Ex-Silicon Valley engineer sells hangover cure drink

By Kim Hyo-jin

Sisun Lee

Sisun Lee, a 27-year-old Canadian based in the U.S., has experienced a life gone wild in the past couple of months.

The former engineer at Tesla quit what many would call a dream job in June and launched his own startup 82 Labs, Inc., to sell a hangover cure drink he created.

His venture hit $2 million in revenue through an e-commerce store in less than five months.

It all happened from what he called a “fun side project.”

“I enjoyed doing it, and it naturally became a full-time job,” Lee told The Korea Times in a recent email interview. “Once the project built momentum, I had to be bold and move fast to seize a special opportunity in front of me.”

Lee only discovered the efficacy of the hangover cure drink during a rare trip to Seoul last year. Though heavily drunk over night, after trying one of the local products he woke up fine the next day. Ever since that experience, he could not shake off the feeling he should do more with it.

“I needed to understand what had just happened to my body and bring this to the world,” he said.

Despite his hope to buy the product from Korean company, none of them welcomed a stranger with no background in consumer goods as a linkman representing them in the U.S.

He decided to create one himself and dug deeper into the core ingredient of anti-hangover drinks, which turned out to be a herbal compound called dihydromyricetin (DHM).

With the help of Dr. Jing Liang, a leading USC researcher on herbal remedies for hangovers, he came up with the product specifications and made samples through Korean manufacturers.

There was no direct overlap with his technological experience when it came to the science of producing a hangover cure beverage. Lee studied systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo and worked as a product manager at Facebook and Uber. He was working for Tesla as staff product manager.

But Lee said, “The experience still helped me with the framework of starting with understanding the goal, identifying the highest-impact solution, and executing it in an iterative way.” He was able to bring the product to market fast.

The public response was overwhelming after he put his creation on Product Hunt, a website that helps launch new products. Tens of thousands of people requested samples. Meanwhile, he was able to raise funds from Slow Ventures, 500 startups, a Korean Venture Capital called Strong VC, and other angel investors.

Lee had to quit his full-time job at Tesla to take it to the next level. He earned FDA compliance and presented the drink branded as “Morning Recovery” to paying customers in July.

Lee puts his expectation high on how far the sales of his product can go in the U.S. market. About 60 percent of the entire orders came from American consumers while the remaining 40 percent were from Europe and Canada.

He noted South Korea’s alcohol industry is $9 billion in size and its hangover drink industry is $200 million. Applying the same ratio to the $200 billion U.S. alcohol market, its hangover drink industry could be worth up to $5 billion in America alone, he said.

“Of course there are cultural differences and we can’t apply 1:1 mapping but I think this is an illustration for massive potential in the States.”

The entrepreneur has an extended goal in running the business ― fundamentally curing hangovers. He sees the path he is taking now as a unique opportunity to solve a common problem the right way.

“We don’t want to be a marketing company that sells yet another sugar-water,” Lee said. “We want to scientifically understand and solve hangovers.”