A social debut
Following the meteoric rise of the K-beauty phenomenon, tech entrepreneur and the first Asian-American finalist on The Apprentice in the US launches K-beauty-focused social network at W2Beauty.com.
The new platform is the globe’s first Korean-specific social networking space. It comprises Asian-American media experts and influencers to reveal emerging, contemporary and inventive Korean cosmetics to the US market.
W2Beauty is equipped with a fully integrated editorial and shopping site. The company has adopted a Seoul-based direct sourcing and fulfillment team to find and offer Korean items, along with communicating trends and innovative product releases to both US and international consumers.
“The Facebook of Korean beauty”
"As a Korean-American, I've had a desire to bridge the creative talents, culture, and products from Korea to the rest of the world. Korean dramas and Korean beauty are a natural extension of this global phenomenon,” James Sun, Tech Entrepreneur, noted.
Instagram users crafted 15 million posts about K-beauty between 2014 and 2016, with K-beauty posts on the social site having obtained more than 500M social interactions, consulting group Preen.me indicated.
Other subject matter-focused communities, such as video platform and gaming community, Twitch, along with K-drama site Dramabeans.com have experienced staggering success, receiving over 14 million users in the past 12 months.
As a result, the W2Beauty founder wanted to create and develop a specific platform for K-beauty lovers to communicate, access information and partake in the active cosmetics community.
The entrepreneur strived to create a supportive community offering educational content. To enable the site to provide this to its users, James Sun amassed an editorial team and "K-Beauty Squad", which consists of experts within the Asian-American and beauty media sphere.
Leading team
Anna Park, former EIC of Audrey magazine, is the editor in chief, with Jude Chao, the English-language K-beauty blogger taking the position of editor at large.
Contributing editors also include Coco Park, author of Korean Beauty Secrets: A Practical Guide to Cutting-Edge Skincare and Makeup and K-beauty influencer Sheryll Donerson, along with a collection of notable and esteemed beauty vloggers.
Explaining the global appeal of K-beauty, Sun emphasised:"K-beauty is not only for Asians or Koreans. In fact, the right K-beauty products can be perfect for skin types all around the world".
As K-beauty 1.0 was fixed on retail and commerce activities, Sun and his team are now focusing their efforts on developing a social shopping community for the next era of Korean beauty.
US-based company, W2Beauty, was launched in 2017 and promotes itself as a “one-stop destination for everything K-beauty with community, shopping, and editorials”.