Meet Joy Yuan, the woman who taught AI all about beauty.
When she moved to San Francisco from her native Shanghai for her studies, Joy Yuan knew she’d need to adapt to many things. There is however one challenge she had not accounted for, and which would propel her into the select group of female entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley: finding the right skincare routine for her.
Joy has always been passionate around personal care and beauty products, and she had the right mix of products down to science back in China. When she landed in San Francisco, she had to find a new routine that would best work with her skin; this is when she realized that the US market was entirely different than what she was used to.
Overwhelming is probably the best way to describe this. She realized that finding the right products to work with her skin was almost a full-time job. In a market with over 100,000 different websites covering beauty products and where most online reviews are fake, any dedicated consumer would need to spend several weeks narrowing down to a suitable product.
This is exactly what Joy did. Unfortunately, when she applied the moisturizer she landed on, despite all the time, money, and energy she spent on her research, it irritated her skin. She attempted to reach out to a dermatologist but was told she would need to wait at least two weeks before an appointment and that appointment would cost more than $100 out of pocket.
It was then that Joy, a wildly successful business executive who had generated well over $100 million in revenue for brands worldwide, had the first seed of an idea. It was during her work with a beauty social media platform that her idea matured, and the seed blossomed. Relying on both her personal trial and error and bad stories, as well as her most recent professional experience in the field, she came to a realization:
“Why not use data and AI technology to aggregate beauty information, and use that information to offer tailored beauty advice to users based on their own skin data?”
Like most successful entrepreneurs, she had identified the problem she was passionate about solving. Reauty was born. Reauty is the flagship product of Joy’s company, Blingy, a tech start-up building the most authentic, transparent, and trustworthy community for the beauty industry and beyond.
Transparency isn’t a buzzword for her but rather a fundamental piece of the puzzle. Doing her due diligence, Joy realized that the FDA was very laid back with the ingredients they allowed into skincare and cosmetics sold in the United States. FDA banned one item for every 10 that were banned by their counterpart in the United Kingdom. As she built her solution, Joy knew a fundamental feature would be to provide her users with the most comprehensive database for ingredients for beauty products worldwide, ensuring they could make informed decisions and put their health first.
Frustrated at all the trial and error she had to put up with, but a great believer in “changing the world with creativity,” Joy turned to advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to provide beauty product consumers with the shortcut that she (and they) sorely needed: a combination of AI-driven skin analysis (including over 10 dermatological features), deep machine learning, product scoring algorithms, and a comprehensive database that provides consumers with the personalized solutions, beauty tips, and product recommendations in seconds.
But Reauty isn’t “just” the most trustworthy and sophisticated recommendation engine for beauty products. It is an app that contains a social e-commerce platform and the perfect space for users to connect authentically and share their experiences with their preferred beauty products. Reauty is fixing the deeply imperfect rules of the beauty industry and is enabling beauty influencers and brands to connect and form brand partnerships that deliver envious ROI for the brands, and reliable, transparent, and tailored product endorsements for users.
Ultimately, the best way to describe Reauty would be the one place any beauty aficionado will ever need, featuring also the most detailed database on consumer reviews of products as well as transparent listing of components of every key product on the market, a feature that was launched after Joy personally realized there was no regulatory approval required before a beauty product could be launched to the US market.
Fixing broken systems doesn’t just stop at the beauty industry, it is in her DNA. She sees Reauty with a definite social change agenda at its core “At Reauty we believe the beauty community is an open, inclusive, and diverse place where everyone is welcomed. We invite you to live true to yourself and be yourself in our transparent and inclusive beauty community.”
However, Joy’s work on social change doesn’t stop there. An immigrant herself, she is a strong advocate against sexism and racism in the tech industry and frequently dedicates her time to compassionately inspire the next generation of women, helping them become their best selves.
Likewise, one would be sorely mistaken to think that the beauty industry is the only one Joy Yuan intends to tackle. Indeed, the technology behind Blingy can be deployed to several other industries, supporting one David on his fight against Goliath at the time.
Beauty just happens to be the first Goliath she’s set her mind on, but it is certainly not her last.
As she continues building fairer and more transparent communities across the world. Her personal guiding principle and the invitation to people she crosses paths with?
“When you flap the wings of change, good results happen. We don’t need superheroes to change the world, but it takes every ordinary you and me to make the impossible possible.”
Flap those wings and join her and her team at Blingy in changing the world!
Follow Joy's Twitter @JoyyuanWeb3 and Linkedin to learn more about her.
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