Meet Ray Kim

 

We recently connected with Ray Kim and have shared our conversation below.

Ray, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My brother, Justin, and I definitely get our work ethic from our parents, who are immigrants from South Korea. When arriving in the U.S., they worked hard to give us and our sister the best life possible. Our father was a serial entrepreneur from clothing to building his confectionary jelly cup business from the ground up, which eventually rubbed off on me and Justin as we explored our own path into entrepreneurship. He was always the first one in the office and the last to leave, making sure that everything was up to par for the next day; he sacrificed a lot to achieve success in his business, including not being able to golf with his friends while he raised us all, but it was ultimately worth it. He never once missed any of our sporting events and games, and it was a team effort with our mother too, who would always make sure we were not missing any classes or practices. Justin and I feel the same way as we near closer to The Plug’s fifth anniversary this October. We’ve been going hard since our launch – and before as well – and we rack up around 100-120 hours dedicated to our work per week. Every time we achieve a significant milestone or make a great sale, we feel that our hard work is being rewarded and that more is to come on this journey.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in economics and I put my degree to use by entering into finance, where it opened my eyes to all the different industries that were out there and how essential capital was to running a business. My brother and co-founder, Justin, took a different route after graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in East Asian History, where he worked for a Fortune 500 Company as a technology consultant, revamping a lot of back offices, technology implementations, and optimizing on the human capital front. Together, we wanted to bring a healthier, more effective liver recovery product to the U.S. market, and we brought our ideas to life by creating The Plug Drink in 2019 as we had seen the industry rapidly growing in South Korea.

Currently, we have two products, The Plug Drink and The Plug Pills, which each have 13 plants, fruits, and flowers with the highest herbal concentration on the market (10.83g). The Plug Drink has electrolytes to help you rapidly hydrate, and The Plug Pills have additional support of turmeric, milk thistle, and B vitamins. Each ingredient benefits not only the liver, but also helps with gut health, fatigue, headaches, and dehydration. Our Company’s mission is educating consumers about the power of plants and spreading awareness of liver health. As we grow, we hope to be making a bigger positive impact in the scientific community when it comes to clinical research, working with pharmaceutical companies, and partnering with liver associations and really doing our part to improve our society and showcase the importance of liver health. As for future plans, we are in the works to create more innovative forms of ingestion for those wanting different ways to support their liver health. We are also going to roll out 30- and 60-day supplies of The Plug Pills in new bottle packaging in the fourth quarter of this year.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Resilience is definitely the top quality a person should have when it comes to running a startup. There will be ups and downs, close calls, and things don’t always go as planned. Yet you must stay persistent in order to grow and scale your business – if you give up, then your business will never go anywhere. Flexibility is another quality that made an impact during our journey. The market is always changing and evolving, so it’s important to stay on your toes and adjust when necessary. The Plug wouldn’t be where it is today without us taking the time to shift and adjust to market changes. Lastly, I would say that having a good amount of business knowledge – both between me, my brother, and our father – has brought The Plug to the place it’s at currently. Justin and I didn’t dive into entrepreneurship blindly; the skills we gained from our corporate jobs and our degrees came in handy during times when we had to think about logistics, such as the period when the COVID-19 pandemic started to die down. Many small businesses shut down, but we were determined to stay afloat. We ultimately shifted our focus to lowering and diversifying our ad spend even more, while still growing and improving our KPIs. By focusing on our DTC business model and returning customers, we were able to continue growing and optimizing our business, leading to us becoming profitable in the summer of 2023.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

The biggest area of growth and improvement that I’ve experienced is by taking the time to listen to our real customers because there are so many valuable insights. Our loyal customers always come first, and when Justin and I took the time out of our busy days to hop on a call with certain customers that actively left a testimonial, it’s truly a humbling experience. Hearing each customer’s personal story of what they were individually dealing with and how our Company, The Plug Drink, was able to solve, alleviate, or even help in any way, shape, or form is what was truly eye-opening. This has been my personal area of growth as I became a bit too focused on our Company, hitting certain sales numbers and spending a lot of time on fundraising, instead, of actually taking the time to step back like we used to do on the early days of our Company when it was less busier and listening to our customers. By doing this, it motivated both myself, Justin, and the rest of our PlugFAM even more to keep working hard for those that want and need our product. This is a priceless moment that really made me realize that we are making a positive impact in our customers’ lives one at a time.

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