Ming S. Zhao shares her entrepreneurship, Dan Grunfeld discusses his career and his family's historic legacy, and it's about to get action-oriented

"As someone who is in the midst of my own journey, my advice would be to keep going." In this week's You've Got This, CEO and Co-founder at?PROVEN Skincare Ming S. Zhao outlines her career experiences, passion for innovation, and advice for other entrepreneurs. We're also joined by former professional?basketball?player, Vice President at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and author Dan Grunfeld, discussing his recent book By the Grace of the Game and his family's legacy as Holocaust survivors around International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Don't miss their answers below, along with announcing our next guest, Co-Founder & Executive Coach at Hatwell Group Jason Blackwell.

Victoria: "How would you describe your career journey, and the inspiration behind your company?"

Ming: "I have an MBA from Harvard Business School and enjoyed a career in private equity. While I was very passionate about my roles as a private equity investor and as a hedge fund investor, it often meant very long hours, frequent travel and high stress. All of which took a massive toll on my skin.

I recall one day waking up, seeing myself in a mirror and just feeling like I looked so unlike myself and much older than my age. So I began investing in all kinds of expensive skincare products that promised miracles. But none of them actually delivered on their promise. I felt really betrayed by the skincare beauty industry, something I believe lots of consumers can relate to. Eventually, I went to see a specialist who examined my skin and understood more about my life and environment before creating personalized skincare products for me.

And it was only with those products that I saw any improvement with my skin. I knew other people deserved to know what it’s like to truly believe in the products you are using and experience real results.

It made so much sense because everything in medical care is personalized. But that's not what we do when caring for our body’s largest organ—our skin. This led to me developing an itch to start a whole new approach to change how the skincare industry treats skin. Around the same time, I met my now co-founder, Dr. Amy Yuan, who is a computational physicist from Stanford. And after we got to talking, I learned that she had similar misgivings about the skincare industry. She had a specific skin condition called atopic dermatitis and products on the market weren't helping her. She had built this AI powered database that analyzes the effectiveness of more than 20,238 skincare ingredients, 100,000 products, 20 million testimonials, and more than 4,000 scientific journal articles. And then ran machine learning algorithms through all of it to understand what ingredients actually would have a positive impact on different individuals based on who they are. That's how she got her own skin under control.?

So we decided to combine our mutual epiphanies—mine being personalization, tailoring products to individual needs and hers being the use of data to understand what different people need. Combining personalization and data, we created PROVEN."

Victoria: "Personalization and innovation have been some of the key drivers of PROVEN Skincare's success - as well as delivering results for your customers. What do you see as the most powerful ways to engage with your audience?"

Ming: "I think the best way to engage with consumers is by addressing a real need in their lives, solving a real problem. One in two people are is dissatisfied with their skincare. Our core aspiration with PROVEN was to fix that.

PROVEN’s philosophy is simple - everyone deserves skin care as unique as them. We create tailor-made products based on every individual’s skin type, skin goals, lifestyle, and environment. We also tweak your formulations every eight weeks to evolve with you - based on changing seasons, the skin’s tolerance to active ingredients and bigger life changes such as a move or a pregnancy.

Our engagement with our audience comes from a place of empathy because our own struggles inspired us to start the company. We know how frustrating the guesswork is and that one size doesn’t fit all. We want to give people good skin for life, in a way that is accessible and affordable. It takes just a few minutes to answer detailed questions about your skin before we can tailor-make a formula. It is an especially valuable model for people underserved by the skincare industry.

And most importantly, we respect our audience’s time and intelligence. We know they don’t have time for a 17 step skincare routine or to try hundreds of products in the hope that something will work. We give them everything they need in a simple, multifunctional routine created with cutting edge science and technology, ingredients handpicked for them and bringing real results."

Victoria: "What advice would you have for other founders and those looking to build their own thing, particularly in the direct-to-consumer space?"

Ming: "I’m a third generation entrepreneur. My grandfather, at the age of 19, walked 1500 kilometers to escape a famine in my home village in China and he opened a bakery food cart that supported and helped to raise his 6 younger siblings. My father was one of the first wave of entrepreneurs in China after the Chinese economy opened to entrepreneurship.?

So I have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit and always had this fantasy of one day starting my own business. Nonetheless, making the career pivot did not come easy. But I was craving a way to create impact in people’s lives and a sense of belonging that I only found when I started PROVEN. That was my driving force. When creating a company, finding a mission that resonates with you is really important.

As someone who is in the midst of my own journey, my advice would be to keep going. Keep believing that what you’re building will bring value to your consumers and don’t stop until you reach your goal.?

?"As a female and mom founder, I have also learned to pay very little mind to naysayers. For any founder, not just for female founders or mom founders, I think there are going to be more people that don't believe in you in the beginning than ones who do. Self-belief is paramount."

Follow Ming on LinkedIn.

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I was honored to host Dan Grunfeld for a special conversation discussing his career as a professional athlete and startup advisor along with his family's powerful story as shared in the recently-published book By the Grace of the Game, and what drives him to want to educate and inspire others.

Victoria: "Can you share with us your professional journey?"

Dan: "My first career was in professional sports. I played basketball at Stanford, 8 years professionally around the world, and I retired at 30 years old. I then got my MBA at Stanford and joined a startup, Strivr, which uses virtual reality as a training tool. It started in sports—a great application of technology in the sports world—and then we were able to apply VR training to large enterprises. I was there as that startup grew, then 2.5 years ago I transitioned to the venture capital side. I now work with our startups to help them grow and scale."?

Victoria: "What do you recommend for other athletes who want to use LinkedIn?"

Dan: "There’s so much about being an athlete that’s transferable to the professional world. The communication, the problem-solving, dealing with adversity, making decisions under pressure. I always give the same advice to current athletes: engage with the professional world as early as possible, and LinkedIn is a great way to do that. There’s life after the game, and LinkedIn is such a wonderful place to get started."

Victoria: "In your recent book?By the Grace of the Game,?you share your and your father’s experience as the only player in NBA history whose parents survived the Holocaust. This is a powerful and personal story. With International Holocaust Remembrance Day taking place this past week on January 27, what do you hope readers take away from the book??

Dan: "First and foremost, to be educated on the Holocaust. To know that it wasn’t that long ago and it wasn't that far away. We need to tell these stories and we need to make sure it doesn’t ever happen again to anybody. Wherever there’s injustice or inequality, we have to stand up against it. And my book is a family story. My grandparents and my dad dealt with some hard things but were?ultimately?able to persevere.

There’s darkness in the story, but there's so much more light, and I hope that people get a sense of inspiration from that. My grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and she’s 96 and lives in the Bay Area. It's an honor that my book has been able to highlight her story. We did an interview that aired recently with Wolf Blitzer—me, my dad, and my grandmother were all interviewed together. It was a very?special experience, and my grandma was simply amazing."

Victoria: "You shared some words of wisdom with NBC News from your grandmother in April 2020 around the pandemic. How would you update that advice today?"??

Dan: "When I wrote that article, the pandemic was just starting. The article highlighted the discipline my grandmother applied during the Holocaust to survive and how we can think about staying safe and disciplined around COVID-19. Now we’ve progressed so much in the pandemic, and we still have challenges. My grandmother would say to find joy in the things that you can do and to accept that you might have restrictions in some other things. She always says that it’s not what happens to you in life, it's how you deal with what happens to you. In her retirement community, they went on a mini-lockdown, and she wasn’t able to play bridge as she likes to do. But when I speak with her, she’s still very positive and grateful for the things she can do. So it’s about being positive and maintaining that sense of gratitude for the things that you do have instead of dwelling on the things you?don't."

Victoria: "What are some ways people can stay up to date with you and help raise awareness?"

Dan: "I’m active on LinkedIn, so please connect with me here. And engaging with my family's story is an amazing way to understand this history and help spread the message.

"This book means the world to me, and to be able to share it with others is something I’m so grateful?to be able to do. I can’t tell you how many people have reached out to me?on LinkedIn from?around the world."

There have?been people who knew my family in Transylvania and people from around the U.S who read the?book and were moved by the?journey. For this story, LinkedIn has?really been a connector."

Follow or connect with Dan on LinkedIn.

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Next week's guest: Jason Blackwell

Interested in strengthening your leadership abilities? Then you'll want to get a question ready for our next guest, Jason Blackwell. As Co-Founder & Executive Coach at Hatwell Group, Jason leverages his eleven years of service in the British Royal Navy and working as an executive coach since 2006 to help his clients utilize action-oriented methodologies to reach their full potential. With that in mind, here's what I'll be asking Jason:

• Can you share with us how your military experiences and training informed your approach with building the Hatwell Group?
• In a LinkedIn article you wrote from July 2021, you shared 5 key recommendations on how to sustain a hybrid workplace. As we continue to evolve and adjust around the pandemic and the Great Reshuffle, how would you expand on those recommendations?
• What recommendations would you have for others looking to build or grow their leadership skills?

If you have a question for Jason, ask away in the comments below - and thank you for being a part of You've Got This.