Dec 30, 2024 · 1h 14m · how-i-built-this
Hero Cosmetics: Ju Rhyu and Dwight Lee
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Hero Cosmetics co-founders Ju Rhyu and Dwight Lee recount how they repurposed hydrocolloid wound-care technology to build the Mighty Patch brand, navigating early self-doubt, bootstrapping retail expansion, and orchestrating a $630 million acquisition in under five years.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 39.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.2 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 1.2 Guy pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 44:34 Ju explicitly rejects Raz's K-beauty premise
When Raz assumes the natural expansion was leaning into the K-beauty craze, Ju immediately rejects the premise, explaining that positioning Hero as an American brand was essential for consumer trust.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 57:30 Raz presses on running a business across a nine-hour time differenceRaz challenges the logistical feasibility of managing a rapidly growing company after Ju moved to Paris and Dwight moved to Seattle, pressing on how a remote team functioned.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 44:34 Ju and Dwight educate Raz on American consumer psychology and retail brandingJu and Dwight educate Raz on why adopting K-beauty branding would have alienated middle America and created supply chain trust issues, detailing their deliberate mainstream OTC positioning.
Guy holds their own ▶ 21:13 Raz breaks down the hydrocolloid polymer wound-healing mechanismRaz explains the exact dermatological and medical mechanism of hydrocolloid polymers extracting fluid without scarring, showing deep technical preparation.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ju Rhyu’s Upbringing, Cultural Roots, and Education | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz explores Ju Rhyu's upbringing in Seattle and connects her family background to familiar immigrant career expectations. The tone is warm and conversational as Ju explains her father's log brokerage business and his pragmatic career advice. | |
| Early Career: Nonprofits, Business School, and Kraft Foods | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz engages with Ju's early career at Kraft Foods, noting the massive scale of Planters Peanuts. Ju details the discipline of classical consumer packaged goods brand management and commodity tracking. | |
| Corporate Life in Korea: Working at Samsung | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Ju shares striking anecdotes about corporate life at Samsung in Korea, including mandatory family days with automated computer shutoffs and morning news attendance checks. Raz notes the contrast with Western corporate cultures. | |
| Discovering Hydrocolloid Acne Patches in Seoul | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz demonstrates strong understanding of hydrocolloid bandage science and wound care mechanics. Ju provides the market insight by drawing an analogy between Reddit users cutting up bandages and Kraft's invention of 100-calorie packs. | |
| Early Sourcing Attempts and Cold Feet | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Ju outlines her initial attempt to launch an acne patch brand in 2014 by reading supplier labels in Korean pharmacies. She admits getting cold feet when it came time to place the initial $15k to $20k purchase order. | |
| The K-Beauty Boom and Meeting Dwight and Andy Lee | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Ju educates Raz on the K-beauty boom, explaining unexpected trends like snail mucin skincare. Dwight Lee enters the conversation, detailing his background running a digital production agency with his brother Andy. | |
| Forming Hero Cosmetics and Bootstrapping the Mighty Patch | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The co-founders recount teaming up with complementary skill sets across marketing, engineering, and design. Ju explains the emotional psychology behind naming the brand Hero Cosmetics and the flagship product Mighty Patch. | |
| Amazon Launch Strategy, Earned Media, and Rapid Sellout | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Raz assumes Hero aimed to ride the K-beauty wave, but Ju firmly counters that they deliberately avoided the K-beauty label to build a trustworthy, accessible American consumer brand. Dwight adds that English packaging was critical for broad US adoption. | |
| Breaking into Retail with Anthropologie | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Ju describes cold emailing retail buyers on LinkedIn and securing an 80-store test with Anthropologie. Dwight discusses adapting package typography and structure so products could stand upright on physical shelves. | |
| Bootstrapping, College Ambassadors, and Destigmatizing Acne | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Dwight describes their grassroots college ambassador sampling strategy, while Ju discusses their broader mission to destigmatize acne and turn patch-wearing into an open, normalized habit. | |
| Category Dominance and Managing a Distributed Team | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Ju shares pivotal advice from an investor to abandon a planned clay face mask and instead dominate the patch category in every shape and size. Raz probes how the team functioned when Ju moved to Paris and Dwight relocated to Seattle. | |
| Target Expansion and Surviving Pandemic Fundraising Challenges | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Dwight explains how rapid Target growth drained cash flow, prompting a fundraising round in early 2020. The co-founders explain why they walked away from predatory term sheets offered at the onset of pandemic lockdowns. | |
| Overcoming Supply Chain Crises and Partnering with Trevor | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Dwight describes managing severe supply chain disruptions by taking the risky step of holding six months of inventory. He details re-engaging with investor Trevor, who provided a fair, clean partnership deal. | |
| The $630 Million Sale to Church & Dwight and Reflections on Success | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz and the guests reflect on reaching $100M in revenue and closing the $630M acquisition by Church & Dwight. Both co-founders weigh the interplay of intense hard work and fortunate market timing. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Samsung Enforced 6 PM Departures by Automatically Shutting Down Computers
“They instituted something called family day. And family day was every Wednesday, and you're supposed to leave the office at six. And it wasn't enough just to have the policy. They literally reconfigured everyone's computers to shut down at six PM, like six dot…”
Samsung Monitored Mandatory 8 AM Broadcast Attendance With Clipboard Inspectors
“They had another rule where everyone had to be in their seat at eight AM watching what they call Samsung news, because they would have sort of like corporate communications at eight. And they'd have people with clipboards walking the aisle at eight oh one. And…”
Kraft Created 100-Calorie Packs After Observing Moms Using Small Ziploc Bags
“The way that that got innovated or launched is because they were doing focus groups, and they saw women, moms, buy a whole box of Triscuits or Ritz or whatever, and decamp them into their own small Ziploc bags for portion control.”
Rhyu: South Korean regulations mandate listing cosmetic manufacturers on packaging
“In Korea, cosmetic manufacturers are required to list the name of the manufacturer.”
Hero Cosmetics Sold Out Initial 10,000-Unit Amazon Inventory in 90 Days
“I think within 90 days we had run out of our initial inventory, so, and I remember before launch we were talking about, like, how long do you think it's going to take us to sell through 10,000 units? Would it take us a year? Is it going to take us six months? …”
Hero Cosmetics Intentionally Avoided K-Beauty Branding to Build US Consumer Trust
“So I actually did not want it to be K-Beauty... Just because I thought it should be an American brand for this American audience. And that was actually part of the value prop, because sometimes when you buy, I mean, even today, it still happens, like, I think …”
Anthropologie Expanded Hero Cosmetics Chain-Wide Just Two Weeks After Initial Test
“I think it was a week or two weeks after the buyer called and said, we were selling so well that we're going to go full chain immediately.”
Physical Retail Packaging Requires Text Legible From 10 Feet Away
“How you sell a product in retail is much different than how you sell it online. And so this, the box has to stand upright. The text has to be legible from say, 10 feet away, as opposed to, you know, three feet from your monitor.”
Hero Cosmetics Bootstrapped for Three Years Using Amazon Profits to Fund DTC
“Amazon for us was a very profitable channel, and the money we made from Amazon, we put towards launching our DTC site, launching slowly in retail, and I mean, we were, we bootstrapped for the first three years, and I think largely the economics of our product …”
Hero Cosmetics Shelved Planned Face Mask to Dominate the Blemish Patch Category
“And then I had a coffee chat with this investor in the space, showed her a mighty patch. I said, I want to do this new product. I think it's going to be a wash off face mask. She said, no, you should not do that. You should stick to patches. You should dominat…”
Rapid Target PO Growth Caused Acute Early Cash Flow Constraints
“You have to remember, I mean, we were profitable early on. The problem with the business was we're always chasing growth in terms of the, we were growing so rapidly and the POs were getting bigger and bigger that even though our top line was really high, I mea…”
Hero Cosmetics Rejected Early 2020 VC Deals With Predatory Liquidation Preferences
“There were just a lot of little tricks, a lot of trap doors and, you know, onerous prep structures so that essentially we could sell the business later on and still walk away with barely anything. I mean, they were just very investor friendly, very founder unf…”
Hero Cosmetics Avoided COVID-19 Sales Dips Because Target and Amazon Remained Open
“No, we didn't. I mean. Luckily, we were in the channels that were still deemed, like, essential retailers, so Amazon was still online, Target was deemed essential retailers, so so we really didn't see much impact.”
Hero Cosmetics Scaled Up to Six Months of Safety Stock During COVID
“For us, the strategy was to just lean into the inventory, which is risky. So we went essentially from one month of inventory on hand with lots of orders to at one point, we're up to six months of inventory on hand.”
Hero Cosmetics Initiated Its Sale Process After Crossing $100M in Revenue
“And I remember, you know, 20, 21, it was clear we were going to hit that hundred million dollar threshold. So there was a board meeting, and then it was a topic, and the question was, like, should we start a process? Should we think about this? And then everyo…”