{"id":4840,"date":"2017-03-21T01:35:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T05:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/julep-going-after-big-beauty-with-crowdsourced-products\/"},"modified":"2017-03-21T01:35:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T05:35:39","slug":"julep-going-after-big-beauty-with-crowdsourced-products","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/julep-going-after-big-beauty-with-crowdsourced-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Julep: Going After Big Beauty With Crowdsourced Products"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><u>The Innovation<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Julep is a growing, multi-channel\u00a0beauty brand that has utilized crowdsourcing combined with social media and big data to design new products. The brand has created a website and product creation experience that is incredibly interactive and engaging. The company\u2019s Beauty Lab (previously called Idea Lab) asks their customers to test and vote on everything from product formulas and color inspiration to shade names.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> See community here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.julep.com\/beautylab\">http:\/\/www.julep.com\/beautylab<\/a>\u00a0It taps into the YouTube and Instagram culture of amateur \u201cbeauty gurus\u201d who spend countless hours creating \u201chow-to\u201d content and sharing beauty looks.<\/p>\n<p><u>Creating &amp; Capturing Value<\/u><\/p>\n<p>As Julep CEO Jane Park says, \u201cIdea Lab is trying to do two things \u2014 speed up product development and time-to-market, and get a preliminary sense of customer interest to manufacture from the get-go.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> Here Park succinctly captures how Julep creates value in the beauty marketplace \u2013 it produces the exact products that customers want, in a quicker time than possible manner from bigger beauty players (Julep claims it releases new products 10x faster than traditional beauty companies,\u00a0 and having worked in the industry previously I can tell you it usually takes a minimum of 18 months to bring a new product into market). Since cosmetics are very trend-based, this fast time-to-market creates tremendous value amongst the target customer. On top of this, Julep is not wasting money and time on traditional market research (as in the Nivea case) and has a better understanding of demand, leading to less excess inventory.<\/p>\n<p>The company captures this value, as many other crowdsourced products do \u2013 by associating the ideas the consumers are coming up with exclusively with the Julep brand. On top of this, Julep has a sophisticated supply chain process that Park refuses to share details on, as she says it\u2019s part of her company\u2019s \u201csecret sauce\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> Julep uses the crowdsourced method to involve customers more deeply in the brand, which allows a smaller company to compete against larger players.<\/p>\n<p><u>Managing The Crowd<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Julep\u2019s Beauty Lab is a self-signup section if the brand\u2019s website, where the company asks its \u201cMavens\u201d to do everything from test new products, share shade inspiration through social media and name shades. Incentivizing their core consumer is not hard, beauty junkies inherently want to be on the forefront of new products and gain personal satisfaction from being part of the design process. Plus \u2013 they know they are creating products that they will want to buy. For example, in Julep\u2019s latest Lip Mousse product launch, over 80,000 signed up to test the latest creation. See screenshots below for examples from the Lip Mousse crowdsourcing process:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4838\" src=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"924\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1.png 1818w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1-300x88.png 300w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1-768x226.png 768w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1-1024x301.png 1024w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-1-600x177.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4839\" src=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"923\" height=\"239\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2.png 1813w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2-300x78.png 300w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2-768x199.png 768w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2-1024x265.png 1024w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/Maven-2-600x156.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 923px) 100vw, 923px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><u>Growth Potential &amp; Future Challenges<\/u><u><br \/>\n<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Since its founding Julep has raised $56MM from investors who want to tap into the crowdsourcing trend. The company has used the money to accelerate the production of new products, the company launches more than 300 new products skus per year. As well, the company has introduced brick-and-mortar boutique \u201cparlors\u201d that offer beauty services along with Julep products.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you look at Julep\u2019s website now, you will see that the majority of its products are not crowdsourced and the Beauty Lab is not featured as prominently on its site as it used to. On top of this Julep has started a Birchbox-esq \u201cBeauty Box\u201d subscription service. As a result, one of the biggest challenges Julep could be facing is a lack of focus among many ideas. Beauty is one of the most competitive industries out there and Julep risk losing its identity as it moves away from its crowdsourcing edge. Part of this could be the result of becoming too big \u2013 as we have seen, it is easier and perhaps more efficient to product design internally than to crowdsource every new product. We will see if in the future Julep has reached the right balance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.julep.com\/beautylab\">http:\/\/www.julep.com\/beautylab<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2014\/01\/28\/cosmetics-startup-julep-whizzes-by-rivals-with-its-crowdsourced-approach-to-making-products\/\">http:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2014\/01\/28\/cosmetics-startup-julep-whizzes-by-rivals-with-its-crowdsourced-approach-to-making-products\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/venturecapital\/2014\/04\/14\/julep-beauty-raises-30m-to-give-big-beauty-a-makeover-with-crowdsourcing\/\">http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/venturecapital\/2014\/04\/14\/julep-beauty-raises-30m-to-give-big-beauty-a-makeover-with-crowdsourcing\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julep is taping into the social nature of the beauty market to crowdsource new product design so consumers have the products they want to buy in a much faster timeline than traditional big beauty brands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":838,"featured_media":4841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[209,29,533,741,798,260],"class_list":["post-4840","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","category-big-data","category-community","category-crowdsource","category-product-development","category-social-media"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/managing-digital-crowds\/","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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