The Customer I'd Been Dreaming Of

My blog's first post is about a customer. The reason is simple: the day I learned that the exact customer I'd pictured in my head was actually using our product and loving it was the happiest moment I've had since starting this brand.

The customer I'd been dreaming of actually showed up

While building the brand, I had this vague thought running in the back of my mind: "Someday, I hope the exact customer I imagined actually uses this product."

The customer I had in mind while making HAPPY TEARS was specific: an athlete ahead of a weigh-in. Someone in the middle of a diet.

But honestly, that was just a story in my own head. I didn't really expect people like that to use my product. Back then I'd only just set up an Instagram account and wasn't managing it at all.

Then one day, a DM notification popped up.

"What's this?" I opened it.

"Thank you for making HAPPY TEARS."

Wait... is this really for me? I read it several times. Until then I'd only ever heard from customers through Naver reviews — this was the first time I'd gotten a DM directly.

I got curious and clicked into her profile. And was surprised again: a bodybuilding sports-model athlete. I yelled out loud, alone, in my room. "No way..." This was exactly the customer I'd only ever imagined in my head.

Even more surprising — she'd actually used our product while training for a competition and said it had genuinely helped, which is why she'd sent the message. That was the first time I truly felt that something I'd made had reached the person it was made for.

With a shaking hand, I wrote back. Turned out we lived in the same neighborhood. "Is this fate?" She kindly agreed to meet.

Honestly, my confidence was pretty low back then

"Too spicy." "It made me cough."

I'd been getting feedback like that quite a bit, and every time, I wanted to disappear into a hole. The product and I felt completely fused together — any criticism of the product felt like criticism of me. When the product got flak, it felt like: congratulations, the psychological damage has also been applied to the founder.

(God, looking back, I really had glass-thin nerves.)

Back then I kept thinking: did I make something strange? Was the product too sharp-edged? All kinds of thoughts.

But meeting this athlete changed my thinking completely. To some people, this is a product that's too spicy, too intense, not for them. But to someone else, it might be a product they can't live without.

From that day on, I decided: instead of a product everyone likes a little, make the best possible product for the people who actually need it. That one idea is what's carried me here.

The brand is still small

There's a lot still missing. Still, one by one, people who genuinely love our product keep showing up. That's such a strange, grateful thing to witness.

Sometimes I wonder — if I can find 100 true fans of the product, can the brand succeed? I still don't know the answer.

But at least the confidence that first fan gave me is, clearly, still the force that keeps me building this brand.