$100K/Month Building A Face Yoga Empire – Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey, there’re entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant and welcome to Trep Talks. This is the show where I interviewed successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business story, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Koko. Hayashi to the show. Koko is a Japanese serial entrepreneur and the founder of Koko Face Yoga. Coco Face Yoga offers fake face yoga, educational content through Coco face yoga app instructor certification, and also through social media content. And today I’m going to ask a few questions about her entrepreneurial.

And some of the strategy and tactics that she has used to start and grow her business. So, really [00:01:00] excited to work on you today at Coco. Um, really

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited. Yay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, anyone who does not, you know, we, I think most people have heard the concept of yoga.

Mm-hmm. Can you share a little bit about your business? What actually is face yoga and Yes. What, what, what is the product

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: that you’re. Yes. So face you guys a great natural solution to regain or maintain your youthful appearance. We wake up sleeping muscle in the face to lift up the face and relax.

Overworking muscle for wrinkle reduction. A k A, it can be natural alternative to Botox or plastic surgery. So we offer the face yoga, educational contents through our face, yoga. And, uh, instructor certification or group session, private session, and even on social media. And cuz you can get some advertising income [00:02:00] from our social media.

So those are the main income streams.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So how did you get the, I mean is this the concept that you came up with or is this like No. Already something that was out there. And in

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Japan? Yes, in Japan it has been around. Decade. More than, definitely. More than a decade. Yeah. So it, I’m Japanese. I was born and grown up there, so it was very natural for me to start doing it.

But the tipping point was it. Tipping point is, um, when I, when I was a plastic surgery failure. When I had a plastic surgery failure, I experienced my chin implant messed up. Wow. Okay. At the age of 27 years old. Currently I’m 43, so it’s a long time ago, but Okay. You do lots of stupid things when you’re younger, right?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What’s Well, well, well, two things. Number one, I mean, I would’ve assumed, number one, I, I mean, I would’ve thought you, you look, I mean, I’m, I’m not trying to

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: complement. Yeah. I tried to fix it. Yeah. [00:03:00]

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I do lots of But you don’t, you don’t, you don’t look 43 to be honest, like you Oh, you, well you look anywhere between 27 to 32, so I mean,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: maybe cause it’s a good lighting.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And the second thing I would’ve said, you know, you probably didn’t need a chin implant. Yeah, yeah.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: You know, I did not at that time. Lots of things I didn’t know. I wish I had known. Okay, but I didn’t know at that time, so I did the surgery, messed up. Then I realized I should have done some natural stuff like face yoga, because there are so many books.

Not that time, not many masters, but there’s a education. There’s a lot of face yoga, facial muscle education thing going on in Japan. At that time there was internet too, but then very little information, but still there’s a. TV show or something and still, yeah, it was a lot. So I, I was able to learn a lot from free information and then, yeah, then I, [00:04:00] mm, like seven years ago, I took certification course to be official facing instructor in Japan, and then came to us to, The amazing benefit.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yes. Okay. So if the, if the concept behind face yoga really is that, you know, below your face, there’s like muscles and with your face yoga methods, you are really trying to activate those muscles and make them firm. And is, is that really the idea or, yes, please help me understand that. I mean, I, I would’ve thought that the whole process of aging and wrinkle is, is, is it not really just through the.

Like your skin skin’s kinda getting wrinkled. So can you share a little bit more about like how

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Yes, we have, we identify two kinds of facial muscles. Blue are sleeping muscle. In case you are watching this video. Those are sleeping muscle that we want to wake up. It’s around the mo, around the face center of the face, including eye.

The other one like forehead is [00:05:00] always moving up like this or frowning like this and causing the 11 lines here or like, um, the.

Muscles of the muscle are saggy or neck. Neck tension. Enjoy pain here too. Those are overworking muscle that we want to relax. So that’s what all we do for, yeah, wrinkle reduction and lift up your skin as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And so I’m assuming that the mo, the, the, your primary target audience are women?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Uh, yes. Yes. My YouTube’s subscribers are mostly really young, 16 to 25 younger people.

Lot the, from India too, because YouTube is very popular there

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: in terms of, um, the benefits of yoga, um mm-hmm. Or the space yoga technique. Have there been. [00:06:00] Is it, is it really mostly anecdotal evidence or has there been any, some, like some sort of Yes.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Research studies. Yes. Clinical study 2018 Northwestern University did, uh, phase exercises really work or not?

And they concluded that it does work if you do it correctly. Yeah. So there’s a clinical study. And they said, uh, yeah, couple years younger. Kim Kim showed that. Yeah, sign slow down the size on size, signs of aging by couple years. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. Yeah. Um, and what is, uh, so anybody who starts to learn this, uh, technique and start doing it, uh, what kind of time commitment is required and, and, you know, um, how quickly.

Let’s, let’s say some, let’s, well, yeah. Let’s say someone is like, you know, has already started seeing wrinkles in the skin. Mm-hmm. Or something. Is it kinda [00:07:00] like reverses that process or is it like it’ll slow down further your skin getting further wrinkling in the future?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: I believe we can reverse the signs of aging, I think so the younger you start, the better, easier for you to do it.

But the good thing is that if you are mature. Then you start doing it, you’re gonna see bigger difference because you already have deep wrinkles, for example. Okay, so this works for any age younger people in older mature audience. And I often talk about the tongue posture. Okay. And

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: that, and that also helps to stretch, I guess, your

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: muscle.

That really helps the facial. So this tan is tan. Tan posture thing is very, very important for kids. So I have lots of kids [00:08:00] followers too. My TikTok sometimes like teenager, 12 years old, 14 or something, they’re watching me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. Yeah. Cool. So, well I’ll, I’ll trip the topic a little bit. So, um, I know you, so you said that you know, you are a Japanese entrepreneur, you’re a, you know, serial entrepreneur.

Can you share a little bit about the culture of entrepreneurship in Japan? Because, um, and especially, especially for like, uh, Uh, women is, are there a lot of female entrepreneurs in Japan? Is it difficult or, or, or sorry, are you some, or, you know, is your story a little bit because from what I’ve heard mm-hmm.

And I don’t know too much about Japan, but I thought it, it’s a very more of a, um, you know, male dominated, um, correct country and more of a traditional, uh, country. Um, so I don’t, I mean, can you share a little bit about the culture of entrepreneurship? Yeah. And especially like as a, as

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: a. Yeah, definitely.

There are, of course there are female entrepreneurs or business managers, successful people [00:09:00] in business too, but not as many as in us. I compare us because I live here, but then there also like a study saying that the, the Japanese female, like. Very, very few compared to other countries. So compared to other countries, other developed countries, Japanese, um, this, the female being entrepreneur or being in a really executive level at corporate, the percentage is very, very low.

The government is trying to increase, but it’s taking time. Yeah. So I’m like, Different. I’m a very weird person.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, so you, uh, I mean, you would call yourself like a more of an entrepreneurial person, like from your personality? Yes. Like what motivated you? So you, you’re, you’ve been a serial entrepreneur, like what?

Mm-hmm. Um, what motivated you to really get into business? Was it really all, were you always like thinking [00:10:00] about business, new business ideas and getting into them? Or was that some, someone. Or something motivated you to start

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: your own business? I think I had a lot of, I was lucky to have a lot of good mentors, lots of entrepreneurial mentors.

When I was late twenties, around thirties. Yeah. At that, at at the beginning, I was just a corporate. Person, employee, or like a billion dollar, big, huge company. It’s like a Microsoft or something like that. Okay. It’s big tech company. Five years after university. That was my, my first job. And then no one think about being entrepreneur.

There was no, there was of course word for entrepreneur, but there it’s, it was not really commonly known at that time, so no one think about it. I didn’t think about it, but then, Yeah, my mother passed away suddenly, and then I, I had to leave the country because if I live in Japan, still doing the same job, doing the same thing, I, I keep thinking about her.

Hmm. So I, I wanted to drastic change in my life. So I went to Hong [00:11:00] Kong to study m b a degree, and then I took the entrepreneur course. Then, then I met some good mentors that they encouraged me to do some small businesses. And I started to selling soap, Japanese soap in US though. So that was my first business, which I have been still doing it more than 10 years.

Okay. Trying to sell the business. It’s been a challenge, but that’s way bigger than my face yoga business. Face yoga is a second business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So it seems like, um, what motivated you? Come to us. Like, to me it seems like both of your businesses, you, it’s primarily you’re doing it in the us Is it really? Cause it’s a bigger market or,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: um, it’s big, bigger market too.

And also the soap is made in Japan, so, and it’s already popular there, so I cannot sell in Japan anymore. So I wanted to try different market. Also, one of my mentors was American and they, [00:12:00] he advised, uh, he supported me a. To, to create the business and then find other business partners or something like that.

So that was e It was easier for me to do it in US than other countries. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now, on your website, I mean, one of the big, I guess, proof points, um, and, and, and it seems like, I mean, I’m seeing, um, you know, for those, you’re, you’re also working with like the Kardashians and things like that? Yes. Mm-hmm. Um, You know, you have like before and after photos on your website.

Mm-hmm. And it’s like, I mean, I see before and after. I do see like the incredible difference. Yeah. Is it, is it like really this graphic, like, I mean, you have photo one year before and then one year after, like almost, it’s a significant difference I would say like in, you know, in appearance. Um, how do you, like, is there, is there a scientific process?

Taking these photos or, uh, [00:13:00] or these people have had any surgeries also, um, like this is, this is a significant,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: uh, improvement. Yeah. On our website. There are so many before, after photos, and those are real, no surgery or anything. One, once you know the difference between overworking muscle and sleeping muscle, you’re gonna start, not, not just exercise, but we call it face posture.

That means like how to speak. How to eat, how to drink, how to rest your face. Like right now your face is resting, your face is not doing anything. So that, we call it face posture, resting face posture. Okay. And those things really matters too. How to move your facial muscles in our daily facial daily life.

So you’re gonna learn those things and then it’s, it’s gonna, yeah, definitely create a big. Because, so yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re moving around the face all the time. So when you, when you

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: look at my face, like, [00:14:00] do you notice that or you know, can you look at someone’s face and you’re like, you know, this person is doing X, Y, and Z that they shouldn’t be doing?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. When you look at my, what can you tell

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: have might have a master tension you think?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Mm. Here a little bit. I think that’s kind of my genetic, uh, I think my, my mother, um, also has like this kinda, okay.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Okay. But often I notice when I do side view, when I see side view, I don’t say anything to them, but, oh, she is, her tongue is down.

When your face is resting, tongue should be up.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Are you new along, along the, the roof? Mm-hmm.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like a flat, but very often it’s like this. And then when you, when you do like a tongues down, you’re gonna have some wobble here, like saggy here on the chin area or jawline. [00:15:00] Okay. If, especially if the person is fit, but still you have. Some extra stuff.

Oh, she’s not viewing, uh, it’s called mulk. This is called mulk, and then I can tell that she’s, her tongue is down. I don’t say anything to them, but I can’t tell. Or sometimes their muscle to muscle. This Jo Jo muscle. It’s very, very strong. And then your face is like a. Like square. That’s how we know is overdeveloped.

The person is very stressed. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do do I look stressed? No. But

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: um, could be a little bit less, I think

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: have,

um, Well, that’s, that’s very interesting. So, and, and do you have a huge following on your social

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: media also? Yeah, we’ve been doing, I studied YouTube, so the, the reason why I studied face yoga business is that [00:16:00] the, the first time was the plastic surgery failure, right? 20, at the age of 27. And then I studied learning it and studied, showing some tutorials on YouTube and then, so there was no business at that time.

But then the more I do, I was randomly doing YouTube like hairstyle or skincare or food or something. But every time I do face yoga tutorials, the views were up because at that time there’s very few people doing it on YouTube. Now there are more, but that time, 10 years ago then so slowly grew slow.

Slowly has grown, and then I realized that, oh, maybe I can make this, I can make money from. Hmm. And then the YouTube started making some advertising income. Kim Kardashian found me and then, then Shark Tank found me too, [00:17:00] and then was, Wrapped it. Oh, it

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: was good. I mean, I, I definitely want to ask you about all those things.

Um, so your main products is really, so you have an app mm-hmm. And I’m assuming it’s available on iPhone and Android? Both. Yes. Mm-hmm. And on your website, I’m trying to see all the products. So you have like some, uh, physical products also, like your face pillow I guess,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: or something. Um, that’s more affiliate.

I do physical product only for the sole. And I try to make this face yoga as digital as possible. So we don’t have any invent physical inventory for face yoga business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. And the certification, is that kind of like, um, an online class kind of a thing? You, you do those

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: classes? Yes. Everything is online.

Yeah. So we have lots of clients who are clients and are certified instructors like India or Europe, Asian countries, some in US too, but it’s kind of all.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: [00:18:00] So you basically certify them and then they can go out and, uh, help help other,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: other people? Yes. And, uh, make money. Yep.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. And, and your app, is that free to download or like free to download?

What is a business model behind the app? Yeah, I

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: think, uh, it is a freemium, so I think it was five exercise or free. And the rest 50 exercises not free. Okay. And, uh, it’s a monthly subscription, $12 around per month. Yep.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. And, uh, I mean that, that, that, that makes me wonder, like if you have 55, like what, how, how much time do I have to spend every day doing this space yoga?

Oh, that’s a good situation. Yes. Yes. So that I can see results.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. It’s just only a couple minutes per day. Only because. Facial muscles are much smaller. It’s not meant to be like hard work workout, like body work workout. You might do like 30 minutes, 45, 1 hour face don’t need that much. It’s, it’s the, the purpose of [00:19:00] facial muscle is to create facial expressions and then move the function to eat, speak, all those things.

And it’s not like this big muscle. So you don’t need that long time. You just need a couple minutes per month. Per day. And in addition to the exercise time, You wanna, you wanna keep your tongue up whenever your face is resting. And I teach how to eat, how to speak, how to drink a lot of things. So once you learn that you wanna do that, when every time you eat, every time you speak, every time you drink.

So exercise was, it’s just couple minutes per day and you, you wanna see, you should see good result. Could be like couple weeks or a. Or sometimes the ears, if they are very mature, but then they see big difference too, because they already have deep wrinkles. So is

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: is, how does one look for result? Like is it [00:20:00] really purely subjective?

Mm-hmm. That today in the mirror, my face looks, you know, firm or something like that? Or is there, is there a way to actually measure. Results. Um, you know how, how do, like, do you take pic before and after pictures

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: and two time track? Yes. Cause our job, we do this online on Zoom. So all the job, uh, all the before, after pictures are just screenshot for now.

Okay. But I’m hoping to incorporate some technology into the app to measure more accurate data. That’s what we are hope, hoping to achieve this year, because right now the app has symmetry analysis. Okay. And, um, some ar functions, augmented reality. Mm-hmm. But I, I want to offer more, but it’s been challenge, so we are trying Yeah.

Trying to find developer who can do that. Like if you do it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like a [00:21:00] sub propose. You should do this exercise after you take a picture. Like, I wanna do that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Okay. More of like an artificial intelligence kind, a thing where Yes. Scan your face and then mm-hmm. Basically, mm-hmm. Creates a personalized plan

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: for you, right?

Yes, yes, yes. Right now you have to manually click, click, click, and you have to manually do that, but it’ll be really cool if we can do automatic. After take pictures.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. So I mean, that makes me wonder, like, um, creating this kind of an app, of course there’s an investment that went, went into this. Can you share a little bit about the business side of the, when you decided to start this business?

So you said that initially you started posting some pictures or videos around this and you started seeing, you know, interest around that. Mm-hmm. And at a certain point you probably came up with a business idea. Okay, I’ll create an app. There will be a subscription model around this. What was the cost when you started developing the app, um, [00:22:00] and what kinda investment went into, uh, because I’m sure it’s, it’s an ongoing investment to

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: continue develop.

Yes. Yeah, it’s ongoing investment. At the beginning it was, we did really cheap, maybe like less than 5,000 because I was on Shark Tank and I knew the air date, and then we had, we didn’t have much substantial item. Sell. Hmm. Which is a huge mistake. You get so much publicity from the TV show and then you don’t have anything to sell.

That’s crazy. Hmm. We, we had a, like, certification course or something. Uh, I’m sorry. At that time we didn’t have a certification even because the Shark Tanks came to me too quickly.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, yeah. Can you, can you share a little bit about short time story? So they came to. Um, they invited you or did you fish to them?

Yeah. And then so what, what did you ask? Like, yeah, they found me. You didn’t have a, if you didn’t have a product, what, what were you, what kinda investment looking?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Well, we had a small [00:23:00] product, like private session, group session, something super generic product. Okay,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: so that was when they reached out. When they reached out to you, like what did the I.

Uh, I, I mean, I’m, I’m surprised given that you didn’t have like a very, you know, a developed product, like Yeah. What did they say? How did they approach you?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: I think they just wanted to have something unique. Okay. So not all the contestants, not all the, the business, business people, businesses are fully, um, developed?

No. I mean, no one is fully developed, but I think you need at least 200,000. Quarter, quarter million sales or something like that at least, or around, I think that’s like average. But then I didn’t have like $20,000 or something sales at that time. So that’s how I mean by they came to me too quickly. Okay.

And then so can, yeah, but they [00:24:00] needed some, I would assume they needed some interesting businesses. Like if I do some face exercise, The one. Hmm, the Mr. Wonderful or someone like that. It’s obviously, it’s funny, right? Yeah. So TV show need funny scenes, more laughters and I can provide that. That’s why I, I gotta like a, yeah.

Good spot.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I, I guess part of part of that also is, I mean, your personality that you’re, you’re there to entertain and so, so I guess, you know, they’re looking for that package. You. That it, it’ll make an entertaining show, but then also there’s like a, some sort of a good interesting business idea around that.

Yes, yes, yes. What was the outcome of that? So you did, I mean, I haven’t seen your episode. I’ll definitely go and watch it afterward. Course. What was the, can you share a little bit on uh,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: well, I did not get that offer. But if I, if you think about it, it’s, it’s best if you don’t get offer [00:25:00] or you reject and then you still get air.

That’s the best scenario in my opinion. Yeah, because the, the offer is not that good because they take a lot for their publicity thing, but they’re not gonna do much, uh, after the show. So it’ll be best, it’ll be better if you don’t get offer, but air. Definitely I, in my opinion, but, but everyone is gonna be

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: aired.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Uh, so I mean, it’s, it’s kind of a testament that, I mean, you have a bit of a, I guess a show, show business or like that entertainment mm-hmm. You, you are entertaining in a way because I, I’m seeing on your website, like you’ve been on multiple different

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: type of shows. So yeah, we, yes, I’m like a talent.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay, so, so maybe you’re in the wrong business. Maybe you should be going doing movies or two TV or something. [00:26:00]

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: No, no, no. I mean, I’m, I’m, I face yoga talent, so Okay. I do that. Okay. And I use this PR opportunity. Oh, okay. And then I try to turn into real business, which is money. Yeah. That’s why I’m, uh, yeah.

Excited to develop more better app to, with the te. So the, the, to answer your first question, the, it was like 5,000 or something to develop the app cause it was very simple. And then ongoing, you have to invest time to time, 2000, 5,000 or the

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: more technology and, and, and right now are you a profitable, I mean

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: yes.

This is the very business because there’s no cost. Yeah. There’s no physical cost at all. And I, I don’t need a lot of marketing budget. Because I do by myself. That’s a great

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re the one marketing

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: it, so Yeah. I’m the influencer. Yeah. If you’re not influencer, you have to hire [00:27:00] influencer or pay PPC or something, and then Yeah, you marketing budget.

Our marketing budget is, it’s really

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: non Exactly. I mean, I mean that’s a, that’s a huge asset, right? That you can, you know, you can, you can bring eyeballs, you can bring people into, watch your content and then I just, you. Whether you’re selling this product or something else, I mean, you can create a different product as long as you, you’re able to bring people in.

Mm-hmm. You can sell anything pretty

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: much, right? Well, not anything, but, uh, yes. We, I think we have a big marketing power, low cost. I mean, I pay sometimes to do other things like event or like higher mentor or something like that. But mostly we’ve done ppc, but very little. It’s not defective for. Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, um, very curious about your, uh, Kardashian experience also.

How did that happen and what was the, was there any benefit to you? Of course, you know, yes. The fact that you can [00:28:00] post those videos and things like that. Can you share a little bit about that

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: experience? Yes. I didn’t know approach them because who think they would do like me? You never know, but I, so they found me, they’re watching YouTube, they found me and.

Someone like manager or someone emailed me and then I thought it was a scam at the beginning because there’s no way they’ll do they know me. It was early stage two, maybe year two since I started teaching in US and then there was, but there’s a phone number. So I called them and they was a legit, but it didn’t happen a long time.

So maybe all to to be true and I gave. Didn’t do anything. But then three months later or so, they suddenly emailed me, can you come next week? Of course. And at that time they’re, they’re said, they said, oh, there are three people. And I didn’t know who the three, I didn’t think it was Kim, Chloe, [00:29:00] and Courtney.

Okay. I didn’t think maybe like a friends of them or, I didn’t think it was a real Kim Kardashian. They. Yeah, before I knew that, they told me that it’s that real Kim and Courtney and Chloe and so many kids, and, uh, Scott and everyone, so the entire Kashian, not entire Kashian, but like seven people there.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And then the idea was that, uh, they fish that they’re going to shoot. This as part of like their, their EV episode? Um, yes, yes, yes. And, and did you, like, did they offer you any beef for that

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: or was that, um, I charged, yeah. They asked me how much do I charge in the regular price. Okay. Regular price as the other people.

Wow. But then, so just doing, I don’t make money from by teaching just one time. But they, the, the fact that they aired the segment, that’s a huge credibility. [00:30:00] And then I keep using it. I, people are gonna talk about it until I, even at my funeral probably. So it’s gonna last long time. Evergreen pr like same as shark knock.

And when, like six months later after she, we told, uh, I went. Kim, the real Kim, not the Chloe, not Courtney, but the Kim suddenly happened to watch my segment of a shark tank. She took a screenshot and tweeted saying She is legit. That was amazing. Testimonial. Definitely. I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t know that people start talking about it and what, and then I found it.

I didn. I haven’t really checked it. Twitter. It was Twitter. Wow.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So how was, and what was that a fun experience for you, like working with the Cardian? Like what, what was that experience like? You know, [00:31:00] talking to them and uh, like sharing, sharing your experience, what you energy

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: like. Yes. There’re really so cool.

And then they’re very nice in the TV show. They might do a lot of drama for the purpose of TV show, but they’re in for real. They’re. Nice and respectful and then polite, and I was amazed. Awesome.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. So one part of your app is what is called symmetry test or symmetry report. Uh, yes. Yes. You took test. Can you share a little bit?

Yeah. What, what is that and what is the relevance of this symmetry report?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: So lots of people are concerned about asymmetrical face. Okay, like my eyes, this is down, this is up, this is vigor. This is smaller or okay. Symmetrical face is considered beauty in general. Okay? Human. Human are supposed to be slightly asymmetrical.

That’s normal. But okay, if you are very symmetrical, that can be concerning. So [00:32:00] it’s good to take a picture on the app. On iPhone, it’s not available Android yet, but on iPhone you take a picture and there’s like dot, uh, not dot, but the lines, and then show how asymetry wear in numbers. And then that’s, you take a picture as a before photo and you do the exercise and other things, and then one month later you take a picture again to compare.

Two month later do it again. And so show the keep the progress.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Track. Yep. So, so I think one, um, one, um, one of your, I guess, assets is really around content creation, right? For social media. So you have a lot of content. On YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. Yes. And that’s drive driving a lot of, um, uh, eyeballs, so to speak.

Yes. Can you share a little bit about your content creation process? I’m, I’m, I’m assuming that your role in your business, for the [00:33:00] most part, or I would say maybe 70% or so, is, is really content creation, right? Can you share a little bit about your workflow? Like, do you plan out your content, uh, you know, what is, what is your process?

Yes. Coming up with new ideas and creating the content. And do you do everything yourself or do you have like any outside help also? Yeah.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Mm-hmm. We have a team, so every time I do, I just, I have a lot of, uh, idea and sometimes I’m stuck or. I write down on paper, so I will not forget. Okay. And then, um, every time I see my content, they ask me questions, followers ask me questions.

It’s, that’s how I get more creative. And I just answer and then make it a content. But every time I currently TikTok, it’s a short. Short, 45 seconds. And then I, after I publish to TikTok, I am gonna get the raw material, we call it raw, raw video, okay. Into my Dropbox. And then my team, [00:34:00] mainly two people, the team members will post to like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, uh, YouTube, short.

What else? I don’t know. They,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: they, so there isn’t, there isn’t a huge, uh, editing process.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Correct? It’s super simple, so I don’t, we dunno. I edit. It’s very quick. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Mm-hmm. Okay. Any, any apps you would recommend for editing or, you know, um, anything that helps your content creation

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: workflow? I just did cap, cap cut pro.

I think it was a cap

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: cut. Final, final, final,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: final pro or no final cut is for YouTube. Cause it’s more like desktop, but I just do just, if it’s short video, 47, 5 seconds. I just do everything. It’s on my phone. Okay. Yeah. Just on your apps, okay? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the short one gonna go everywhere. In the YouTube, it’s longer, 20 minutes, 15 minutes.

I try to do every two weeks. That’s gonna [00:35:00] be YouTube, and then my team will cut it into pieces and use that pieces to, as a short con, vertical content as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. And that’s your entire team? Just the, the, the content people? Or do you have like other people in your

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Uh, no, just me and the one main full-time, almost full-time, um, assistant in Philippine, and that’s it.

Okay. We have, of course, there’s some like, uh, sometimes video editor in India or other peoples, but not many. We are very neat, neat, small. So

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: the people who are developing your app, like that’s almost like, you know, do you have a team around that or is it mostly like,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: uh, just a

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: freelance person? Just a freelance person.

One person is creating your app. Wow. Yeah. So you’re basically communicating the idea and then they’re just, they’re putting it up and you’re testing it out, [00:36:00] or, well,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: one, when we created, at the beginning it was bigger team. It was company. Okay. There was American product develop product manager, and then outsourced to Armenian.

So they’re working with Armenian developers and then we switched to Russian team and then they disappeared. It happens, and then, yeah, once it’s developed, you don’t need a big team, right? So it’s a more maintenance process right now. So we work with freelancer for one person, for Android and another person for.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, I mean, is it, is it ever a, um, a concern when you’re working with like a Russian team or something that they can steal your code and create some, an app that is, uh, you know, similar idea, idea or something? Mm. How do you, how do you control that?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: I don’t know how to control them. And then really disappeared, so I’m, I was very shocked. [00:37:00] Hmm. Even if you do contract n d a contract or something, it’s not gonna work. It’s foreign country within us. Maybe it helps, but

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: it’s a, are you gonna fight, fight a case in Russia? That’ll be, uh,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: we don’t, we are not too worried about IP thing because no one can steal my personality.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Exactly. Yeah. I think that’s, that’s, I mean, that’s what I was trying to say. Yeah, I think, I think the influencer part and the ability to. To bring the audience. Mm-hmm. Is such an integral part of it, is that even if you don’t, you know, even if you replace your app with something different Mm. You know, you’ll still be able to bring, you know, uh, audience around that.

So I think that’s really the, the, the main aspect of the business, I guess.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Um, I think so. Then you don’t have to pay for the paid advertising and no one can, no one. Well, there are of course some other face yoga influencers too, but the way I teach is more. [00:38:00] People say like animated. So it’s, and that’s we, we are entertainment, entertainment, education, and entertainment.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. And, and that’s, that’s just your personal, that’s that’s how you always plan,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: kinda, yeah. I mean, offline, I’m more nerd and more like quiet. Cause I have to save my energy on screen. That’s, yeah. Yeah. But it’s been, that’s my personality, so that’s, no one can steal it. So I will not to worry about ip.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Ok. Mm-hmm. What is your future vision for your business? Where do you want to see it, say five years down the road?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Oh, five years. We’d like to be, I would like to be a, I, I’m going to be a next Murray condo. What is that? Murray Condo? Do you know? No, no.[00:39:00]

Tidying up talent.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Huge. I.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Okay. Yeah. Cleaning, clean cleaning. Okay. How to clean or organize? She’s organizing. Organizing girl. The most famous one in the world.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, but your, your major market really is us right now, or are you also, you know, do you have Japanese, uh, users using it or do you have, like, are you targeting other, any other markets or, it’s purely US focused.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Uh, it, I would say English speaking countries. That’s the main thing cuz everything is in online. So English speaking US, Europe, those are main. But then we, last year we started the social media on, in China. So we have partner Chinese agency, so they, they just add translation, Chinese translation, and uh, get the same.

Contents, the short [00:40:00] contents from my, our Dropbox, and then post it in there. And we started selling some daily video course as well in Japan we are going to do this year. So I, I recently started adding some Japanese caption. Tiny one. Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. So in every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always mistakes made, lessons learned, failure.

Mm. Uh, what would you say has been like a, a mistake or a lesson learned failure that you know, that you’ve encountered building this business? What did you learn from it and what can other entrepreneurs learn from your experiences?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Yeah. When, when the FA shock tank was aired, there was not much product to sell.

That’s like a huge stupid mistake, but it took quick too quickly, so we didn’t have time to create. App. So that’s one thing. The other thing I regret [00:41:00] is that I ignored email marketing. I, I, I do e-commerce, so we do clavio and then other really targeted things. It’s really technology going on, so I, I, I knew, I, I know now I know it’s so important, but I ignored for our audience because I felt just social media is.

I don’t think so. No, I think you, you still have to do email because our audience very, very younger people, so I just assume that young people, they don’t check check email anymore. They do Instagram DM or something, but I think still works. Email still works. We ignored, so that’s my regret. I shouldn’t, now I’m more serious about email marketing too.

Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And, uh, um, I mean, you do have an e-commerce business also. Mm-hmm. Uh, how do you, like, how do you, and I think [00:42:00] you were saying, you know, you, you’re trying to sell it or something. How do you divide your time? Like how much time do you spend?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Oh, it’s about like 50 50. Okay. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

But um, yeah, it, that’s a bigger 10 more than 10 times bigger last year. More than 1 million. So it’s way bigger than face yoga faces are much smaller.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Okay. So we have But you wanna sell it. Why? Why is that? Cause that, that is a lot more time intensive, uh, intensive

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: thing. I realize I’m also, I’m more talented for face yoga.

Okay. Yeah. All right. I’m, I love business development, but e-commerce is, it’s not my. Specialty. I realized that we are still trying to grow of course, cuz we, we need to, in order to end e-commerce so that I can focus on face yoga, I have to sell this business. I cannot just drop it. Right? Yeah. Someone has to take over.

Yeah. [00:43:00]

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, of course. So now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment I’m going to ask you a few quick questions. You have them, maybe one or two words, or a sentence or so. Yeah, I’ll skip. I’ll skip book question. So your product is definitely considered innovative or little bit different.

Is there any other innovative product or idea in e-commerce, retail or tech that you are excited?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Yes, I’m ex excited, so excited about chat. G B T. Do you know? Yeah, yeah. I think Prompto Engineering is, is a new thing. It’s like a new coding, although I’m not developer, I’m not coder, I’m not that techy. But even if you’re not technical, you can still learn engineering, how to prompt, how to give questions in chart G P T or something like that.

And then you get better. So that’s, that’s super exciting also for our [00:44:00] e-commerce. Do you know U G C user generated content User? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we outsourced for the soap business, we outsource U G C creators to create U G C content. Okay. And then we started using only for still image, but we started using Dow D.

Dolly. Mm-hmm. Or something. Ai. Ai R image generator. Yeah. Mm. So we are creating AI image instead of, uh, asking the u GC creators to take a photo and a works. Yeah. So I think. U G C will die soon. Not soon, but maybe next

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: year or so. So basically you upload a picture of your product and then it gives you, uh, in different backgrounds and different

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: scenarios or No, no more.

Like I say in the prompt, I say, oh, uh, the female. Is, uh, fee female [00:45:00] is taking shower and, uh, in her forties and just finished the shower, da da da. A kind of prompt. And then Okay, ask her. Um, she is pre pretend she’s holding something on her hand, but there’s nothing else. Oh, okay. And then so she, so the picture is like this right?

Holding. So, And then you can put your product, okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Wow. I think, yeah, I think this is crazy. And we, I, we, I love creating those. So I keep creating, and then my team is creating, and then we ask around my, I ask my other people, do you think this looks real? Of course they don’t know. They don’t know that it’s a AI image.

So I think it works. And

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: there is no. Cost associated with that, right? That’s completely Yes. Yes. Yeah, because the, I mean, it’s com computer generated,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: we’re not paying. No, there’s no copyright. You don’t have to ship, you don’t have to communicate. You [00:46:00] have, you don’t have to pay anything. It’s so good. So I, that’s why I feel like.

U C will disappear.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, a lot. I think a lot of things will disappear. Yeah. Yeah. With the chat, you know, as the whole concept develops, I think, you know, is crazy. We want to use the whole thing around content creation and everything. It’s like, uh, yes, ask and we’ll give you.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Yeah. So that’s why we, our app has to incorporate some personalized advice.

Sure. It’s gotta be possible. We just don’t know how yet. But yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: tool, The, the charge PT is really one of big ones that I’ve been using every day. Then Dali as well, and we use a trailer most of the time for communication, and I, I still use, uh, paper, paper book to do the my to do list organize.

[00:47:00] Somehow I keep switching to digital, but then I, I, I always go. To paper somehow. I like paper more than, yeah. Writing down on online. Yeah. I know. It’s in inconvenient. Last year I lost a book and I was freaking out, but anyway. Okay. But because you write down, you remember more Yeah. Or something. Sure. Yeah.

So that, that, yeah. group in this paper notebook is for myself in Japan, it’s very, very popular, more popular to. Paper still. People love paper. Yep. Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, this may sound repetitive, but uh, any other startup or business that you think is currently doing great things in e-commerce,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: retail or tech e-commerce, um,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: retail or technology, any other business that [00:48:00] you think is doing, uh, doing really.

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Yeah, the, I’m sorry, the same thing, but the AI thing, chat, G P T D, those are like really innovative. And then I see more similar companies who are using their, their technology, so they offer more, it’s kind of really rapidly, rapidly develop more so we have to use it. I was thinking before bef couple years ago, I wa when I was talking with a mentor, they said, oh, you wanna have more employees to show that you are have more solid business, blah, blah, blah.

But now you think about it, you shouldn’t have many employees. Look at the tech layoff. You shouldn’t have. Yeah. Yeah. In e-commerce, I learned that if you are mil, if you’re creating 1 million, One person, one employee, that’s it. Yeah. If you’re 2 million, maybe two employee plus a little bit more.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: [00:49:00] Yeah. Yep. Me, I, yeah.

So I mean, I think, uh, that’s a very good con. I think a lot of companies get, uh, bloated with, uh, employees. I think, you know, the recent thing where Elon Musk to go to go work Twitter and, uh, laid off people and, and I think he said that we don’t really need that many people to run Twitter, so I think. Um, I think with, you know, key people, some, you know, few key people, you can definitely have a big impact.

Mm-hmm. Um, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: inspired you? I have lots of mentors. They’re not really like famous people or anything, but yeah. Having mentors so important for e-commerce. Do you know EZ. Fire. Is it a firestorm? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. He’s like a legend.

Right? And he, his business, boom, one of his businesses, boom is for senior women, right? Yeah. Fifties, sixties. And our e-commerce is totally [00:50:00] different from face yoga. So we target senior female as well for the soap. Yeah. So we learn so. We take courses, paid courses, free courses. Like I’m like stalking him for our, so he doesn’t know me.

But, um, yeah, we, we’ve been taking their CLA courses and really following and then giving us really quick result.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. So it quick work. It, it,

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: it, it works. Like we didn’t know, he said every six week you should do some. Sales campaign, like, uh, new Year’s Sale. Valentine’s Sale. Yeah, like a spring sale or something.

We didn’t do that, but now we do. And then it’s like really? Yeah. Creating more sales and then also flash sale. Suddenly just so many, he, he gives [00:51:00] his team give us really realistic. Doable, achievable action plans. Unlike some mentors, they give you like broad, high level, too high level, and you don’t, you still d know what to do.

You don’t understand. It’s too high level, but he, his business boom and our mi clinical soap kind of similar, it’s, we are body care, they are face care, but we both target senior female in us. Okay. Yep.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean that’s, that’s true. I mean, that, that could be a good, um, I mean, the thing is, is he’s actually teaching what he’s doing to people and so you’re able to take advantage of it.

But that could be like, you know, try to find someone, a business that’s a lot more successful. In the kind of industry or niche that you’re trying to target and you know, really just talk them and try to see what kind of strategies and practice they’re using and

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: try to Yeah. So I, I learned that finding a mentor who is [00:52:00] in the same space, similar situation, I mean, it’s not similar situation.

He’s like super successful. I’m like small, small, but, uh, still similar target, similar product. And then the a, the, the advice they give you, they give you is gonna be. Achievable. For example, if the mentor, a lot of mentors talking about like TikTok marketing or Gen Z or something, and then we don’t really do Gen Z and then we don’t really do TikTok, although we are considering, but it’s more for senior people.

Right? So the advice, it’s, it’s not really useful. But the Ezra is, he, his advice is really we cannot, we can do. It works. Actionable. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Actionable. Final question, uh, best business advice you ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs? Uh, I’m sorry. Best business advice you ever received yourself or you would give to other [00:53:00] entrepreneurs?

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: Oh, I think, um, um, mm, I started this sole business without testing the market. That was a mistake. Now it’s slowly growing, so it’s, it’s good. But they took long time. If you take 10 years to get to 1 million, that’s not so good. Okay. But at that time, I didn’t know. I just assumed that this soap is very popular in Japan, so maybe if I bring it to us, it should work.

I just assumed without really testing. At that time, I didn’t know much about testing, test, test market or anything like that. So, You cannot just start a business, you have to test it. Yeah. But then this phase yoga is good because I tested on YouTube and it’s, there’s a demand, so I was able to do it slowly without breaking the bank.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That’s, that’s [00:54:00] awesome. I guess, you know, any, if you’re bringing a product from a different market, I guess there’s a huge, probably a huge component of now you have to do, or you have to educate the new market, right? Yes, yes, yes. That’s

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: probably. Yes, educating from scratch. So you have to spend a lot of money for marketing.

I just didn’t know that kind of financial, um, or anything. I just wanted to do something and then did it. It was, yeah, challenging, especially at the beginning.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, Coco, uh, thank you so much. Those were all the questions that I had. I really, really appreciate your time. Great, thank you. Great advice. Um, and sharing your real life experiences.

If anyone wants to take advantage of or, you know, check out the Coco Faith Yoga, what is the best way they

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: can? Yes, we have a lot of, a lot of contents on our social media, or we offer certification course for even if you just not gonna teach, but for yourself, you can still learn a. [00:55:00] Yeah, it’s a lifetime value.

So check out, um, coco face yoga.com, but not see, but k k face yoga.com.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Perfect. Thank you Coco. Um, thank you. Thank you. Thank you again for your time. Really appreciate. Thank you so much. Appreciate

Koko Hayashi of Koko Face Yoga: you all. You too. Thank you so much. Bye-Bye.