Navneet Kaur founded the skincare company Yours in 2018 in Singapore. She was previously the Head of Strategy (APAC) at Ofo and Head of Driver Operations (APAC) at Uber. Yours is a fresh B2C personalized skincare solution that is changing the game of beauty by removing the ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy. Read on more to find out about Navneet and her personalized skincare company:
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you started Yours?
I am from India and I started my career as a skincare brand manager. Through my role, I saw how the beauty industry operated. My biggest takeaway was that the whole process of product creation was not consumer-centric. Beauty and skincare brands focused more on selling their story and packaging, rather than focusing on consumers and the products themselves. I saw just how broken the process was and how uninvolved consumers were when it came to the actual formulation of the products. After three and a half years of working as a skincare manager, I joined Uber in 2014 in Delhi as an Operation Manager. This role was eye-opening as it enabled me to learn the business side and operations of a corporate company. I was then transferred to the Singapore Uber office where I learned the importance of scaling a business with diverse economies. After a couple of years, I joined, Ofo, a Chinese bike-sharing chain in Singapore, where I was Head of Strategy for the APAC team as well.
As I was working, I realized how much it was a struggle to find products that worked for my skin. I remember my husband’s nose getting red with acne before our wedding. We would experiment with so many products in pursuit of getting rid of his pimples, but nothing seemed to work. I realized it was all a waste of money and time and this was where I started thinking about how technology could be implemented to map out ingredients. This was where Yours was born. As I did more research and spoke to various dermatologists, I learned that there was no skincare brand that took into consideration an individual’s lifestyle.
How does technology work and can you tell us more about the ingredients in your products?
Yes! The technology comes from a skin analysis. Once you land on our page, you upload a selfie of yourself. The machine learning module then processes the image to reveal the relative size of your pores, dryness, and blackheads. This is necessary because a lot of people are still unaware of their skin type and pain points. Many think that they have oily skin when they have combination. The machine learning model makes this analysis more accurate.
Picture Courtesy: Yours
How do you plan on scaling the business, and growing Yours?
Currently, our business is B2C and consumers can buy our products online or through our website. A few years down the road, I am hoping to open a few flagship stores where customers can come in for a proper skincare assessment. Many times, people end up spending high amounts for their skin care products, because of the high rent those brands pay to locate their stores within malls. Selling online allows me to give my customers the same quality, and brands like Warby Parker prove that the B2C model is beautiful.
What are some current trends in the beauty industry?
I believe that the biggest disruptions in the beauty industry are personalization, transparency of ingredients, and the incorporation of natural ingredients. I also noticed that people are gravitating towards minimalist beauty routines. People are preferring a fewer number of products instead of complicated skin treatments.
It was a pleasure speaking to Navneet and learning about her brand! Don’t forget to check out her products here: https://getyours.co/
