book. Let me pick up my book here to chapter 25.
• 1:08
  It's a chapter featuring Ju Ru called Changing Your Spots. I actually got to meet Ju in Paris at the end of last year, and she is such a shining star. She's been a supporter of Female Startup Club ever since we connected in the very beginning and has connected me to so many brilliant founders since.
• 1:29
  She's the founder of a company called Hero, a forward-thinking cosmetics brand that makes super-powered skincare products to help customers get in control of their skin and gain confidence. I think they're most known for their mighty acne patches, which have a crazy cult following online.
• 1:48
  And here's a fun fact. At the time that I interviewed Ju, Hero was selling a box every 15 seconds with over 2 million boxes sold in over 8,500 retail stores. That is pretty mighty, I do have to say. But what's even crazier is I just did a quick Google search of her last week because I was making a TikTok business breakdown of the Hero journey.
• 2:14
  And now she boasts selling a product every three seconds. Three seconds. Can you imagine? That is just like, ding, one, two, three, ding, one, two, three, ding, one, two, three. That's insane. So in 2021, when I was Googling last year, she did more than $100 million in annual rev. And that's just in five years since starting her business. If that is not wildly inspiring, I don't know what is.
• 2:43
  We discussed all sorts of things in this episode, from how she launched her brand exclusively through Amazon, to how she found a manufacturer in South Korea, and how she goes about driving crazy growth. But there's one key takeaway in particular that I want to focus on today, and that is bootstrapping puts focus on profitability. Together with her two co-founders, each partner put personal capital into a dedicated bank account to get the business going.
• 3:12
  Many startup entrepreneurs find that having limited capital can prove to be a blessing in disguise. And we hear this time and time again on the show. Because having a tight budget, especially in the beginning, forces you to think twice about every single move and be resourceful and creative throughout.
• 3:32
  Further down the line, showing an investor that you've gone through this process, you've hustled and you've made it out the other side is such a big plus for credibility and ultimately sets you a higher valuation for the business.
• 3:45
  Bootstrapping was good for them because it forced them to obviously focus on being profitable from the very beginning. They couldn't pay themselves fancy salaries or spend too much on PR firms and all that kind of nice things that you want to do in the very beginning. So it was a boots to the ground approach, which means they were always super resourceful.
• 4:04
  and in turn made them more attractive as a business to investors. From what I read, they only raised a minimal amount anyway through investors, but still, if they do want to turn around and raise a lot of investment, they'll be super attractive. And I think this is such a key insight because...
• 4:24
  We can get caught up in these stories and these articles in the likes of TechCrunch and Forbes and all this kind of thing that we read in the media, celebrating founders who are going out raising millions of dollars before even launching a product and think that that's the path that we should be taking. And that's exactly what we should be doing.
• 4:47
  But having to prove out your concept first with traction and actually build a profitable business will put you in such a better position to raise down the track if you need to. And also, maybe you won't need to. So when I think about this advice, it really takes me straight back to the non-alcoholic wine company.
• 5:09
  We were all systems go. We were already thinking about raising a friends and family round, or initially we were thinking about capital in general. How were we going to fund the business? Were we going to take on debt? Were we going to maybe take out a loan or credit cards or whatever? Or was it using our own savings? Or was it doing a friends and family round? And we did think about going down that friends and family round path.
• 5:35
  But if we had taken any capital from anyone, we would be in such a different position right now. Because remember, we got to a point where we realized, hey, this isn't the project for us right now. We're probably not the people to do this. And...
• 5:56
  The reality is, is that if you take on capital from other people, if you take other people's money, you can't just stop if you choose to. You can't do what we did.
• 6:07
  You have people to answer to. You've taken people's money. We had been toying around with the idea of that small round to fund the first order and, you know, a small budget for marketing. And the other thing is that we also had numerous people telling us they were really excited about the project. They wanted to invest. And...
• 6:27
  It's kind of crazy if we had have done that because whether you take money through an angel or institutional or whatever, those investors own part of your company and you don't work for yourself anymore. You work for them too. They want their money back. That's the whole point. So for me, I'm just so glad that we took our time to audit what we were doing and what our goals were before we went down that pathway of taking any cash and,
• 6:57
  And so obviously that's a little bit of a different story to, you know, bootstrapping the business and then going to get cash. But it's something that really rings in my mind right now when I, you know, read back over this story and reflect on Jew's journey. Because if you're focused on bootstrapping your business in the beginning and, you know, you're focused until you've proven traction, you've figured out the foundations, you've figured out if you need to pivot, if this is even the right thing for you.
• 7:22
  And then, yes, maybe you do raise, but then maybe you realize you don't need to raise. Sometimes you don't need that outside capital. It's already all systems go.
• 7:33
  Okay, well, that's my two cents for today. If you enjoyed this mini episode, you are going to love Your Hype Girl. This week only, we have a celebration launch promotion running until Friday. So jump onto femalestartupclub.com forward slash book or search Your Hype Girl directly via Amazon to make sure that you're part of our first readers.
• 8:00
  From Friday evening, the price is going to jump back up to its usual price, you know, the price moving forward. And if you're feeling really vibey and you want to help the hype and you want to be my hype girl, the absolute best thing that you can do is leave me the best review you've ever left in your entire life after you purchase on Amazon. Okay, that's it. I hope you have the most magical Wednesday and I will see you soon.
• 8:47
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 9:11
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 9:34
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.