How "Taste to Retain" Built a Billion-Dollar Supplement Brand
In this Operator Spotlight, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Hye Rin (Juliet) Choi, VP of Product at Grüns, to unpack the product philosophy and process behind one of the fastest billion-dollar acquisitions in CPG history.
Hye Rin (Juliet) started her career in brand management at Johnson & Johnson's consumer health division, working on brands like Neutrogena and Tylenol, before pursuing her MBA at Stanford, where she met Grüns founder and CEO Chad Janis. She joined as employee number nine and the company's first product hire, helping build the product function from the ground up as Grüns scaled to over 130 employees and was acquired by Unilever roughly three years after launch.
Hannah and Hye Rin (Juliet) dig into the "taste to retain" philosophy that drives Grüns' product decisions, the rigorous, multi-stage testing process behind every formula, why bringing R&D and science/regulatory in-house was one of the company's biggest unlocks, and what it actually takes - sometimes 30 to 40 iterations - to bring a new gummy to market.
Listen in as they discuss:
- How Hye Rin (Juliet) went from brand management at Johnson & Johnson to becoming Grüns' first product hire
- The "taste to retain" philosophy behind Grüns' approach to product innovation
- Why solving for daily adherence, not just efficacy, was the real unlock behind Grüns' success
- How Grüns collects and acts on customer feedback throughout the entire development process
- Why 30 to 40 iterations are often needed to land a more complex gummy formulation
- The multi-stage testing process, from lab-scale research to third-party labs, that ensures product efficacy
- Why bringing R&D and science/regulatory functions in-house transformed Grüns' quality and speed
- The unique manufacturing challenges of working with gummies, from texture to shelf-life stability
- How Grüns evaluates whether a new product category or line extension is worth pursuing
- Hye Rin (Juliet)'s advice on documentation, version control, and protecting IP as a brand scales
Episode Links:
- Hye Rin (Juliet) Choi LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/julietchoi
- Grüns LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/Gruns
- Grüns Website: www.Gruns.co
- Grüns Instagram: www.instagram.com/Grunsdaily
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- Episode music by Super Fantastics
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