Today we’d like to introduce you to Suran Yoo.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Silk or Lace began with my personal journey being diagnosed with alopecia. It first began during my junior year of college, which was a tough time being in your early 20’s and still trying to figure out your womanhood. I grappled with finding confidence in my outer appearance while trying to find a solution for my hair loss.
In 2019, I stumbled across a group of women on social media wearing wigs and hair toppers and it changed my life. I found that I could celebrate my hair, which I hadn’t been able to do for so long! I felt beautiful, but more importantly, I finally felt empowered to transform who I wanted to see in the mirror. I started @the_strandie on Instagram as a content creator platform to share my experience with other women who were specifically dealing with hair loss. I thought to myself, if I can help other women with resources and answers I had when I first dealt with alopecia, I’m happy to share my story.
This was a year ago. After reading hundreds of DMs on Instagram with so many women asking how to wear wigs and hair toppers, I realized a missing opportunity in the wig market. Women had a hard time finding realistic, natural, every day wear pieces, not for the lack of high-quality wigs in the market. Instead, they struggled because they lacked an easy shopping experience.
Wigs and hairpieces are not often “show off” pieces. Meaning, a woman likely isn’t going to tell another woman she is wearing a wig (because the point is that they shouldn’t be able to tell)! The secretive nature of these products have enabled an industry that lacks transparency in many areas. As a result, women who are in the market for these pieces find it extremely difficult and confusing to shop for wigs.
I founded Silk or Lace in April 2020 as the first marketplace for boutique, highly curated wigs and hairpieces. It’s the first platform specifically catering towards customized for hair pieces with custom search filters and unbiased reviews across brands. This is game-changing because, for the first time, customers are able to shop, price compare, and read reviews across brands they can trust, which helps democratize a traditionally secretive industry. Wigs and hair toppers aren’t just for women with alopecia – it’s for people who want to transform their look. Silk or Lace seeks to innovate within the hair industry and introduce to all people the empowering world of hair!
Suran Yoo is the founder of silkorlace.com. Her professional background includes market research, media analysis, and brand consulting for both Fortune 100 companies and startups in the food and consumer products industries. She graduated with her MBA from the University of Chicago in 2019 and now advocates for women with hair loss and works to provide more resources in this space. In her free time, Suran loves to collect cookbooks (she owns anything David Chang related), make her own Halloween costumes, and play with her puppy, Ford!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the books that have influenced me the most is “Grit” by Angela Duckworth. The idea of the daily grind both motivates me and gives me hope. Silk or Lace has been live for three months now, but we’ve faced our share of obstacles and challenges. The company launched in the middle of the COVID pandemic and consistently faces challenges in virtually onboarding both vendors, software developers, and our customers onto the platform.
Additionally, the challenge of a marketplace is that you have to develop both the demand and supply side at the same time while convincing both the demand and supply that the other side will come when you join the marketplace. It’s a “chicken or the egg” scenario, which discourages many from building a marketplace in the first place.
However, we’ve found through all of our challenges, one core brand value, that has helped us unravel the knots in our business, which is transparency. We firmly believe in sharing our business model, our commission structure, our data analytics with our partners as well as our customers. This has helped us to develop our strong relationships and early customer loyalty.
Silk or Lace – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Silk or Lace was founded in April 2020, with a vision to enable an easier and more positive shopping experience when finding their perfect wig or hair topper. Here you’ll find a marketplace that connects consumers with high-quality hair brands that they can trust.
We believe that consumers should feel empowered in their search to feel and be beautiful. Our easy to use filters for hair colors, lengths, capsizes and price enables you to easily find exactly what you’re looking for. Our Hair Finder tool (think flight alerts, but for hair!) notifies you when a one-of-a-kind custom hairpiece matches your search preferences. We just started, but we’re looking to grow and improve your shopping experience more with every single day. We hope you grow with us!
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I couldn’t believe it when we got our first customer who purchased their third hairpiece from us, only three months in. She showed me that she believed in our mission, our vision, and our dreams. It’s one thing getting a testimonial – it’s another to have someone invest in your company!
Contact Info:
- Website: silkorlace.com
- Email: [email protected]
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