Two CEOs grow company into go-to K-beauty platform

Sarah Lee, left, and Christine Chang, co-founders and CEO of the U.S.-based K-beauty retailer Glow Recipe, pose in this file photo. This May, the two launched their own skin care products company. / Courtesy of Glow Recipe

By Kim Ji-soo

Entrepreneurs may be wishing for the kind of stress the founders of K-beauty retailer Glow Recipe face after launching their own skin care line in May.

The founders of the New York-based retailer, established in 2014, launched two skin care products — a cleanser and a mask. The Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask sold out in five hours on Glow Recipe's website. Soon after, it was launched on Sephora.com, selling out five times in a month.

"It was a stress, a happy kind of stress," said Christine Jang, one of the cofounders of the K-beauty retailer, in an interview held over the phone and through email.

"With this mask, we wanted to provide both the fun experience of K-beauty texture and the multitasking process and effect of K-beauty in one product," said Sarah Lee, the retailer's other cofounder. After a lot of searching, the company found a Korean manufacturer for their facial mask.

"You know, watermelon is not regularly used in cosmetics, but we harkened back to the time when our grandmothers would beat the heat and soothe their skin by putting watermelon on their back or face," Chang said.

Glow Recipe's success is a ray of hope as sales of K-beauty products in China begin to decline and as more Korean firms look toward the U.S. market.

"There is a lot of interesting movement in the U.S., including the Laneige launch at Sephora, the Innisfree retail store launch in New York later this year and the influx of K-beauty brands at U.S. retailers," Chang said. Hundreds of K-beauty companies have reached out to the company this year, Lee said.

Chang and Lee think a lot about expanding opportunities for more Korean cosmetic firms interested in entering the U.S. market, because they know how challenging and diverse the market is. One of their recommendations is for Korean firms to invest in critical marketing and brand building initiatives in the United States to support their products with the right context and education. For example, they explain how Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask was inspired by beauty rituals both experienced in Korea, where their grandmothers used to rub watermelon rind on their skin to soothe heat rash and irritation.

Chang and Lee are longtime friends and former fellow colleagues at L'Oreal Korea; they left their executive-level jobs at L'Oreal in New York to found their platform in late 2014. "We are passionate about making Glow Recipe the go-to platform for brands both big and small, to grow and build them in the U.S. in the right way," Lee said.

The company features 20 Korean brands, including J.One, Blithe, Whamisa and Primary Raw, both on their website and in Sephora retail stores.

The two cofounders, who each have over 10 years of experience in the Korean and global cosmetics industry, said they saw K-beauty's potential and decided to merge their Korean and global business experiences for Glow Recipe.

Both have bicultural life experiences. Chang has lived most of her life in the United States, attending only high school in Korea, while Lee has lived in South Korea and spent five years in Hong Kong. Lee and Chang met at L'Oreal Korea in 2004 and went to New York at different stages of their careers.

Chang and Lee excel at translating K-beauty for American consumers, who tend to be more rational consumers and less familiar with multitasking skin care products.

"For example, when actress Ha Ji-won's J.One brand launched the jelly pack (facial mask), we explained it as a make-up gripper," Chang said. Glow Recipe is among the three main U.S.-based K-beauty retailers, albeit it was a relatively late market entrant. Chang said they are grateful to be mentioned as the top three.

The company, however, broke even just three months after launching. Since 2014, the company has grown an average of 350 percent annually and now has 10 employees. Chang and Lee are expecting sales to reach around 10 billion won this year. As CEOs, they are receiving less pay than what they used to receive as executives at L'Oreal, so they could afford to recruit more employees to the company.

One of their first breaks came after they participated in the ABC show "Shark Tank" in 2015. Chang said they ultimately decided not to pursue the initial investment offer from a Shark Tank judge.

The company is currently bootstrapped without venture capital, and as the company became profitable a few short months after its inception, the priority was to find an investor and valuation more aligned with the co-founders' vision for the company.

Another boost came in 2016 when the company launched some of its partner brands' products on Sephora's K-beauty wall and partnered with QVC for their first hour-long K-beauty show.

"K-beauty has introduced some breakthrough products, such as BB cream and the sheet mask, and there really is this sense that Koreans are making innovative attempts with beauty products," Lee said.

Currently on their radar are new interesting mask textures and new application systems, such as pads and puffs.

"These unique technologies help make the skin care experience fun and accessible, versus being a daily chore," Lee said. "We call this K-beauty approach to skin care skin-tertainment."

The two said they actually do not perceive a glass ceiling working as female CEOs in the cosmetics industry. "I've had a lot of mentors at L'Oreal, people who successfully built their careers and then became mentors. I still keep in touch with them," Chang said.

"I went to an all-girls' middle school and a women's university," Lee said.

"This field that I work in has a lot of female colleagues and partners. And New York City, it's the city where working women thrive. I feel blessed to be a female CEO in a way."