Once the Package Ships, I Get Nervous

The worry that starts once a product leaves my hands

Once a bath soak order shows as shipped, I get strangely nervous. When the order first comes in, I'm grateful and happy — but as the delivery gets closer to the customer, the worry slowly creeps in. Do other founders feel this too? I'm genuinely curious.

I'm the type who worries a lot by nature, so from the moment a product leaves my hands, all kinds of thoughts about how the customer will feel start swirling. Especially with HAPPY TEARS, since it has chili in it — will they use it correctly, won't the heat be too intense, will they even like it. It hasn't even reached the customer yet, and every scene is already playing out in my head. Stop it, please.

Seven jars from a stranger, well — two, this time

A few days ago, a new customer followed our Instagram and ordered HAPPY TEARS. First-time purchase, never used the product before, and she ordered two at once.

Rather than the joy of selling one more, worry came first. Because right now, more than selling one more unit, having the customer actually try it and be satisfied matters far more to us. If she opened it and was disappointed, that's her time and money wasted, and we'd lose the customer too — a good review would be hard to expect after that.

So I carefully sent her a DM. Talking it through, it turned out she was a fan of the athlete Lee Seo, and she'd bought HAPPY TEARS after seeing Lee Seo use it in an Instagram story. And an even better detail: this customer was also a bodybuilding athlete.

I'd met, again, the exact customer I'd pictured in my head while making this product.

One person's usage moment brought the next customer

I'm so grateful to Lee Seo for posting our half-bath soak on her story again. We never asked her to post anything. She just genuinely keeps liking our product and keeps showing real, everyday use of it.

Having someone use our product this consistently — I think that's real luck. Seeing Lee Seo's everyday usage moment, another athlete discovered our product. Luck struck again.

Not ad copy — an actual person actually using the product. That's what reached the next customer. Running a small brand, moments like this feel genuinely remarkable. When I buy products that aren't ours, I'm just one consumer too, and I know exactly how hard it is to keep using one product consistently for a long time, even a great one. There are so many good products in the world. So the fact that Lee Seo keeps reaching for ours means even more.

We're finding customers in Korea, instead of running ads

Our brand hasn't run any advertising domestically yet. On Amazon we run PPC ads to get in front of customers, but in Korea, we've chosen a different approach — rather than showing ads to a broad, unspecified audience, we go find the people who would genuinely use our product well.

Some of that comes from the particular nature of our half-bath soak. People who regularly do a half-bath after working out. People managing their weight ahead of a weigh-in. People who've always felt other bath soaks were lacking in heat. We find people like this, reach out first, and send them the product to try — without ever requiring a post or any promotion in return. If it works out, all we ask for is an honest note on what was good and what was uncomfortable.

Thinking about it again, Lee Seo discovered our product entirely on her own, bought it, used it, and then reached out. The connection just followed naturally from there. So really — it's luck.

Meeting the customer we imagined, for real

We can't reach a lot of people at once, the way a big brand can. Instead, we're meeting people one at a time — finding someone who would genuinely need our product, giving them a direct chance to try it, and listening to their story.

This approach takes a long time and doesn't generate big sales right away. But when, like this time, one athlete's real usage brings another athlete to actually buy, it feels like the direction we're heading isn't completely wrong. It might look like the long way around, but sometimes I think it might actually be the surest shortcut there is.

We're still a small brand, nervous about every single order — which is exactly why orders like this one feel even more welcome, and even more grateful.

Shipped. Now, the waiting begins again

The product has shipped now. How will it go? I'm hoping the soaks that left our hands and made their way to a customer's hands meet her expectations. I'm hoping it's worth the money she paid, doing its job properly. And I'm hoping HAPPY TEARS does its job properly, during the half-bath time of the customer who found us through Lee Seo's story.

Hoping for all of that, I wait, nervously, again.