Ju Rhyu

Ju Rhyu was living in Korea when she noticed something unusual.

People were wearing hydrocolloid patches on their pimples in public.

At work, on the subway, in cafés.

In the U.S., no one even knew what these patches were.

So she did some research.

Found a few sterile, medical-looking versions buried on pharmacy shelves.

And saw an opportunity: bring this product to the U.S. market.

Not as a medical product, but as a beauty brand.

She named it Hero Cosmetics and launched her first product, the Mighty Patch, on Amazon in 2017.

And then?

She sold out of 10,000 units in 3 months.

But Ju almost didn’t do it.

In 2015, she had everything ready to go.

Brand name, manufacturer, packaging.

And backed out at the last minute.

Too risky. Too uncertain. She shelved the idea.

Two years later, over dinner, she pitched it again to two friends: brothers Dwight and Andy Lee.

They said yes. And they became her co-founders.

They bootstrapped everything.

No outside capital until 2020.

And they focused only on proving product-market fit.

First came Amazon. Then came Anthropologie. Then Neiman Marcus, Goop, Urban Outfitters, CVS, Target, and Ulta.

The strategy?

Start with one sticky product and make it profitable.

From one SKU, they built a full acne care routine: over 20 products and a customer base where 70% enter through Mighty Patch and 60% stick around for more.

By 2021, they hit over $100M in sales with strong margins and high profitability.

In 2022, they sold Hero to Church & Dwight for $630 million.

The company had no debt.

It had only taken on one growth investment (Aria Growth Partners, 2020).

And it was already in 25,000 retail doors, with a box sold every 2 seconds.