The people behind healthcare innovation: Interview with Xing Jin, Chairman, CEO, and Co-founder of So-Young

As part of my work, I have the privilege to speak with many inspiring innovators. However, the business community usually focuses more on companies, pitches, and valuations, and less on the innovator. I think it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the people behind healthcare innovation. Therefore, I’m sharing some of my conversations with innovators in a condensed format: six questions and six answers about their experience, their opinions, and their learnings.

This latest conversation is with 2 people: My colleague Kun Zhang and Xing Jin, Chairman, CEO, and Co-founder of So-Young, a platform in China for consumers, professionals, and service providers in the medical aesthetics industry.

Tobias Silberzahn: What’s your story, and how did you become an innovator in healthcare?

Xing Jin: I am deeply passionate about the pursuit of beauty. It is one of the noblest human pursuits and represents people’s aspirations for a better life. But the medical aesthetics industry has sometimes been misunderstood and stigmatized because of over-marketing and non-compliant practices, notably a lack of respect for medicine and prejudice within China’s traditional culture—people can have a biased or stereotypical view of practitioners within this industry.

I entered the medical aesthetics industry as an internet entrepreneur in 2013. My team and I aspired to address the deep-rooted problems within the medical aesthetics industry with internet technologies, such as developing more transparent information and promoting the right products and services via digital channels. We wished to change people’s perception of the industry and make medical aesthetics a service that benefits everyone.

Entrepreneurship is not just about achieving business goals but also spreading a spirit, a belief, and a culture. Medical aesthetics represents a spirit of “courageous change” at the spiritual core of being an independent human being, epitomizing my team’s culture. It’s our social responsibility to foster this spirit. After ten years of running this business, this sense of mission still ignites my passion.

Kun Zhang: Where do you see medical aesthetics moving to in the next ten years?

Xing Jin: To talk about the future, we should look back at where we came from, as we have continued to evolve in line with changes in China’s medical aesthetics market.

2013 to 2019 was a period of rapid growth for medical aesthetic players. The market growth drivers were innovation in both products and operations. At So-Young, we launched a series of app features, such as a medical aesthetic community, an e-commerce marketplace, live-streaming, and AI-powered facial pattern detection.

However, since 2020, the dynamics of the online market have changed. Local business service players and short-video platforms emerged. They attracted a lot of consumer traffic, which became a new driving force for the medical aesthetic industry.

Looking forward to the next ten years, as the impact of COVID-19 recedes, and the industry starts to recover, consumers are showing a greater preference for high-quality, low-priced products and services. Quality medical treatment and hassle-free, standardized services constitute the core competitive advantages in this market. At the same time, platform players must transform themselves towards becoming value chain integrators, engage more deeply in supply-side reform, integrate with both the up- and downstream, improve service delivery, and reduce service cost through greater efficiency. In this way, consumers can access better medical aesthetic services at a lower cost.

Looking further into the future, internet platform players will continue to play a more critical role as “connectors.” On the one hand, they can introduce sophisticated overseas products, equipment, and treatment solutions to China; on the other hand, they should also consider “going abroad” by bringing proven business models and capabilities to other regions.

Kun Zhang: Looking more broadly, what are the biggest opportunities and obstacles you see for innovation?

Xing Jin: The potential of the market is the biggest opportunity! The Chinese have been getting richer and richer in recent decades, which triggered the medical aesthetics industry boom. We are seeing more and more new entrants from different segments of the beauty industry’s value chain. In particular, traditional beauty salons are transforming into medical aesthetic clinics, and more and more clinics are founded by physicians and skin centers. We expect that more medical aesthetic service providers will enter this market.

The obstacles facing market players are obvious, too. The medical aesthetics industry is unique as it has medical and consumer attributes. Players from a medical background should build their consumer insights and marketing capabilities, while players closer to the consumer sector should focus on medical regulation compliance. Patient safety and medical quality are important and should be embedded across product design, service delivery, clinic collaboration, and many other aspects of services.

Kun Zhang: When you look at the health system as a whole (providers, payers, doctors, patients, consumers) who do you see driving innovation the most?

Xing Jin: We believe consumers are at the center of the medical aesthetic ecosystem. Consumers want end-to-end service and a high-quality experience. To make this happen, all other medical aesthetic stakeholders, like clinics, physicians, treatment equipment, and products, can work together to offer a seamless digital journey across online to offline scenarios for customers, with consistent sets of service delivery standards and integrated solutions.

Chinese consumers have diverse requirements. Given China’s vast territory and large population base, medical aesthetic service consumption patterns differ significantly between tier 1 and 2 cities and additional cities, coastal and inland regions, younger and middle-aged consumers, and affluent and price-conscious segments. Understanding the different consumer needs and matching the right service and products are the most important success factors.

Kun Zhang: In your opinion, what is the single most important change that will better enable digital transformation in consumer industries and health systems?

Xing Jin: Today’s digital transformation is not only about adopting IT in back-office management but more importantly, providing integrated services to consumers based on digital solutions. This mindset is very different from the traditional IT transformation that aims to empower medical institutions or physicians for better service capabilities.

For example, even the sharpest-eyed consumer still needs time to navigate between institutions, treatment programs, and products. Institutions and physicians need better digital marketing, sales, and service capabilities. The most efficient scenario is one in which consumers only need to think about what beauty, wellbeing and health problems they want to address and how much budget they can afford. At the same time, institutions and physicians need to focus on medical treatment. The digital system will match the demand and supply sides with insights into their needs.

The concept of digital journeys within the medical aesthetics industry is only just beginning to unfold. Although the medical sector has its own rules, it can also learn from other industries. In the world of the internet, digital is not just an enabler, it is also capable of adding benefits to the healthcare sector.

Tobias Silberzahn: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were starting out as an innovator?

Xing Jin: I wish I had realized earlier that it is important to establish deeper insights into customers and to use digital technology and in-depth research to explore the needs of niche markets as the first step in starting a new business. If we had understood that earlier, we would have adopted different product features and business models for the different consumer groups right at the beginning.

For more information, see So-Young.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and his guest contributors and do not reflect the views of McKinsey & Company.