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The process of creating a brand is much harder than it may seem.
Right from the stage where a new brand tries to attract investment, it’s not easy to communicate the founder’s inspiration and creativity to investors. While it varies by degree, investors generally want to make decisions based on quantifiable numbers or clear logic. Investors depend on these so-called 'scientific methods', but founders who want to create a brand are much closer to 'artists'. At their core, these two groups speak a different language and have fundamentally different approaches.
Even after securing investment, the most important mission—winning customers—still remains. With the widespread adoption of OEM and ODM, manufacturing bottlenecks have been eased, but that simply means the market is now operating in near perfect competition, making it tough just to get your product noticed, survive, and grow into a brand.
Even securing a certain market position doesn’t guarantee you’ll maintain it for long. On top of that, going up against the capital power of conglomerates with effective marketing, and surpassing the trust that established brands have built, requires something truly special. And, as some ad copy puts it, 'this special something' is still nearly impossible to put into words—which is why, for founders, the process of persuading ever-skeptical investors can be an agonizing experience.
Right from the stage where a new brand tries to attract investment, it’s not easy to communicate the founder’s inspiration and creativity to investors. While it varies by degree, investors generally want to make decisions based on quantifiable numbers or clear logic. Investors depend on these so-called 'scientific methods', but founders who want to create a brand are much closer to 'artists'. At their core, these two groups speak a different language and have fundamentally different approaches.
Even after securing investment, the most important mission—winning customers—still remains. With the widespread adoption of OEM and ODM, manufacturing bottlenecks have been eased, but that simply means the market is now operating in near perfect competition, making it tough just to get your product noticed, survive, and grow into a brand.
Even securing a certain market position doesn’t guarantee you’ll maintain it for long. On top of that, going up against the capital power of conglomerates with effective marketing, and surpassing the trust that established brands have built, requires something truly special. And, as some ad copy puts it, 'this special something' is still nearly impossible to put into words—which is why, for founders, the process of persuading ever-skeptical investors can be an agonizing experience.
Extreme Team, launched as Iofood, is a startup that runs a men’s nutritional supplement brand of the same name. During his long years studying abroad, CEO Seung-yeop Lee repeatedly watched overseas trends quickly spread back home, and this made him think, 'What I like might actually become the mainstream.' That's what led him to start this business. In the bootstrapping phase, the very first item—a protein drink launched through Wadiz crowdfunding—ended up somewhere in the middle. It sold, but not enough to really scale, and he judged there were several hurdles to overcome. So, he started looking for solutions to improve the product while also seeking institutional investment.
During this journey, I met the CEO and was impressed enough to become part of the project from the very outset. After the initial product failed, he persistently built new product hypotheses, laid out verification plans, moved more quickly than anyone else, analyzed the data objectively, and, through this process, arrived at decisions close to a full pivot. Watching all of this, my fears about (inevitable!) setbacks and tough communication that might come up later actually faded. More than anything, I gained confidence that we’d be able to handle all sorts of challenges that could arise from running this business.
Since the initial investment, two years have passed with plenty of experiments and trial and error—but at the same time, there’s been unstoppable, tremendous growth, and that growth is still ongoing. It’s not just the numbers that have increased; the company has become more solid as it evolves into a true brand.
Just as Red Bull became a global brand through its sponsorship of extreme sports, we are supporting various 'underdogs' in South Korea—a place where extreme sports have been all but barren. We've launched the nation’s first wingsuit team, sponsored national athletes at the Winter Olympics, and established a motorcycle team. While everyone was getting into Swoopa, we began supporting the male breakdancing group Jinjo Crew and plan to continue backing them to the next Olympics. If we didn’t have the long-term vision to resist the impatience and shortsightedness that often comes with investors, even achieving one of these would have been tough.
As Extreme became more widely recognized as a brand, its marketing efficiency has naturally gone up, and as more people have discovered it, Extreme products are available in more and more locations. We’ve taken over categories on Naver and Coupang and are now expanding into major offline channels as well.
I’m really curious how far CEO Seung-yeop Lee’s journey will go. He could build Extreme into a global mega-brand, use the brand as a springboard to expand into new markets, or even create an entirely different second brand. I truly hope his challenge continues and ends in even greater success—so that the steps Extreme takes can offer powerful inspiration to future brand builders.
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