846 Steve Sun: Founder & CEO of Biology Fragrances

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business.

0:46Kara Goldin:Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners.

1:33Kara Goldin:And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast.

2:26Kara Goldin:That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed.

3:12Kara Goldin:Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Cara Golden Show. Today, I'm joined by Steve Sun, founder and CEO of an incredibly, fairly new brand called Biology Fragrances. It's a brand that is rethinking fragrance, not just as something you wear, but something you feel. So Steve's background is incredibly unique.

3:57Kara Goldin:Like many founders, he did not come from the industry that he's starting a company in, but he's been thinking about it and then decided to make the move, which we'll get into today. But before launching Biology Fragrances, he helped build some of the most iconic entertainment brands in the world from a little brand called Walt Disney. Not just Steve, of course, but was part of the team there. Warner Brothers, Paramount, Yellowstone, Harry Potter, you name it. I mean, the guy has just done it all. So helping turn those brands into major retail and cultural phenomenas. But his own journey started much early growing up between Taiwan and the U.S., where scent, ritual, and traditional remedies played a big role in everyday life.

4:50Kara Goldin:So I cannot wait to hear more about Steve's story, how he's blending storytelling, science, and wellness to create an entirely new company, new category, and even bringing fragrance into unexpected places for distribution. So I'm really looking forward to learning more. So Steve, welcome to The Kara Golden Show. You did your research. I respect that. Thank you so much for having me on. This episode of The Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale.

5:38Kara Goldin:And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates.

6:21Kara Goldin:Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business.

7:07Kara Goldin:Hey everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners.

7:54Kara Goldin:And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Absolutely. Well, for listeners who may not know or haven't heard about biology fragrances yet, how do you describe the brand and what makes it different? What makes it different is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. We are a functional fragrance brand that's 100 % natural. And when you hear 100 % natural or aromatherapy, you tend to think of a very distinct market or a consumer base. We really want to democratize that.

8:40We want to open up that scope of modernizing essential oils, something that's super traditional, something that's been only really marketed towards a very specific consumer base, and make sure that everyone can reap the benefits of something that is very traditional. And that's why our packaging is loud and modern and the way we show up to the world is super vibrant, super chic, super fun. We just don't want to take ourselves too seriously.

9:10Kara Goldin:I love your packaging, but I love the fragrances even more. So let's go back to the beginning, how or what environment you grew up in. So you were bouncing back and forth between a couple of countries, I understand, and culturally. Very, very embedded kind of in you that I understand led you to really launch biology fragrances. Yes. So I was born in Taiwan. It's an island, you know, small island and very traditional Chinese values. So kind of like you, Kara, I grew up in a big family. So I have four older sisters. My parents kept having children because they wanted a son. That's super important.

9:55It's a little sexist in Chinese tradition. So after my third sister was born, my mom suffered a stroke. And because of that stroke, she had debilitating headaches. So she would use ointments, like tiger bombs of the world, like these like menthol creams and ointments to just like kind of give her instant relief. And I remember as a kid, I was like, Mom, you smell. You smell like medicine, Mom. You know, you just want to be like close to her, but she smells like menthol. She smells so like medicinal all the time. later on in life she developed breast cancer that runs in the family my grandmother passed from breast cancer so I've always had like you know sensitivities to ingredients cancer-causing ingredients and that really was like kind of the the genesis of a little bit of biology because I was born in Taiwan immigrated to this country I'm also gay in elementary school I was also kind of bigger.

10:58So I was made fun of a lot, bullied a lot. Like I just, so I would really like hide. I would just be in my head a lot. And because of that, I just formed imagination. I would create these worlds in my head. So because of that, I guess I have a very high like affinity to colors and smells and moments because that was for me like my protection to escape. Yeah.

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15:32Basically, we immigrated to this country, like really like, just do something good. So when I was a kid, I always was a creative, like I mentioned. When I got into college, my parents were like, be a doctor, be a lawyer or nothing. But then I was kind of a punk in a sense, like a little punk rocker. So I always wanted to be creative. And thank goodness, because if I was a lawyer, I think I would be the worst lawyer. If I was, you know, I would be the worst. So I'm very happy that I chose this path of creativity. I've always just loved design and I've always loved mixing and matching colors and scents and things of that nature.

16:12So to be where I am now, an entrepreneur with a brand, doesn't seem real. As an immigrant, as someone that was bullied, as someone that my parents never gave me validation. I just feel like it's so eye-opening. It's like, oh, I actually did this. And despite all the barriers and the things and people, the headwinds, you're like, I'm here. I'm an entrepreneur. And, you know, and I'm going to step into the light a little bit. So I did not think that would be this way.

16:43Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

17:27Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Grooms. Summer routines live or die by how easy they are. I've learned that if something takes too much effort, when life gets busy, it's the first thing to go. And this time of year, when schedules are packed and energy matters more than ever, I want something that actually keeps up.

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20:03I also, I lived in Shanghai for a while with Disney. So I have this great career. At 32, I was a vice president at Paramount. And I don't say that to brag. I'm saying that I, that was the apex of my career. That was, that was the goal ever. And when you would compare, you know, the SVPs, the EVPs, the presidents in creative, it's not a creative role anymore. It's really people management, P &L. It's about you really lose that creative side. And I'm a creative. I never claimed to be someone else. And that's what I signed up for. And when I got, when I became a vice president so young, I just felt sad.

20:48I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do now? Like, do I just keep climbing this, you know, this ladder, which I don't want to do? Or, you know, I could do something on my own. You know, I, so during the pandemic, while everyone was at home, I was like, huh, okay, so what do I love? I love brand building. I love my mom. I love everything that, my, my heritage, my store. I love design. What vehicle can I kind of bring everything together and create something? So I thought back to like me as a kid and the escapism aspect and the creativity as like scent would be a great platform. And so really that was the genesis of it all.

21:29It was kind of like exhaustion from corporate, me wanting to have an identity and like really show off a little bit. And that was what created biology.

21:40Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

22:24Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing.

23:17Kara Goldin:Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.

24:03Kara Goldin:Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So biology is rooted in functional fragrance. Can you talk about that concept a bit for maybe somebody who's not familiar with what that term means? Yeah, so functional fragrances is, there's numerous definitions of this, right?

24:53So functional fragrance for us is aromatherapy plus essential oils. So all essential oils have functionalities. Some are for serenity, some are for excitement, stimulation. they're all researched and show that they have qualities that can enhance your mood um clear mental clarity etc etc we just wanted to bring that to the forefront in our marketing in our communications on packaging like this is what it's for and be hit the consumer over the head on this new methodology that we're really really excited about to the forefront and to a wider audience. And that to us is what functional fragrance is about.

25:40Kara Goldin:So you studied perfumery at the Institute for Art and Olfaction. What surprised you most about the science and the craft behind scents? Well, natural fragrance, so we work in the world of naturals versus the synthetics. The number one thing about natural fragrances is that the molecules that are natural don't last as long on skin so the longevity is not as strong as the synthetic counterparts so that really surprised me because you can you know you're mixing and matching and you know after a couple hours the wear it wears off but i also had a light bulb moment because I'm not going to force or add things into our, our formulation is just so that it can last on your skin for eight to 10 hours.

26:36In fact, that's something that we're against. That to me was a light bulb moment because I saw a white space when I heard about that. I was like, oh, there's a way to attack natural fragrances. Is it the form? You know, that's why we lead with there are 10 ml roller balls. Our fragrances are meant to travel with you. It's like a lip balm, right? Lip balms don't last on your lip. Lipstick doesn't last on your lips all day. In fact, if it lasts on your skin all day, you need to scratch your head like what's in here to make it like not wear off. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Famous fragrance. So that's something that was really interesting to me, the science behind the longevity.

27:17Kara Goldin:So you launched the fragrances. How many fragrances did you launch with? And how long did it take you from the moment that you said, I'm going to go do this, assuming you wrote a little mini business plan and then figured out what SKUs you were going to go with? How long did that take? A year of like research and development. And when you say, Kara, when you say business plan, I'm like, nope. It was like, there was no business plan. It was just like me having fun. my first goal was to just sell into one retailer in palm springs there's this little cute place called mojave trading post they were it's like the fred seagulls of the desert so chic so selective and beautifully curated and i was like if i get in there happy days pound on the back go back to work and literally like this was at month six i had formulated six fragrances based off of you know I love based off of my mom, based off of songs I heard as a child or my favorite movies.

28:21So they're all highly inspired by my life and things I adore. And I set out and I brought my box of fragrances to Mojave Trading Post and they're like, yeah, we'll take you. This is wonderful. We love the packaging. We love the story. We love the scents. I was like, oh my God, this is so easy. It's not easy. It was just, you know, beginner's luck, I guess.

28:43Kara Goldin:I love that. And when you first launched, did you see a moment where you, I guess, gained confidence that you knew it was going to take off? I mean, it's always great to get that first sale, right? But then I'm sure you saw after that, it's not as easy. There's all kinds of hurdles that go into play. And when did you think, okay, this can work? to tell an immigrant person that's come to this country with so many insecurities and headwinds that when did you gain the confidence to the business is legitimate I still don't think that way I every day is still like oh my god like do I belong here is this I don't know I maybe have to work on myself a little more but the proof is in the pudding I think you know I just think when I got the little bits of validation, whether or not it was Mojave, whether or not, you know, we got into Urban Outfitters as a test run very early on.

29:47It was just like, all right, I guess I can just put more time. You know, this is a self-funded endeavor. So it's like, I'll put more money in it. It just increased my passion for it. But to say that, oh, like, I'm confident I have my two feet on the ground. I don't, I still don't feel that way. I'm still so grateful. I get to meet people like you. I'm getting into the hands of consumers nationally. To me, every day is I'm just so freaking grateful that I got to do this. So I have to work on myself. I'm not that confident, but I think the product stands for itself. I love it.