We interviewed the clean, cruelty-free, and pH balanced hair care brand PERSEVE, set up by a mother and daughter duo of Hyeri Sung and Olivia Bae. We spoke with Olivia Bae, the daughter of Hyeri Sung, about how they reached $200,000 in sales within 10 months.
“About 30% of our sales are direct from our website so it’s a must for our business.”
We were inspired to discover the story behind this hair care brand and how Olivia turned her struggles with hair loss into a way to help others. We love how she turned a difficult situation into a solution for people who cannot afford the right haircare products.
Jumping into building a website with Wix, and creating a shampoo, conditioner, hydrating treatment, and a dual-function masque.
This mother-daughter duo creates affordable luxury Korean hair products.
Our brand is called Perseve. We are a women-owned AAPI haircare brand founded by my mom, Hyeri, who has been a New York City hairstylist for over 25 years. We are a cruelty-free and clean haircare brand that creates luxurious formulas at affordable prices. These are quality alternatives to prestige products. Our mission is to make high-quality haircare formulas affordable to everyone.
“As immigrants, our culture is super important to us so we focused on adding our background to the brand.” We are immigrants and our culture is very important to us, so we wanted to add our background to the brand. We knew from the beginning that everything would be formulated and manufactured in South Korea.
Our products are all below $20 but have the same ingredients, standards, and performance as a prestige product retailing for $30.
Working with Family
The best part of working with my mother is a little corny. We are polar opposites, but we get along well. Also, the fact that my mom and I are working to build something together motivates us daily. We have opposite personalities and work styles, but it helps us a great deal as a team. She excels in areas where I am weak, and in areas where she is weak, I am strong. We balance each other. We also prioritize communication, because it is important in all aspects of life, not just running a business together.
My mom is a New York City hairstylist who has worked in the industry for over 25 years. She’s always been passionate about haircare. I think that our love of hair care comes from the fact that it frames the face and makes us feel more beautiful. It can also help us in many ways to change the style and identity with the flick of a curling iron or snip of scissors.
Prior Experiences Before the PERSEVE Brand
Hyeri, my mom and co-founder, was a professional hairstylist for over 25 years in New York City. She created one of the very first non-toxic keratin treatments before launching PERSEVE. Her experience with manufacturing helped us a great deal with our brand. Before joining PERSEVE, I worked as an event planner, mainly for hospitality groups that organized corporate events. It’s a completely different job from what I do now.
The Day-to-Day of a Haircare Business
As a small-business owner, you don’t work the typical 9 to 5 hours. I start my day at the office around nine in most cases. When I arrive at the office, I check my email. My mom and I usually go to the warehouse and help our team pack orders and prepare wholesale shipments that day for pickup or delivery. After that, I will go to work. Most of my time is spent prospecting, sending out cold emails, or working on marketing initiatives and social media platforms.
PERSEVE’s Proudest Moments
We are extremely proud that we have sold 15K products to date and many of them are repeat customers. You won’t see results instantly. You won’t see immediate results in marketing, especially if you don’t spend thousands on Facebook ads. We launched our business through our website. We bootstrapped the brand and built it ourselves. We only outsourced a graphic designer and a photographer for our business. Other than that, we do most of the work ourselves.
Experiences with Wix
The templates are the best part of Wix. The Wix templates look great and are easy to use. You can also choose from a wide range of design templates. Wix is very user-friendly. It also automates a lot of actions, making it much more hands-off than other platforms. The analytics and email marketing tools have also been very helpful for our business.
Advice for New Haircare Businesses
In all honesty, however, I’d probably tell myself “have patience” because I was so anxious in the early months of my launch and kept beating myself up for not seeing immediate results. Once our brand began to gain traction, I realized I just needed some patience. Plan and organize everything. It’s always a good plan to create content and copy before you start the website. This will help you stay organized and finish the site much faster.
Research everything. Research your industry, your competitors, trends, and the ingredients. It is important to be informed because the haircare industry is one of the most saturated beauty sectors and you want to differentiate your product from the rest. We’re working on some exciting retail partnerships for the future, so we hope to have some exciting news very soon. Our ultimate goal is to make our products available in major retailers such as Sephora and Ulta.
