Rhyu: Founders should hire experts who direct strategy rather than needing direction
Ju Rhyu · Turning a Korean skincare trend into $630 million (Hero Cosmetics' Ju Rhyu) | Masters of Scale · May 8, 2025 · at 27:04
Ju Rhyu, co-founder of Hero Cosmetics, discusses transitioning from managing junior staff during the bootstrap phase to hiring experienced VP-level leaders after raising growth capital.
0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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 were experts in their fields, and I would just, you know, I just let them go. And I wanted them to tell me, like, you know, we should be doing this, or you should be doing that.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ju Rhyu
Rhyu: Scaling past $200M revenue risks shrinking the strategic acquirer pool
“There is something called too big to buy. And so I really, cause you know, we were growing really fast and so the worry is once you know, get to like 202 50 in terms of revenue, then you're gonna be, you know, people might want a billion dollars for valuation.…”
Rhyu: A three-person founding team provides a built-in tiebreaker
“In hindsight, actually, the reasons why it worked out, I actually think three, if you have a co-founding team of three, it's actually great, because, I remember, and I remember someone told me, like, oh, three is one too many. But I think it's great because if…”
Rhyu: Driving fast corporate innovation requires explicit executive-level prioritization
“It takes, 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 a company called Church & Dwight, and they are a big company, not unlike, you know, the Pr…”
Rhyu: No brand owned the US acne patch category in 2015
“This was back in, yeah, probably, 2000 fifteen-ish? But there was no one that really owned the category.”
Rhyu: Fast growth cash flow strains impede investments in talent
“When you're growing really fast that cash flow sort of chase is always tricky, like, you know, 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 sort of impede you from make, making inves…”
Rhyu: Founders selling their companies must emotionally detach early like a breakup
“I tell people you have to, like, emotionally detach. So, because I've heard there's founder depression. So, you know, you work so hard at building this business, you know, it's like, it takes up your whole life, it is your life, and then boom, you sell, and yo…”