Today we’d like to introduce you to Taek Kim.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Before joining Bodyfriend, I worked at The Design Group where I slowly but steadily made my way to the Chief Director position – we were working with high profile companies such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motors and SK Telecom. Developing designs for multi-billion enterprises was terrific – it felt like I was part of shaping not only the products but also the future of these companies. The business was going well!
I consider myself a design person, and I believe sometimes design gets overshadowed by other tasks of business. This is not what I believe in. For example, most of the technology healthcare products are not designed to be visually appealing. There are car manufacturers that not only make cars but make ultimate driving machines. The car is not something that simply takes you from A to B. It was about time for healthcare companies to follow the examples set by phone and car manufacturers. I genuinely believe productivity and functionality are as important as design and branding should never be overshadowed by the other two. And the design is more than just aesthetics; it is about the user experience and how users interact with an actual product – human-factors engineering at its finest. It is on all levels!
About seven years ago, my secretary told me that there is a company called Bodyfriend that is interested in talking business. I did a little bit of digging, but I couldn’t find much about them. I was already working with some of the most significant brand names in the world and suddenly was invited to a meeting by something that felt like a startup company. I was a bit skeptical, but I accepted the invitation and agreed to meet with them. This turned out to be as one of the best decision I’ve made in my life so far.
My secretary arranged the appointment, and when we met, it was a real pleasure to learn more about the company and their plans. The founder of Bodyfriend told me that they are currently a small sized company, but he said that with my support in design and development and branding we would make the company number one in Korea within three years.
At the time the company only had 20 employees and revenue below $10 million, and they just had one store, so I was confused as I was not sure about how serious they are. It was evident that I am speaking with brilliant individuals, but I was not sure if the offer was serious.
However, I did my research about the people standing behind the business, and it felt like a great opportunity so I tailored and presented an excellent package of design services that they couldn’t refuse and we began working together. I was appointed as Bodyfriend’s CDO.
The branding services bundle that I offered to Bodyfriend was heavily discounted. The package of services they were getting was valued at about $500k, but I offered them a package of services for about $100k. Cutting 80% of the price was not easy. The reasoning behind my decision was the fact that I wanted to be part of the project. I knew that they are cooking something unique and there is potential. Money is not an issue when you are doing what you love, and you genuinely believe in the idea. Many years later I learned that the $100k that I initially charged Bodyfriend, was the only money that they had in the bank account at the time. They believed so much in my power that they were ready to put all their eggs in one basket – I am so glad I did not disappoint them.
From day one, I knew I was part of a team of winners. The company was ambitious, we were aiming at the sun, and from day one we knew that within 1,000 days we will be the biggest massage chair brand in Korea. We eventually made it in two years instead of the initially planned three years. It was a fantastic experience!
I started the quest for success from day one; we were hired to reshape the branding of the company. We moved from the funky old logo to this clean shaped modern logo that represents two hands instead of forming a chair and is also a growth curve that symbolizes our constant development.
Until I joined Bodyfriend, the branding strategy the company was to copy the traditional Japanese ways of offering massage chairs. I wanted to change that – there was no place for old-fashioned branding – we were living in the 21st century! So we started thinking outside the box. Design mentality and design thought Processes were the major part of what I contributed to the company.
We execute a lot of amendments and drastically changed the way we market our products. As you can see from the image below, there is a difference between what Bodyfriend was doing before I joined them and the direction the company decided to take after my input.
We worked better on presentation; not only branding, but also the products we offered and the places they were sold.
We started advertising in newspapers, fashion magazines, luxury magazines, financial magazines – we wanted to build the hype. This kind of advertising sparked the interest of people who would otherwise think of a massage chair as a bulky old product collecting dust in their living room reminding them of their back pain. Changing the concept and the branding behind the company helped us increase market share and reach out to the younger crowds! The massage chairs of the 21st century are in place not only because of the health benefits but because of the entertainment opportunities they present. Thanks to the well-executed product development, branding, and marketing strategy, our products become a must have for the top 15% of the wealthiest people in the country. We just had to adjust to their luxury necessities. As you can see in the image below, the first massage chairs release by Bodyfriend needed a lot of work.
Chris Bangle said that reputable car companies should not build cars for consumer objects just to be driven from A to B. Car manufacturers must be sculptors making mobile works of art. This is the type mentality we have at Bodyfriend too; massage chairs need to be visually appealing the same as the cars, simply because a luxury car that you purchase spends more time being looked at than being used.
As you can see, my life story is the story of the company that I represent. Numerous investors from all over the world continuously ask us how we do what we do and all I say is that a right combination between design and innovation is the recipe for company success and on personal level – all you have to do is be consistent, work hard and not expect the victory, but prepare for it.
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?
It indeed hasn’t been a smooth road! There is no way anyone can build a company from ground zero to a multi-billion market leader in ten years and say that it has been an easy way. I very often joke with friends and family that if someone teleports me back in time, I most likely won’t do it again. Of course, I don’t mean it, but the journey has been very time-consuming and I’ve had to jump over numerous obstacles. Time flies quickly when you are doing something you love.
I am a CEO of Bodyfriend’s US division, I oversee our factories in China, and I am still a chief designer of the company, I am in charge of the R&D department and also oversee the branding, marketing and communications departments. I am also deeply involved in the education side of our business where I help talent grow from day one. Despite the always hectic schedule, I take time and sometimes personally conduct the training to some of the new employees that we hire in the departments that I oversee. These are not easy tasks for a company that has over a thousand employees.
Building effective teams was one of the first challenges. Communicating my thoughts and design ideas to the employees and hiring employees with such mindset was probably the first challenge. The experience was similar to the rest of the departments – R&D, marketing, branding. This was not an easy task and required a lot of commitment. I started with the design, but then I moved to the rest of the departments.
Handling the factories in China hasn’t been an easy task too. Luckily, I managed to develop new skills and make new connections while studying there, so I had the experience of handling the factories, but of course it was not easy. Thanks to my already developed contacts I was able to choose the right partners.
When I joined Bodyfriend, it was a small company, and I had to wear many hats. Growing the design department from just me to over currently more than 100 employees hasn’t been easy. At the beginning, attracting the attention of good talent and keeping them on site was proving to be hard because at the time the salaries that we were offering were not as competitive. This meant that we had to not only provide them proper compensation but also convince them that their job move is a good choice. Getting quality talent from already established companies to an unknown brand was particularly hard.
Maintaining the balance and the right tone between disagreeing vendors, developers, factories, partners, factories, and sales channels was not an easy task too. In the beginning, it was near to impossible to convince them about the importance of design. They simply did not believe in design and were not happy to embrace the more western way of thinking. It was hard to get them to think outside the box and agree with me on the decisions we needed to make.
Changing the mindset of people inside the company was a challenge too. Inside board members and founders – they all had a fixed point of view, and the struggle was every day. It was often for me to have a conversation about something, agree upon it, so I can come back to work tomorrow and had to have the same conversation over and over again as they were getting back to their initial point overnight. And I don’t blame them; it was their money that I was spending. It was not easy, but luckily things played out well as people started seeing the results of our efforts.
Being a leader is fun, but this means that there are armies of employees and customers who are looking directly at you every second. Our customers are some of the wealthiest people in the world and maintaining high expectations could be a challenge. I haven’t had a vacation in 7 years. I always fly on Saturdays and Sundays, and I am very devoted to what I do. Fast grown is stressful too, it means that the more profitable we get, the more work we have to do. Catching up with a continually expanding market could be tricky. There are only 4-5 other brands that are more valuable than our brand in Korea. Luckily, I always have massage chairs around me and always take the time for a good massage so I can get back to being productive.
Please tell us about Bodyfriend.
Founded in 2007, Bodyfriend is the world’s leading health and wellness technology company. It focuses on user experience and avant-garde thinking processes, unparalleled to other companies in the field. Bodyfriend has received numerous awards for their design including the iF Design Award for Innovative Design and the Red Dot Award. The company continuously revolutionizes the way massage chairs are being experienced, and the company’s visionary outlook has allowed it to consistently grow since its inception reaching sales of $360 million in 2016 and expectations to top over $500 million in 2017. Bodyfriend is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.
We are known for our quality massage chairs and mattresses, and we are currently the highest grossing massage chair company in the world. Our goal is to create a total healthcare service company – we are not only producing hardware, but we are also building a platform that will be in place to make your life longer and joyful. Bodyfriend is currently one of the most popular brands in Korea and is known predominantly for our massage chairs and mattresses, but we have plans to expand our portfolio of products. Our service is meant to make our customers’ lives better. This is our mission, to serve the people and give them a better life. Even though you may hear us say it often, being a market share front-runner and thought the leader in our industry, this is not our number one priority. When we create concepts of new products, we do not do care what market researchers say or what the odds are; we do it because we want to improve the lives of the people. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford to have the freedom of being innovative without putting cost into perspective. Our goals are to be the actual body friend of our customers’ lives.
What we are proud with is not only our success, but the success and well-being of our employees. Very similar to what Google does in the US, our employees enjoy many perks of being part of one of the most recognized brands in Korea. We are bringing this aspect to the US too. Our employees in Korea benefit from on-site nail and hair salons, we have a dentist on campus, gym with personal trainers, skin care, and doctors that experienced in various medical practices. Recently, we even hired some of the top 20 chefs in Korea. They are now full-time Bodyfriend employees and take care of all the foodies who work at Bodyfriend. The chefs agreed that Bodyfriend provides better career opportunities for them than when they worked at the Sheraton, Marriott and Ritz Carlton. We value our employees, and we are very proud of them – they are one of the few reasons why we are a global market leader.
Furthermore, every employee has the opportunity to experience the entire process: from the point of sale of our massage chairs to the installation in customer homes. We want every employee to know what we do for our customers. We want them to be part of the company and understand what we do and what their work contributes to.
How do you, personally, define success? What’re your criteria, the markers you’re looking out for, etc.?
When I joined Bodyfriend, it was not known at all. Now, the company is worth billions. If you care about your customers and employees, the monetary gain is guaranteed. Before I joined Bodyfriend the meaning of success for me was about gaining wealth. This soon changed as I realized the success of our employees is more critical than our success. If you keep your employees happy, they will treat you the same way by being honest and devoted – success is inevitable if your customers and employees are satisfied. As for markers, our current customers are from the top 20%. If we manage to continue keeping them happy, this means that we are doing our job correctly.
We currently have more than 500k massage chairs that are being used at least 0.6 times a day. This speaks for itself! The majority of our sold massage chairs are overseas and we want to change that. We recently opened 2 stores here in Los Angeles and have plans to open at least 140 more locations across the US. We will be present products in every major metropolitan area in the US by 2022.
Contact Info:
- Address: 8001 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90046
- Website: http://bodyfriend.com
- Phone: 888 299 8218
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bodyfriendusa/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodyfriendcompany/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bodyfriend-los-angeles-3
Image Credit:
Bodyfriend
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