165 – Ying Wong: From Cultural Psychology to Global Business

0:00Welcome to the Stanford Psychology Podcast, where leading psychologists come to share their most recent work. I'm Angie, and for this week's episode, I'm very excited to share my conversation with Dr. Yung Wong as a part of our Psychologist in the Wild series. In this series of episodes, we interviewed psychology PhDs who have decided to leave academia and pursue other career paths. Dr. Wong received her PhD from Stanford Psychology Department in 2007. During her PhD, she studied shames and guilt from a cultural perspective. She then went on to join McKinsey in Japan as a consultant, and later as a business development director at Nike in Shanghai, China.

0:41Nowadays, she is a founder and CEO of BPG, a company that's dedicated to menstrual health. In this episode, Dr. Wong shares her wonderful journey from academia to the business world, and how she applied what she has learned as a social psychologist to solve problems in the real world. Without further ado, here's our conversation.

1:23Thank you so much for joining our show today. So you graduated from Stanford Psychology Department in 2007. So it's been almost 20 years. And I'm sure it's been a very long and amazing journey. But for today's episode, I wanted to do it in a somewhat reverse chronological order. Could you tell us what you're currently working on? So I'm the founder of BPG. We are a menstrual care company. So we do mostly period underwear. We also have a mini program, a period tracker, that's focused more on menstrual education. So it's an app, but it's hosted within WeChat. So it's more for Chinese audience. That's amazing.

2:10Then I have to ask, what inspired you to create this brand? So this is going back a little bit. My interest in grad school has always been shame and face, loss of face. I think of it as a very powerful emotion that if you look at the world today, it's very influential in politics, in personal life, and we can see it in literature. And I think women particularly, shame is huge. We are shamed to a much greater extent than men, for example. And my work has been focused on reducing shame for women in different areas. So I actually started with reducing sexual shaming. And then I realized that menstrual shaming is actually something even more sort of fundamental.

2:59And it permeates throughout much of our life. So I started this brand with the intention to really focus on reducing menstrual shame for women. That's so inspiring. And I have to say I resonate with that so much because I'm also Chinese. And I remember growing up when I first had my period in middle school. A lot of my peers are having period and it always feels like such a shameful thing. We needed to like basically found a corner and find a path so that we can sneak it into our pocket and then basically trying to hide it when we went to the bathroom. So I'm so glad that you are doing this work right now in China specifically.

3:37So I'm quite curious. I'm sure like as a founder, your life is very different from grad students or postdocs or many psychologists who are still in academia today. So could you tell us a little bit about your day-to-day? What is it like running a company? Yeah, starting a company is funny. Well, we're a very small team because we don't have funding. We didn't get funding. So with a small team, you basically have to do everything. We, for example, just launched our newest period underwear. And for this entire year, I was focused on communicating with manufacturer, trying to change different fabrics to see what would work better as a combination.

4:20We were communicating about the construction. How do you actually make this period on the word to increase the improved functionalities? And that's actually something really challenging. I don't know if anyone's worked with manufacturers before. The communication style is just completely different. You have to be very specific for them. And you can't be vague if you say something like, Like, oh, I want something that's a little bit more comfortable. We've had a lot of communication errors. It's been just hilarious. So we're making, for example, a reusable pad, right? It's not underwear, but it's just a pad.

4:59And I was like, okay, I want you to use the same technology that you use on period underwear. You make a pad. And they just basically sent me this thing that looks like the cutout of the crotch area. And I'm like, make it in the shape of a reusable pad. And they just could not understand me, even with something small like that. So communicative manufacture has been challenging. I've been doing, for example, copywriting right now. Because we are, for example, getting ready for pop-up stores. We want to bring a little bit more menstrual education, writing those little science facts for people to understand.

5:46And we're getting ready for a pop-up at Shanghai Marathon. So it's like all these details where you have to think about, okay, how do I do the design? How do I find people to help me do the creative part? And then how do you write the, how do you break down the technology to explain to people? with someone. It's just a lot of different small tasks that you have to do, including writing scripts for social media videos. Yeah, it's just a whole gamut of things. That sounds fascinating. And thank you so much for sharing the examples because I've never thought about, I don't think I've interacted with anyone even working in manufacturers, let alone just communicating with them on a business thing.

6:30So I'm quite curious. So you mentioned you don't, it didn't receive any funding and it's a very small team. Could you just tell us a little bit, how does it work? And where did you like find your teammates? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, funding, we didn't, we actually reached out to see if we could get funding, but we didn't get really good response. I think here people didn't really understand why period and where they're like, why don't you just make it disposable? And we're like, because number one it's more comfortable for women to have fabric in rather than plastic and stuff and it's also just more sustainable i didn't want to make anything that's not sustainable and i didn't understand that so we thought okay let's just run with it for a while until like we actually have the entire product and we have people's experience as proof that this is a great concept before we actually approach funding again.

7:31So that's what happened. But with the team, it's been, I've been really lucky. So I think one thing about Chinese women, the younger generation of Chinese women is that they want to work on things that they could believe in. So it's not not just finding a job. And menstrual shame has been something that Chinese women also just resonate with. This is one of the other things. We find a huge generational divide in China, with the older generation still being like us about menstruation. They whisper about it. The younger generation, I think there's still a lot of shame, but it's a different kind of shame.

8:13For them, it's more like, I want to talk about it, but I think it's dirty. They still have this misconception that menstruation is dirty, that it's excrement. So it's a different way to think about it. But Chinese women want to really work in this area. And so I've been really lucky that when I posted ads, like job ads, I get some very talented women who are willing to work with me for a really low pay because I can't pay well, right? I found one person, for example, through LinkedIn. And so she's been, yeah, so she's like a core member of the founding team. And I also had other members who came and go or work with us on a project basis.

8:59So, for example, my designer is this really talented Italian graphic designer. And she's working with us from Italy. And mostly because she really likes content and not because she's looking for pay. Yeah, it's been really inspiring. And I'm just really grateful that we have a team of women who are focused around the mission. Yeah. And I have to say, the reason why I think I found you is because you posted on LinkedIn about how on one of the social media platforms, Red Nose, the account recently got over 20 ,000 followers. And I think all of the posts had really good engagement. And I thought that was like super inspiring to see.

9:42And then I decided to check out who it is and turns out to be someone from my department. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. And I want to switch gears a little bit to reflect on how your background as a psychology PhD influenced being a CEO. Because when you're describing the different shames that women had in China these days about menstrual, I was like, that's really sharp. Maybe that's the psychology training kicking in. So I'm curious if there's something that you found yourself leveraging or relying on till today that is something that you have learned from my school. Yeah, for sure. So let me say that I, before my founder journey, I worked with McKinsey, right?

10:26And so that was my first step from psychology to corporate life, right? And McKinsey, not exactly corporate life, but consulting business world. And I think for them, that was the same. So we had the same question, right? How do we actually leverage our psychology training in a business world? And McKinsey actually had a great team, a big team of psychologists who worked on consumer insights. In consumer insights, for example, like how do you actually position brand? Who are the people that you target with your product or service? and what should this product or surface look like? What are the features and how do we actually message this to them?

11:13All of these are very relevant for psychologists, right? Like we have a lot of training in how do you actually research on these questions and segmentation work, for example, that's a big part of it or modeling. All that is very core to consumer insights And that in turn is your core to your whole strategy. Could you give us examples of what would be what a project in consumer insight look like? Because I think for many of us in academia, even the phrase consumer insight is vaguely related to how consumers think. What do you do? Do you do experiment? Do you do survey? Do you just read papers, read internal reports?

11:57What is it like contributing to consumer insights within a consulting firm? For example, like my very first project after leaving Stanford, right, to work with McKinsey was Japan. And we were trying to create a new functional drink. So the question was, who should we target? What would a new functional drink look like? Who wants to drink this? What should it taste like? Or what should their functions be? So that's like a vague question. And we structured a large survey to answer that question. And as a psychologist, I have to say, it's actually part of the fun in running surveys on this kind of questions is that you have a lot of funding.

12:42So you can get pretty well, like very quickly. Right. So we had a huge data set within a couple of weeks, two weeks, three weeks. And I think Stanford psychologists would cry with this large topic. We know how painful it is to get data in a small school, right? Or a school with a small population. Anyway, so I was just like so ecstatic with this data set. I was like, oh my God, it's so easy to get survey participants. Anyway, so we decided to do a segmentation with this data set. And what we did was, first of all, we figured out what were the needs occasions. What are the occasions when you need to drink a functional drink?

13:30And who are the people who are drinking these functional drinks at these occasions? So we figured out that there were a couple of different segments. So for example, there's a health conscience housewives segment. And I'm talking about Japan, right? So these are Japanese wives who are like, oh, we want something natural. and so with enzymes. So they would drink stuff like fruity vinegar drinks. And they would drink this at home, like after meals to help with digestions. So that's one segment with a clear use occasion. And we had people who are doing sports and when doing sports, they want to rehydrate and they want to improve their performance.

14:19So that's a different segment. And we had one segment that we called the Karoshi segment. So this is people, the poor Japanese workers who are worried about dropping dead at work. Right? What? That's dark. It's dark, but it's also funny. So they're like, they had these like very pessimistic answers because they're just working too much. And they had to keep on these caffeinated functional drinks to keep them awake at work. So they're just like in poor hell. And they drink, I don't know how many shots of coffee or Red Bull at work. So that's an example of a psychologist training applied to a business setting to really defining a survey or just cutting up your market segments and finding out who are these people?

15:21How do we group them? Where are their needs? and then you can calculate how big are these segments or who are actually buying more of these functional drinks and then deciding on what products to go with. So you see, this is a very data-driven approach to build out your entire business, basically. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. This is fascinating. And I can also see how the same skills would also be really helpful as you're building out your new brand to think about who are the women to target and what to do with them. And now I want to ask the flip side of the questions, because I know that you have left academia for a very long time and you probably have thought about this.

16:09So I'm quite curious if you have any suggestions for people who are thinking about leaving academia or who recently moved away from academia, if there are any skills or habits that they should leave behind? Leave behind? I wouldn't necessarily say leave behind. That sounds a little harsh, but there are things that you have to get used to. So for example, I think in academia, in the academic world, when you do your research, it's really hard for us to suggest one way, one answer, definitely because unless you've done like thorough research to rule out all the co-founding factors or rule out all the uncertainties you don't want to say this is the way it works and we're very cautious to draw conclusions like that but for example in consulting or as a founder right when you are a startup you don't have that luxury of saying maybe but that you have to just sometimes run with partial answers or hypotheses even so for example when I designed our future product lineup right we had a pseudo segmentation because this time as a startup I didn't have the funding to really run a large survey looking at all women and their period product habits or needs.

17:40So I had to start with hypotheses. And so I had a hypothesized segmentation and with their hypothesized product needs. And that's how I'm building up my product lineup without really like this data to back me up. But you still get help from your psychologist's training to think in those ways, right? Oh, I want a segmentation. I want to think about their needs. And then I want to think about what product to target their needs. But you don't actually have that, those hard facts to back you up. And you have to be comfortable with that because either you have resource constraints, or you have to just move fast in the business world.

18:25And you can't wait to have all the facts there before you move. That's one thing that you have to get used to is to just work with uncertainties and feel comfortable with moving forward with uncertainties. Can I ask, how did you get comfortable with it? It's just something that comes with practice. The more you are in the business world, the more you get used to it. I think sometimes it's just by need, right? For example, for me to build out the product, build a lineup, I can't just be like, I don't know, because we don't have the data. You just have to do it. And partly it's just, yeah, you get used to it, right?

19:06In consulting world, for example, your projects only run for a month or two. You have to quickly think about how do I actually prioritize my answers? If I get this answer, then I'm okay with it and I run with it. With the remaining pieces of uncertainties, I just look over. So that's something you just have to learn and get used to. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. And I do feel like I hear similar sentiments when I was talking to a lot of alums, like working in industry. They were telling me that a big difference is that the definition of rigor is very different when you're talking about research in academia versus research in industry, because research in industry tend to serve some product-oriented goal, and your rigor really needs to be in service of that rigor.

20:02And yeah, thank you so much for laying this out. So before we zoom too far into the future, because I do want to talk about that, I'd like to rewind a little bit. So you got your PhD at Stanford in 2007. And I'm curious, what was that chapter of your life like for you? And what were you most curious about back then? And did you ever think about that yourself will end up where you currently are today? No, I think towards the end of my graduate school, it was a time of great anxiety. Because I think all PhD students enter their PhD career thinking that they want to enter academia after school. They're very focused on research.

20:47And I was also just very focused on research. But halfway through, you think, oh, maybe this is not for me. And then you start to think about, okay, what are my other possibilities? What am I going to do after grad school? and it's not something that our PhD programs really prepare us for. They don't really give you talks on, ah, here are the other paths, it's possible. They don't do podcasts like what you're doing and we don't get a lot of role models that we can interact with or just understand our options with. And I was actually anxiety-stricken. I was like, oh my God, have I wasted my life?

21:31What am I going to do? who what company is gonna hire me so that i was struggling with a lot of anxiety and i and i remembered starting to explore other other options and initial reactions weren't very good right for example i think i talked to a an ad agency and they're like no we don't really want phd students and if it gave me like more anxiety until like i started talking to more people and mapped out, okay, consulting is a good springing board for after PhD. That's one place that's very open to PhD students and you can use it as to explore options, basically. And then you start to explore more and understand your options.

22:18So that's what I was like really focused on, understanding what was I going to do? And was I going to end up as a bartender or something? I have to say that it's definitely shared among a lot of current grad students. Like a farmer's opening up a bakery in Mexico, I think it's probably like in the back of a lot of students' minds, even to today. But I definitely resonate. Someone actually told me at that time, oh, this other PhD student opened a bar. I think it was in Berkeley or wherever, I don't remember. And that was very successful. And I was like, oh, OK, so bartending could be a viable career option.

22:58After all. Yeah, actually, that reminds me. I do recently found out because I was taking the Ignite program on campus, which is a business school. And one of the alums from that program, actually, after her PhD at Stanford in biochemical engineer, she opened up an ice cream taco shock in San Jose. And it's really famous. I had it before knowing that it's open by her. For PhD students entering this kind of mid-PhD crisis phase, do you have recommendations on when should they start to do these explorations? Is there a defining moment for you to be like, hey, this is exactly where I'm going to go next?

23:39I think for me, it was more just let's see where I end up. And then the whole path mapped out. So it was, I figured I was young, I had a lot of flexibilities, and I was willing to try a lot of different things. And so that's how I ended up actually in Japan office of Nicosi. Like I'd never been to Japan before. But what I would say is that, I think, looking back, what I would say is that maybe one small thing that PhD students can do is to really use your summer to explore options. For example, like find internships with different companies. Just don't be so focused on your dissertation or your research that you can't look at anything else.

24:25Keep your mind open. Use, utilize your time to try out different things. Don't rule out the other options. So I think that's number one, like really just understanding what your options are. And number two, I think you could learn additional skills that could be useful. Some of these internships or whatever opportunities that you can find or really end up with. So I think that would be a good way for PhD students to control their anxiety as well. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned this because I recently was talking to someone who's in the middle of her PhD. And one of the things that I think she struggled with, which I think I also experienced it, is that I felt like if I were to do an internship, that would distract myself to do the research.

25:18And if I ended up like coming back to academia, it almost feel like a summer wasted. So do you have anything to say to that? If I were to do an internship, which I know is good for me, but on the other hand, an internship is basically a summer of no research. I'm quite curious if you have anything to say to that. I think I totally get you. And I think that's how I felt as well. But to be honest, looking back, and I think this is what happened to me, was that this focus on research and this need for perfection was actually a little bit more suffocating for me. It became to a point where it was preventing me from doing my research very well because I was just so engrossed with wanting to do the perfect research and wanting to make it this dazzling work that it was almost debilitating.

26:13So I think some distance from your research every now and then could be helpful to give you some breathing room and also just some other perspective to look at it and examine it and see how else could you move on with it and also just putting a timeframe around it. Otherwise, it just grows and it becomes this monster. Like you have to do it 24 hours a day and you can't really live like that. Like it just becomes this whole thing that prevents you from really grieving. Yeah, that's so nice of you. And I really appreciate your sharing this perspective. I do feel like I did two internships throughout my PhD program.

26:59And I do feel like those summers away, when I came back, I didn't feel like I missed out on anything. I feel like instead of feeling like I missed opportunity to do this like summer of research, I gained so much perspective and have some experience that I would not have had. So I really appreciate you sharing this perspective. So before wrapping up this episode today, I always like to end on a forward-looking note. So I'm quite curious, Where do you see your brand B.P.G. going in the next few years? What are you most excited about right now? So with B.P.G., there's like a huge mission of reducing shame for women, right?

27:40So there's actually a lot of stuff that we would like to do. So we would like to partner with charity organizations to bring more sustainable peer care products to women in need. We are building out like more menstrual education content to our mini program. We want to promote this mini program. There's a lot that we want to do. And so I think in terms of vision, future vision, right? Short-term vision, I think it's really just like bringing piece by piece some of these products out to market and launching it. So for example, this new product that we just came up with, we really like it. We think it's a great product that's better than competitors.

28:22I'm going to focus on bringing that to the American market, actually. So we're going to ship it into Amazon and our websites probably towards the later half of the year. And then I want to see if I can find funding for a brand to do more. And then there are more products that we want to build out. it's hard to say in the grand vision like what we want to do I'm focused on the small sex at the moment and everything is a win for us I think Thank you so much I don't think the stuff you described are small by any means It all sounds super exciting and I can't wait to tell all of my friends both in China and in the US about BPG and thank you again for coming on the show with us Yeah, you're welcome It's been so much fun to just talk to you about this journey.

29:17Yeah, let me know if there's any questions or anyone has any more questions for me. I'll be happy to answer.