The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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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: 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: 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: 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…”
Rhyu: Founders should hire experts who direct strategy rather than needing direction
“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 sh…”
Ju Rhyu plans to start another company as a second-time founder
“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 second time founder. I think some things will be easier, and I think you can short circuit a lot of things .”
Ju Rhyu: Church & Dwight expanded Hero Cosmetics to 50 countries in two years
“In two years, they've taken us to 50 countries.”
Ju Rhyu: Hero Cosmetics Launched Physical Retail Exclusively with Target
“We were exclusive at Target, grew very deeply with them.”
Hero Cosmetics set a $100M revenue threshold to initiate an exit
“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 in the back of our minds as, That's the threshold. So the idea was like, once we get here, we're going to start a process…”
Hero Cosmetics' 2020 fundraise collapsed the week COVID-19 lockdowns started
“Our term sheets were due the week in March when the lockdown started. So it, I mean, that was a disaster. The raise didn't happen.”
Hero Cosmetics bootstrapped for three years on a $50K initial investment
“So I think it was 50,000 initially, so that's what got us up and running, but then, and then we were growing really fast, so we had to make loans to the company just for cash flow, but we bootstrapped until, for the first three years.”