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Daniel Yi spent eight years at Loot Crate as Director of Digital Analytics, so he knew subscription boxes well. The more business skills he picked up, the more he wanted to start one of his own. At lunch one day, he and a friend asked each other, “Why can't we do this?” Two more colleagues joined, and they had a team and a business model, but no product.
The product came next. Daniel went on his annual trip to Korea and saw a craze: Korean beauty, especially sheet masks. These are single-use pads soaked in hydrating ingredients, in hundreds of varieties from aloe to kiwi to lavender. A pack of 10 costs about 10,000 Korean won, under $10. The catch was that most people in the US couldn't easily get authentic ones. If Daniel could make them accessible, he'd be onto something.
They named the company Piibu, after the Korean word for skin. Each team member put in $2,000, spent mostly on inventory and marketing, and Daniel built relationships with suppliers in the US and Korea. After a pre-launch, they launched through Facebook and Instagram. A few publications picked up the story, and the team reinvested profits in paid search to find new subscribers. Pricing was competitive: $18 a month on a yearly plan, or $20 for a single box. At the time, Piibu had more than 900 active subscribers and about $20,000 a month in recurring revenue.
It wasn't all smooth. Every original partner except Daniel left the business, and he brought in a team member with more beauty industry experience. He took no profits and put everything back into the company, while talking to distributors about better pricing. His advice: be passionate about what you sell, especially when you're running it next to a full-time job and a family. For Daniel, who is Korean American, sharing his culture's influence with the US made it worth the effort.
I liked the site, with one note. The blog had no clear purpose and didn't match the polish of everything else. If you don't have a good reason to have a blog or a social profile, skip it and spend the time on something that matters more.
