The Launch Hour

Leaving a Skincare Legacy to Launch a New Edible Category

• Jenn Chung • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Jenn, the founder of Embody, reflects on her journey over the past few years. She started the company with the goal of taking her mother's skincare brand mainstream and making her proud. Initially, she faced many challenges and almost ran the company into the ground. This led her to start something of her own. Embody experienced rapid growth, reaching half a million in sales, benefiting from a niche market and the increased interest in skincare during the pandemic.

Jenn also shares her experiences with retail wins, such as securing partnerships with JCPenney and a major vitamin retailer – expanding Embody's presence in stores across the country.

She emphasizes the importance of focusing on her brand's unique selling point and not comparing herself to other companies or getting caught up in external pressure. Jenn mentions her personal growth throughout the journey, gaining confidence and clarity about Embody's and her own identity and purpose. She acknowledges the importance of enjoying the entrepreneurial experience and staying true to oneself. Jen remains motivated by her desire to help women embrace aging and feel confident in their own skin.

Learn more about Jenn and Embody:
Embody Website
Embody Instagram

Want to learn more about the creators of "The Launch Hour?" Learn more or follow along with the full-stack Launch Pop team.

Email: hello@launchpop.io
https://linktr.ee/launchpop

Jane:

We have Jen from Embody here. I'm so excited to talk with you and just catch up on everything. We helped you launch Embody to the World. I guess it's been

Jenn:

like what? Three years now. Four years. Yeah,

Jane:

three years. We worked with you for two years and I've seen you go through like the ups and the downs and all the things not only in the business, but also like personal. And I'm just so proud of you. You've come such a long way, like both professionally and personally and I think a lot of people see like all the press that you get, you like in Forbes and then all these like beauty press stuff and they think you're like crushing it and you're on top of the world. But a lot, there's a lot of work that goes into it. Tell us about your story. How did you start embody, what was it like at the beginning?

Jenn:

Wow, you met me when I was a little baby duckling, fresh out of my mom's womb. Just moved, just settling in into OC and now I am. I just turned 30 last week, so I feel like you were there during the most important time of my life and I've been looking back and reflecting on the last five years of my life, and I'm just really happy with how much I've been kinder to myself and really patting myself on the back. To your point, there's all this amazing stuff that I share, but I also try to share about all the crappy stuff that I go through. You do? Yeah, because it's been hard and it's still hard, and some days I'm like, wow, I'm not doing anything with my life. Why am I doing this? But I have amazing friends like you who remind me to what the end goal is, right? But I got started in Embody really by chance. So a little bit of background on me. I am a Vietnamese immigrant. My mom brought me here into the States when I was one years old and I grew up in Minnesota. Not a lot of people know this, but I'm a Midwest girly. I was there till I was eight and we moved around quite a lot. Typical immigrant story, your first generation family moves around a lot. And I ended up in the Bay Area in San Jose, and I spent most of my life there, like I consider San Jose my hometown. And my mom had started her own skincare company when I was a teenager, so she really started it by chance too. She has always been the breadwinner of the family, and she came across cosmetics and realized that it was. Such a passion of hers to help other middle aged Vietnamese women like herself who have devoted their entire life to their family. And now finally looking in the mirror is like, where the fuck have I, I can curse on here, right? Yeah, I can. It's a casual,

Jane:

right? Gee. Yeah. Totally.

Jenn:

She looked in the mirror and realized that she has devoted her life to everyone but herself. And now she's like in her forties wrinkles and just not confident with herself. And so she took back that narrative, took back control of her life, and she found that in the beauty products that she was selling to her customers. She was helping other women too, and I like to call her an influencer. She's definitely a personality that a lot of people really enjoy looking up to in her community. And so I grew up with this beauty company of hers and seeing her build this cult following and developing products and her thing has always been ingestible with beauty too. So at a very young age, I understood the importance of vitamins and how. It played with your topical skincare products. So when I had moved to Orange County, I was really trying to take my mom's brand and go mainstream with it because I wanted her to be proud of me. And I think a lot of I. Women can relate to this. We just wanna make our moms proud. And I felt so lucky that my mom had this cool company and that I'm working for her. But honestly, that first two years when I moved down to Orange County, I almost ran the company to the ground. I like we were living sales to sales. Every day. And I have no idea how it made it through, but I give props. My mom.

Jane:

Wait, so your mom gave like, she, she left with her ass off to create this company and she gave the rings to you and you almost ran it to the ground? Yeah.

Jenn:

She had such a fucked up way of teaching me this lesson, but she was like, okay, if you think you are so smart and you can do all of this, sure. Here's the reins. Do what you want. And I did that. I cut off a bunch of traditional TV marketing because we really thrived off of that. The tv, the radio, yeah. And I was like, no. Facebook ads is the way to go. So I scrapped all of the old marketing, spent a bunch of new mon money on packaging, branding, all these things that yeah, were essentially important, but you have to honor the past and what's worked.

Jane:

A hundred percent agree with that. I, that is such a good point that you bring up because so many times founders come to me and they're like, oh, look at this brand. It's so shit, right? It doesn't look like modern, it doesn't have Sans Serif fonts and stuff. And I'm like yo, these brands are probably killing it. Just because something doesn't look the way that it it's like fashionable or trendy right now, does not mean that it's not making more revenue than your company.

Jenn:

You're totally right because. That com, my mom's company was basically what was holding everyone up and paying my salary, essentially. And I almost ran it to the grounds. It was so difficult. And then the pandemic hit. A little bit before the pandemic, is when I decided to stop pursuing the mainstream market with that brand. my mom and I had a heart-to-heart conversation and I basically cried to her and was like, look, I can't do this anymore. It's so stressful. I don't know how you do it. Because when she was running this company, she was taking care of four kids. My stepdad wasn't in the picture anymore and she had employees to take care of, and I'm single. I have two cats, and I still stress, but I basically opened up to her and told her, I can't do it. I need your help. And then finally she was like, I know you need my help, and I'm willing to come back in.

Jane:

She's a woman.

Jenn:

She's so powerful, so manipulative, but with the best intention. So anyways, that's, that was like three or four years ago and now we have this perfect harmony where my mom is the face of that brand. She loves the product development and for me, I am about business development. So bringing new aspects into westernize the brand and make it more of a company than a family business. Yeah. Yeah. But that was going well. And then, but I always had this itch to start something that resonated more with me, that I could take mainstream. Yeah. Wait, one,

Jane:

one point on that too, I think like it's so important to note that your mom created something. That was super niche, right? Yeah. And understood that niche audience really well, like immigrants from Vietnam who were in the US busting their asses off and not loving themselves. Yes. That's a very unique audience. But she knew where they were going. They're going on the tv, the radios, et cetera, and she had to talk to them. That's also how you create a multimillion dollar company by going me and really understanding them. You don't need to be the company for everyone.

Jenn:

Yes. And she proved that. She took this brand that was from nothing, grew it until multimillion dollar company. And to this day, she's still very involved and the customers still really love her. She's also been very supportive of me figuring out my own path. And beauty is all I've ever known, right? Yeah. Just beauty is all I've ever known. And so right before the pandemic in 2019, I was like, you know what f this, if I wanna go mainstream, I need to create a brand that Americans, like women growing up in America like me will enjoy. How do I take what I have grown up with these ingestible beauty supplements and make it fun and tasty. And that's when I reached out to you. So it was really funny how I connected with you and timing is divine because let's take a few years back. Yeah. Our mutual friend, Sisun he had the company morning recovery at the time. And I had came across them on Facebook or whatever and was like fascinated because their packaging is very similar to ours. And this is my first peak into the founder world and the e-commerce world. And so when we were in this Facebook group together I saw him post about his brand and I reached out. I was like, Hey, can we grab lunch? Cuz that's when I was in OC grabbed lunch with him and told him my challenges with branding and going mainstream. And that's when he introduced me to you. So it was years before that. That kind of set up our date to meet each other.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny we just interviewed him too, cuz he was the first company that we ever launched. Yeah. It's wild. It's like we're going in chronological order of all we launched with and everyone's at different point in their life. It's been fascinating, but yeah. It's it's cool. But yeah. So how did you start?

Jenn:

So we I, I was just really frustrated cause I couldn't get the product at the time that I was trying to push mainstream to fruition. So it, it's basically collagen shots. They're really potent collagen shots and to me they're delicious to the Asian demographic they're delicious, but I just couldn't get them mainstream. They're also really expensive and people at that time, four years ago, they, no one really cared about beauty supplements, right? Vital Proteins was just starting to take off. But that was collagen powder. So it's like a whole different thing. Anyways. When I that November before the pandemic, before you and I met, I was on a, what would you even call that? It was a getaway, it basically like a summit. It was literally called Summit and that was when they had it in Los Angeles. I spent the last of my savings on this ticket cuz it's$3,000. And me and my girlfriend, one of my best friends, Brittany, I remember, I still remember we were crossing the street and I was telling her I need to come up with a new ingestible product. And she told me, she was like, why don't you just do gummies everyone's doing gummies. And that's when it hit me in the middle of the street. I need to do skincare, gummies. Yeah. And Started doing our research and at the time it was just me and Alexis, who's now our c o o started doing research, came up with the product and, had the meeting with you after and that was history. That was 2020 and we launched in June of 2020. Yeah. What was your first impression of us when we came through?

Jane:

I wanna know. Honestly, Jen you're super put together. You're super well spoken and like you didn't touch on this, but your background as in the beauty world as a pageant girl, oh yes. I think that really helps, honestly, and I think a lot of people don't understand that when you become a founder, people usually become founders because they're obsessed with the product, but they don't realize that 80% of your job is actually gonna be sales. It's selling your company to potential investors, potential employees, like just selling yourself, for the company. And you do a really good job at it. And I think it's from the, oh, you background, your pageant background.

Jenn:

People always make fun of pageant girls. But being in the pageant system for my entire early twenties, it has taught me so much. So for example, I. When I competed in pageants, the one thing you have to really prep for is the interview. You literally have just five minutes to pitch yourself to a panel of judges who have this idea of what a pageant winner is already, and you have to impress them. You need to know who you are and how to eloquently speak that. Yeah. So all those skills I never thought I would have to use again. But now as a founder, when you're pitching to investors, it is literally the same thing. Yes, you're in front of a panel of investors, you have to know who you are, who your brand is, what your products are, and you have only five minutes to pitch to them.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. And I don't think people value that skillset enough. Some people have raised 10 million and they don't really know what their product is. They're just super good at sales. They're selling the dream and the potential of a company that could be,

Jenn:

yeah. Yeah. But you think that it's easy. I've come to be a lot more confident about this skill, but when I met Jane and when we started pitching to investors, that was the most terrifying time of my life. I remember having anxiety dreams for weeks while we were talking to investors, and I didn't realize this, but through 20 20, 20 21, I had imposter syndrome. I never thought it would have it because I thought oh, I'm so confident in myself. I've never have that but for the first time I was starting something on my own and no one else was doing it. And do I even have the background to be able to do this? I questioned everything that I did and when I talked to investors, instead of thinking, wow, I have something so great to share with you, it was vice versa where I felt like, oh my God, they're so great. How do I impress'em? Yeah.

Jane:

Yeah. That's like a whole ass topic, which is like the investor route, right? Yeah. What made you. Did you get an investment? What made you wanted to get an investment and like how did you approach it? What are some the learnings that you had?

Jenn:

When I started to embody, I knew that eventually I would wanna raise outside capital because that was the only way we were gonna grow into this big vision that I had. And I was under the impression that I would have to raise in order to succeed. And the more people I talk to and the more involved you get With the founder community, everyone's always talking about B bruising and all these things, and you feel left out. And I think I put that on pressure on myself. But we've been bootstrapped for the most part. In 2021 we did have the opportunity to be a part of Mucker Capital. So that was through your introduction, Jane. And we've been working with Will ever since. And I was also scared that when you bring on an investor, They would be like up your ass all the time. That it would be this different kind of pressure and I'm sure it is and it will be one day for me. But Will's been our bff. I always tell him that we are his favorite brand and I have on record here. He agrees with me. So will you hear this?

Jane:

Shout out to Will at Mucker Capital? For sure. That's crazy cuz you didn't raise a lot from mucker. Like it was like a very small check. And you've been bootstrapped ever since. Yeah. I think that it's been interesting just following the investing and funding communities so far these days. People are realizing that you don't raise money unless you actually have to. The glory and the press that you get for raising a round does not equal success. It really doesn't, it just means that you've taken on cash. People believe in you. Yes. But now you have this pressure to grow. I think that a lot of companies that don't raise get enough acknowledgement. Like you've actually been running this business for what, like four years now and you've only raised like a super small check, like very minimal. And you've been just like trying to make this company profitable ever since that's actually. Amazing. And honestly, that's where in like all the money's going towards now. People who have raised a little bit of money and have just been trying to get profitable. I'm sure that if you do need to raise later on, it will actually be better for you later on. Yeah.

Jenn:

Yeah, and that was the excuse I was telling myself for the longest time. But I, I think there is truth to it that the longer that I wait the more milestones we hit, the better that raise will be. And there's a lot of brands that unfortunately through 2020, up until this point, raised so much money that they never had that strong foundation. And so what's happening now, they're going out of business because they just raised money to raise it. And they didn't have a great product, a great brand or something that differentiated them.

Jane:

Yeah, exactly. I think you're bang on. You launch Embody, and then what happens in the first year? What are some crazy awesome things and what are some shitty things that happened in your first year of business?

Jenn:

So 2020 was an odd year for everyone. And in the e-com space, all these D to C brands were growing like crazy. When we launched, we hit half a million in our first year. To me, I thought oh wow, I'm amazing at this. This is this is because of our hard work. And to, for the most part it was, but also 2020 was a year where Facebook ads, like a lot of the bigger players weren't investing dollars into Facebook ads anymore. So smaller players like us had a bigger pool to take out of. And everyone was at home. They had extra income to spend and skincare and wellness this holistic approach to beauty was the thing. And that really allowed embody to just hit all these milestones within our first six months. Then going into 22 and 1, 20 22, we're still riding that wave, but it started going down cuz now the reality sets in, right? People have less money to spend. The bigger guys are back in the picture and Facebook ads just weren't working anymore. And so now we're scrambling to figure things out when that was supposed to be what it was to begin with. So I try not to compare ourselves to those first two years we were in business. Because every time I look back I'm like, wow, what the heck happened?

Jane:

Yeah. And then talk about your retail wins. I think that was like a right.

Jenn:

Yeah, like we, we always knew that we wanted to get into retail too. And luckily for us, we were a little bit ahead of the game because e-commerce it's still lively, but I think for a brand to be really successful nowadays, like you have to be omni channel, I'm sure everyone's heard of that, where you have to be on Amazon and you have to have your website and also be in retail. So this is, I always share the story cuz it's a great example of how you never know what you do today will impact the future. So in 2020 I was part of this like online buyers event. And it connected beauty brands with beauty buyers because there wasn't any expos to go to. So we had someone from JC Penny reach out. They wanted to schedule a call. We sent them product, and we never heard from them again. Fast forward two years in 2021. We get a message from a new buyer at JCPenney and they're like, Hey, the last person you talked to got promoted. I'm the new buyer here and we really wanna carry your product. So JC Penney last year did something really interesting. So when support pulled out Of their JCPenney department stores, JCPenney has been scrambling to open their own beauty centers and what they're doing that's different from, let's say Alton, Sephora is they focus on indie brands and minority owned brands. Brands that you wouldn't typically find in mass retail. And that gave us the opportunity to now be inside JC Penney at these amazing beauty centers. So that was our first big retail opportunity. We're now in more than 300 stores and hopefully 600 more as JC Penney expands those beauty centers. But I never thought that JCPenney would contact us again, they had our business card. And then from there we attended Naturo Products Expo. In 2021 we met with the buyers of a really big vitamin. A vitamin chain store. I don't wanna say a name cuz we didn't, I know, end up doing business with them. But that ended up flowing through, like we onboarded, we assigned the contracts, we were getting ready for them to send the PO in and last minute they were like, gummies aren't doing well. Sorry and ghosted us. But from there another really big vitamin retailer reached out and was like, look, if they don't want you, we want you. And we are confident it's gonna be a better partnership. So we've onboarded with them, love the relationship so much more and I'm so happy that other partnership didn't work out cuz this aligns with us much more. But this summer we'll be launching in more than 500 vitamin shop stores. Yay.

Jane:

That's big, Jen. That's huge. Yeah. Does that feel good? Yeah

Jenn:

it feels good. It feels like work still. We know it's gonna be a harder work, but Yeah. I am, I'm so proud of the team.

Jane:

Yeah. That's awesome. That's so great. Yeah, I was gonna say ups and downs of the business. And then I guess, do you wanna share a little bit about how you've personally grown building a business? Cuz I think what's really interesting is that I think starting a business is A form of self-expression. Truly I think it's you expressing yourself and it's a vehicle for you to discover yourself. It's actually a very selfish thing to do in some ways, even though while you're doing it does not feel like it, but at. I think a lot of the times we start businesses because we want to discover ourselves in the most raw form, and it does push you in so many ways. So you wanna share anything that you found about yourself or how you've grown personally?

Jenn:

I'm a totally different person and I hope in the best way possible since I, I started this brand. But I'm also someone who is using this. Career to constantly learn, right? I'm one of those people that love to learn to do my demise, always work on personal development and it can get exhausting. Cuz sometimes you just have to sit there and be okay with who you are. You don't always have to develop. Yeah. Or personally develop yourself. But for one, I am so much more confident and sure in who I am as a person, and that has translated to me knowing what Embody is. So I feel like the last couple years I've always changed the identity of Embody or the messaging because I was never really sure. And this year for the first time I know what Embody does. We do skincare, gummies, and we are bridging the gap between, topical treatments and internal nourishment. And that's what we do. We don't do, we don't do like cleansers or creams or moisturizer. We do gummies and we're good at it. And that's helped me a lot. It helps, it has helped my team a lot too, not having to scramble to update branding all the time. There's just so many things I'm trying to think of another good one.

Jane:

I'll note that I think As a founder, you get influenced so much, right? You're listening to podcasts, you're listening to investors, you're listening to people like me, you're listening to your friends, your family, and at the beginning, because a lot of us were young and stuff like that, it's We get influenced and we change directions or we pivot a little bit. And then we pivot again and we don't know how to say no because we just wanna take all the opportunity we can. And we're, we have FOMO for our business.

Jenn:

I have hardcore fomo. Yeah.

Jane:

But I think honestly maturity not only professionally, but also personally is knowing. Who you are, what you're good at, and sticking to it and saying no to things that in itself is is so good for yourself and also obviously for your team. Yes. And that's actually where I see a lot of founders screw their companies up when they don't have focus and they just have so much bloat in terms of decisions and projects and people on their company. I've seen it so many. Yeah.

Jenn:

Yeah. And another thing is not taking myself too seriously, right? You have to really enjoy the experience of it. And whenever I take things too seriously, it always works out at the end anyway. So I look back and I'm like, oh, I didn't even have to really stress about that. So that's one advice I would give to people have fun and enjoy the experience. Because when I talk to founders who have, been really successful already and have sold their brands for hundreds of millions of dollars one advice they always give is enjoy the experience because one day you're gonna be there, you're gonna be at the top and you're gonna sell your company or whatever it's that you wanna do. And it's not gonna be as fun anymore as it was in the beginning stages. And I feel like that's why you enjoy what you do, Jane, because you get to be at the beginning and building all these amazing things.

Jane:

Yeah, the beginning is always the most fun, right? It's, I feel like it's the most romantic stage, right? It's like

Jenn:

you're just like the honeymoon stage.

Jane:

The honeymoon stage. You're so like, you believe in the product and you're just so in love with it. You see your packaging for the first time. I love being a part of that, but I also know, cuz I've grown Launch Pop for the past seven years. How hard it gets. Literally year four, I remember. It gets hard because like ultimately you have to dig deep inside and be like, why am I still doing this? Why am I still chipping away? Like I look at all my friends who have like cushy, comfortable jobs who are fucking around and just why, but you have to find something that's deeper that keeps you going with the company more than like an exit, right? What is it for you, do you think?

Jenn:

It really excites me that most women still don't know what beauty supplements are. And for us to be able to come in and be the first people to reintroduce beauty supplements in this way really excites me. And then helping women embrace aging, right? I just turned 30 and I was terrified of turning 30. If you asked me like a few years ago, I was so scared.

Jane:

I remember.

Jenn:

I was scared of getting wrinkles and sagging skin, and I was like obsessed with keeping my skin young forever. But obviously now that I just turned 30 last week, it's like stepping into your thirties is this amazing thing and I want more people to be able to embrace it. And one of those things comes with incorporating beauty supplements into your routine. Yeah, so that's ultimately why I do well. I think to be quite honest, I'm still figuring out that part why I do what I do. Yeah. But for this moment right now, it's because I want other people who are in my shoes that are aging to embrace it in a much more confident way.

Jane:

Yeah. I mean I actually think that your experience at in the beauty pageant world is also tied in because you are part of the industry that just glorifies you and flawless skin and then you got out of that industry and you're aging like we all do. And right. You actually are saying the truth when you say that because you love it when we hang out and you're like, oh my God, your skin looks so great. You actually just love seeing women age and take care of themselves. I truly do think that's a big part of your D N A.

Jenn:

Yeah. And. What people don't realize is whether you are 25 or 35 or whatever age it is, there's a different glow to you that surpasses that physical beauty when you are truly happy in your own skin. Cuz you can have two women, right? One who is maybe by standard, really beautiful, but she's insecure about herself. Versus a, a gal who maybe not be traditionally beautiful in some people's eyes, but she is confident and happy and living life. There's gotta be a person that you gravitate to and that's gonna be the one that's going from the inside out.

Jane:

Ooh. Spoken like a true founder of a

Jenn:

Wow. Look at me. One last thing on what I've learned is that I think we can really get consumed with the press and the PR that we at as founders it covers over why we do what we do. And I think I, I definitely struggled with that. You have your friends who are like Forbes 3,030 or they're doing all these crazy things and you have fomo and you are like, no, I want those things too. I deserve those things. And that you make it, that your reason to be a founder. And I am gonna be honest, I totally went through that and now it's yeah, those things will come, but I really need to focus on what I'm building right now. Yes. Before even thinking about those things.

Jane:

Yeah. Oh my God, so much maturity.

Jenn:

Wow. Look at me.

Jane:

No, but it's also I love that you said that you also like you're trying to figure it out and I think every single year, once you feel like you've grasped onto your answer for anything in your life, It changes and you change and your priorities change and then your business changes. And that's okay. And I think people just have to always just have fun because things will change and things will go up and go down, but you're right when you said always remember to have fun, that's so important. It's hard as a founder

Jenn:

There are days where I am driving back in LA traffic and I'm like, why the fuck am I doing this? Can I just say goodbye? Can I just say peace out and go, I don't know, work at a coffee shop or something.

Jane:

Yeah, but you're still doing it and I honestly think that you're doing such a good job,

Jenn:

Wow. Thank you.

Jane:

Okay I'm gonna wrap this up. But thanks so much for talking to me. And we'll catch up tomorrow,

Jenn:

Yes. Thank you so much, Jane, for even considering having me on. I love being able to share this story and hopefully be able to just spark a fire in one listener.