870 Suman Desai: Founder & President of GLASSFX

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3:00Kara Goldin: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. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show. Have you ever stopped to think about how much the beauty industry is still focused on the surface instead of what's actually happening underneath? So many products promise results, but very few are actually designed to support how our skin functions at the cellular level. Our next guest has spent her career building and scaling science-backed brands.

3:48Kara Goldin:And along the way, she kept coming back to a bigger question, what if we could move beyond traditional skincare and actually support how our cells age? From that, an incredible, incredible brand with a few products has launched called GlassFX. And we have founder Sumon Desai with us here today to share more about what she has built. So for anyone who has not tried GlassFX, we are very, very excited to have you with us here today, Sumon. So welcome. Thank you so much, Cara. It's a pleasure to be. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Rippling. Let's face it, most AI can surface information, but business leaders don't just need answers, they need action.

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5:27Kara Goldin:Just tap confirm to add it to next month's payroll run. So don't settle for AI that's all talk. Head to rippling.ai slash Kara Golden and get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your business and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g dot a-i slash Kara Golden. Sign up for exclusive access today. Very, very excited. So for listeners who are just discovering Glass Effects, how do you describe the brand that you've built? Glass Effects is a Korean biotech skincare brand. Our products essentially do multiple steps in one product, making all of our products on-the-go solutions, as well as being TSA travel friendly.

6:25it's initially created for the very busy individual or an individual who is always moving around or traveling because we wanted them to get the results without doing the extensive like 20 steps traditional skincare process as well as all of our products our high performance products so they are not only high performance and gonna not only give you a great glow but as well as while you're glowing, repairing your skin. So it's not just for aesthetic purposes, but it's also repairing while you are glowing. And our products are initially made for sensitive skin. They're all gentle, but yet effective formulas.

7:09Our products are vegan, fragrance-free, clean, never tested on animals, paraben-free. And we really wanted to not only cater to those of females, but also males as well. So our product range is unisex from the way we've designed it to making sure and keeping in mind that everyday human, not only just one specific category, we've seen our audience range in all different ages and from all different demographics. And we're very, very proud to have been in business almost for a year. We launched last year in July 2025. And we have an award-winning moisturizer called Barrier Effects, our first hero product.

7:59It is awarded in Harper's Bazaar as one of the best moisturizers out there. It is known to repair your skin barrier as well as firm your skin. And we have done clinical studies on it. So it is actually proven to do exactly what it says. And we have seen a very 40 % increase in your dermal density. So as far as how much you confirm your skin, increase the water retention of your skin. And our other two products are two mists that we have created. The first mist is called Revive Effects. It is a toner, essence, and light serum in one mist. We call it our on-the-go glass skin mist because it is very compact-sized designed, and we have seen that a lot of people throw it in their purse, in their gym bag, on-the-go when they're traveling on the plane, and we wanted to make a solution where it was hands-free, especially when you're not always in your bathroom and an easier faster solution where it did a couple steps in one but instantly in between anything you do it's a quick refresh so we kind of make that step one to prep the skin because majority of products absorb bread better when your skin is already prepped opposed to on dry skin and then step two would be our barrier effects patented technology moisturizer that I've mentioned.

9:32And then our last step to seal it all in is called Duahydra Effects. So that is a dual layer bi-phase oil mist, second runner up of our best sellers. And it is just to lock everything in, give you that glow to be sustained for the rest of the day if you don't have time for a touch up. That is our second best seller as we've seen a lot of makeup professionals and as well as people who are interested in makeup use it as a setting spray, not only a skincare solution. So we have seen a lot of different professionals use it and have been loving that. And we've gotten a lot of great feedback as to how they love that all of our packaging is glass bottles.

10:12These days, majority of packaging is in plastic bottles. And this era of us all being anti-microplastic, I've kept that in mind when creating the packaging as well, is making as much as glass as possible. So we have seen that a lot of consumers do appreciate that, not only because of it's less microplastics, but it's glass and it gives you that amazing feeling. And we've done like a break test accidentally and unaccidentally. We've seen our bottles are very strong as well. So we have put in thought of not only to our formula, but up until our packaging and we have a Korean skincare lab that we have been actually working on for four whole years before we even launched these products.

11:04It's not something that we could have white labeled and I could have launched in a year. We really wanted to make sure these are formulas that could not be replicated. These are formulas that actually work. These are formulas that are not clogging your pores. Our products are also non-comedogenic so it won't clog your pores. so it has also been um a notice as acne safe as well so not only for gentle as people who have gentle skincare needed but for dry skin but as well as acne safe skin as well we're very extremely extremely proud for how far we've came in under a year and we are also very proud to have never had not one return since starting the brand as well.

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13:20My original background has come from private aviation, a private jet brokering, which I've been doing for eight, nine years. So halfway through my career is when I was obviously traveling a lot and noticed my skin difference, notice the products that are on the plane or on the jets, talk to like our private jet clientele as well as my girlfriends or influencers and as well as professionals, whether that be dermatologists, makeup artists, athletes, trainers, and gotten feedback from all them during our testing rounds as well. So I've been able to strategically do product placement on our charter clients that we've been flying.

14:00So I always thought of the excitement and feeling I've gotten when I'm on a business class flight and they give me that kit and all those like new things. And no matter how much you have in your skincare bag, you still are like very intrigued as to, oh, it's a gift. You know, at the end of the day, everyone's excited or for a gift, whether it's small or big. And I wanted that exact feeling to kind of be replicated on the Jets. And when we are giving it to the top 1%, whether that would be our celebrity clientele, athletes, our corporate clients, they're all still very happy from the feedback we get from the flight attendant.

14:36Of course, not all these people have large platforms. Well, their post majority of people are extremely private. You wouldn't even know that they're flying on certain aircrafts. But the people that do share, we're extremely, extremely thankful. We never are waiting for, oh, if we give this, like, I'm not ever waiting for anyone in return to tag these things. But it's so nice to know they're in these people's hands and in the cabin and that they're using it. And it's just been amazing. We've seen someone as far as one of our jet clients is Alex Earl. She did like a very organic what's in my bag, took out our mist from the bag.

15:15and I had the flight attendant bring it on like a silver platter to her and her guests and bring our mists and they're very excited and I was very very shocked when I woke up one morning and saw that all the videos are around there we also do collaborations with I try to think of a way where I could bring both of my brands together so we did like a Coachella collaboration of like a fly black shuttle gave away like seats to whether it be skincare influencers beauty influencers women in corporate fields, female entrepreneurs or males as well in the industry. And we did like a GlassFX's Fly Black shuttle to and from LA and Palm Springs.

15:55Majority of people drive or take commercial. This was like a very quick 35 minute flight where they enjoyed the experience, got to see the products. So I as even though everything is bootstrapped for GlassFX as well, I tried to see where I can incorporate and overlap both of the brands while it also having like meaning to do these experiences as well. Not just a lot of times I've had people on my team suggest a dinner or an event. And I just don't think getting multiple people drunk is equivalent to making them understand skincare. I don't believe in an event. I do believe in talking to professionals and getting our product known by professionals.

16:35And if they like it, which majority of them always do, they go and share with their team. And I am a bigger believer in word of mouth and organic referrals. Up till date, we have not done any paid marketing. So anything you see as far as articles and influencers and other people, big names tag us, it's all been organic, organically done through myself, organically done through people who genuinely love our products and share online. So we are very proud to have not put in anything in marketing and seen such a great income under a year as far as recognition of our brands and like really amazing feedback from people and repeat customers as well.

17:20Kara Goldin:So you developed GlassFX. How did you come up with the name? I came up with a name as far as using glass as not only glass skin, but as well as transparency with our consumers. So glass just made sense because it was like a double meaning. And then the FX portion was not only also has a double meaning FX being a scientific term as far as function, but then FX as an effect, like giving you the glass effect. So we, it was like a very double meaning and I just stuck. And after like going on for like a year thinking of names while we are finalizing the formulas, it was always the one that stuck with me for sure.

18:04Kara Goldin:So when you launched Glass Effects, I read that you went in and you touched on this a few minutes ago, but you went into South Korea's formulation labs. You hadn't been in the skincare industry, but immediately it struck you as potentially different from, you know, the other way that beauty products are developed in the U.S. What did you think was like the key difference that you were seeing? Yeah, I spend a lot of time in Asia for work and I did see how much they see beauty as a standard of like respect and they take beauty very, very seriously, male and females. So that's why I chose Korea because not only how much how seriously they take it but as well as how innovative they are they are essentially 20 years ahead of the western world in the beauty world so I knew that was the right place to go their innovation labs and technology that they have is something that is way far advanced than anything we have in our side of the world as well so I knew it was definitely the one to work with the definitely the country and to find the labs And after searching with multiple labs, we had found our perfect one with a great team.

19:22And even though I specifically don't have any broad experience in the chem world, I had a great chemist who helped us with our formulas in the beginning. They were seven to eight years at L 'Oreal and Vichae, which is another brand. And that was someone I brought from the Western world, as well as someone else we had from Korea. So kind of just accumulating a team of people who have different strengths than I do, because I always believe you're as strong as your team for sure. And one person cannot do it all. So being able to delegate that and also work together collaboratively was really great as well.

20:02Kara Goldin:So the beauty industry loves complexity and all these, you know, 10 steps, 20 steps that people are pushing out there, brands are pushing out there. But GlossFX really is much more about simplicity and making your skin the best it can be. Why do you think we've been conditioned to believe more is better? And can you talk a little bit about how glass effects, you're trying to really shift that for people? Yeah, I think as far as human nature, everybody always thinks more is more and less is less. But sometimes I definitely strongly believe less is more for sure. And we are also, especially the Western world, I feel like there's a lot more greed involved in like what we want.

20:53it's never enough. So and that not only goes in skincare, I think that goes on many other realms of life too. So this was something that I essentially had a problem with is that as much as I love skincare and want to do skincare, you cannot do 20, 15 to 20 steps daily, morning and night, maybe on a Sunday or maybe in the evening. But in the morning when you like essentially need more like need the proper products because you're out all day you have to think of the time and everybody this day and age is such on-the-go people like no matter what you're doing whether you're a mom an entrepreneur you or someone who is just in the office all day or an athlete or someone it's always there's never enough time I feel and we wanted to make sure that glass effects really created products that gave you those instant results.

21:48But while also you're going throughout your busy day, it's repairing your skin too. So it's not just a quick fix. It's also like long-term health as well.

21:59Kara Goldin:How do you build trust in a category? You know, you've been in the aviation business for a while, But with GlassFX, you're building trust in a category where consumers have been promised miracles for decades. So how do you build that trust? First things first, as far as trust, I think communication is the number one key. Being very consistent on what your brand pillars are, being very consistent on what your brand stands for, as well as communication, as well how you are talking to the consumer online and what are you communicating and how you can help them, but as well as backing up everything we say with doing clinical studies.

22:46I knew it was going to, it's a very saturated market. I knew a lot of people would question why you guys opposed to the other thousands and millions of brands that are out there. So we wanted to also show not only our formulations are done in the best innovative high-tech labs, but we have the proof that goes behind it and we invest in money into doing clinical studies so it could actually prove that it fixes your barrier, firms your skin. And I think the communication and consistency is definitely one of those number one things where we can share so we can have our consumers trust us more.

23:21Kara Goldin:What's the biggest misconception consumers have about healthy skin today? I believe a lot of people, and this was a difference that I saw between how people look at skincare in the Western world compared to how people look at skincare in the Eastern side where like specifically Korea and is here in the Western world, sometimes we're looking for a quick cover up or a quick fix or to just conceal the blemish, whereas they are more so thinking of getting to the root of it and repairing the barrier not just thinking like what can i put on to just make it go away so the external the rest of the world doesn't see but more so repairing the underlying cause becoming a little bit more knowledgeable as far as skincare and what products you're using what trend do you think is overrated i guess right now?

24:16Oh, I would say slugging or like multiple, yeah, like doing like too much because I feel like that clogs your pores and whatnot. We wanted to really focus on lightweight formulas because if the first layer is not enough for you, you can apply more per you want. But I think excess of anything is not good.

24:36Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. When you look at your journey in building Glass FX, you mentioned that you had, it took four years to actually get a product out. I would imagine you thought it was going to be faster to get it out. It always takes longer, right? No, always. Always takes longer. But what do you think has been the most challenging, I guess, is in actually developing the products and developing the company? What has been the most challenging as you're creating Glass Effects and scaling it? I would say initially what delayed us a bit is finding the perfect packaging as well as finalizing the perfect and best formula.

25:26The formulation process definitely took a couple of years and then after you finalize the formula you also need to find packaging that is compatible with it we also like especially we have mists and whatnot so sometimes the mist pump may not always work with the compatibility of the formulation you have to do compatibility testing for four weeks before you can even see if a packaging works then going back and forth on that and being very like putting like human psychology into the package design as well people don't want too much but then people don't want too little so it was like finding that perfect balance of exactly what's on there because if and when we do get into retail and people see that how can you differentiate our products from like a thousands that are on the wall so i think one of the things that has why it took so long is finding the perfect packaging the psychology behind the packaging as well as creating the perfect formulas and having multiple different people test it.

26:32Kara Goldin:How did you finance GlassFX? Through my first job, Fly Black. So every single thing, like whatever I had made, I would just take everything like I've made and invested it into GlassFX. All bootstrapped. It's all owned by myself. I don't have any external help, which is hence why we haven't done any paid marketing, because I'm trying to organically I do it through my network. That's awesome. So when you look at other founders who are thinking about disrupting an industry, I would imagine that you probably have the same opinion that I do, which is, you know, ideas are one thing, but the actual execution is just a whole other piece of it that is not what everybody does, of course, right?

27:21Kara Goldin:It's hard. It's really, really challenging to actually go and not only launch a company, but actually go and scale it. Did you have a point when you thought, what the heck am I doing? I can just go back to my other company and continue to put more time in that, or I can continue to grow GlassFX. did you ever get to that point where you just thought things are really really challenging and maybe I'm doing the wrong thing yeah absolutely and I think that was um I had felt that it was extremely challenging during the development phase as you mentioned I probably thought I would have launched much earlier than I did initially when I was speaking to the team in Korea and I was like I want to launch in a year I know exactly what I want to do and they kind of like laughed at me and I was like, okay, I'm used to a lot of people questioning me.

28:20So it was fine. It was nothing new. But I did realize, I'm like, okay, maybe they were right in the end. I did see that. And I think it is very, there have been days, of course, not every day is easy. I always say when you're an entrepreneur, it's like putting out a fire daily. Like you just have to know how to be very composed and calm and know that being an entrepreneur is like a roller coaster and you just have to ride the wave. And a lot of people do think it's very glamorous. I think being a founder is opposite of glamorous. But is it fulfilling? And seeing an idea that you had in your mind, like comes fruitish in life, and it's tangible, it's in your hands, and you see other people loving it, I think that makes it for sure.

29:06Everything else feel worth it for sure. Yeah, definitely. I would say for anyone that I have spoken to and they are also feeling in that way that, oh, it's a hard day. I always applaud others and applaud myself as well to start. I think starting is the hardest thing is if you have an idea, I always say make a logo and start and refine on the way like as you go, because it's not always going to be perfect. And I think in the beginning, me and other entrepreneurs I have spoken to, they were so obsessed with the idea of perfecting it first. But I think launch to your best potential and then refine along the way because you're going to learn more along the way of your journey.

29:49You're not going to know everything the first day. So definitely starting, number one.

29:53Kara Goldin:That's so, so true. So last question, if you were starting GlassFX again tomorrow with everything you know, is there one thing that you would do differently? Oh, I would say if there was one thing I would do differently, it would be probably documenting my four year journey on social media. I'm not a very talkative person on social media. I share what I want to share and it's not. But I realize how many people it could have helped, as well as how much feedback I could have gotten through the process. Instead of me doing research and looking up like, would people like this bottle? Do they want enough copy?