Startup Case Study: Mein Skincare

When Tan Dang moved from Japan to study for an MBA at Saïd Business School, he hit upon an unexpected problem. The city was great, the course was enlightening but there was one minor issue. Despite his best efforts, he could not find any of the skincare products he used back in Tokyo. He couldn’t discern if any of the British products were their equivalent. 

While studying for the MBA, he hit on the idea of combining AI and computer imaging to help people find the right skincare products. By answering a couple of questions and taking a picture of their face, a user could find out what to use and, crucially, click a button to buy the products. His start-up, Mein Skincare, proved so successful he won the 2024 #StartedinOxford Showcase (formerly known as Demo Night). The site is now live in the UK and Indonesia with plans to open new markets and consider moving into stocking products itself rather than providing a link to a retailer.

The journey to co-founding Mein Skincare started after Tan graduated in computational biology in Munich. He realised delivering any impact in his subject area would take years of lab work and trials. Instead, he decided to work for Amazon in Japan to find out how businesses operate. This whetted his appetite to find out more by studying for an MBA. He chose the Saïd Business School because it, and the University of Oxford, are “renowned around the world”.

The idea was to immerse himself in his MBA and discuss ideas for potential new businesses with lecturers and colleagues before deciding in which field he should choose to launch a start-up. However, all the time the inspiration for his Mein Skincare company was staring him in the face – literally.

“I used skincare products in Japan but when I wanted to buy something similar in the UK, all the brands were different and the ingredients were difficult to understand,” he recalls.

“So, I thought it would be nice if there were a system that a beginner like me could use and get some quick advice. That's where the idea started and then, together with support from the business school, running through some of the EnSpire programmes, the idea just developed in Mein Skincare.”

Help from the OVB

Part of the MBA course is an entrepreneurship project which encourages students to discuss an idea and then constantly reevaluate and refine it with feedback from tutors and fellow students. This was where Tan started to sketch out a preliminary business case for his Korean skincare start-up. The Business School also recommends students with promising ideas to join the Oxford Venture Builder (OVB) run between its own Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre and EnSpire. When he heard about the three-month course, Tan immediately seized the opportunity to delve further into the practicalities of launching a start-up.

“Oxford Venture Builder was really helpful to get expert advice on areas of business areas that my colleagues and I didn’t have that much experience in, such as how to get VC funding, how to do marketing and build a go-to market strategy,” he says. 

“That strategy was really helped by incorporating the feedback I received from a pitching competition held at the end of the course.”  

Tan knew his idea could be brought to life with the new capabilities of AI and computer imagery. He had read papers on the technology being used to process pictures and report potential issues, such as whether a mole is benign or dangerous. While medical services are wrapped in complex regulation, Tan saw an opportunity to use computer vision for skincare advice because people do not always know which products are right for their skin types, but computer vision technology can advise. 

“We chose skincare because it’s not as heavily regulated as healthcare but it's still a big industry and people are very passionate about it,” he says. “It’s sometimes difficult for people to get advice because everyone is an individual, but our AI image capture and questionnaire can help reveal the right products. We’ve gone for Korean products because that’s what I was already using and Korean brands and products are so popular now, especially among the younger generation, so we’re looking to capitalise on that trend.”

Success at #StartedinOxford 

While combining his year-long MBA studies with the three-month Oxford Venture Builder helped Tan devise, and then finesse, the business case for Mein Skincare, it was actually a single night where he felt everything came together. EnSpire runs an annual #StartedinOxford Showcase where budding entrepreneurs staff a stall that members of the public can approach to discuss their idea. Each person is given £1000 of pretend money which they can ‘invest’ in the start-up they feel is the best idea. The three companies   with the most money win prizes. Mein Skincare took part in 2024, securing top spot and the main £1000 prize.

“I think the most interesting programme we went through was #StartedinOxford because EnSpire invited a lot of guests so you get to talk to a lot of potential customers and investors face to face,” he recalls. “It’s fascinating being asked a range of questions from so many different types of people. That was super valuable. So too was winning. We got £1000 and access to space in a shared office.”

Tan also joined the Oxford University Innovation Incubator programme for a short period, to get additional support on how to take Mein Skincare to market before he finished the MBA course and returned to Tokyo. It’s from there that the site is run, offering a service in the UK and Indonesia, each offering links to local retailers to place orders. The next potential step for the business is to enter new markets as well as consider a new approach of selling direct to customers, rather than sending them to, in the UK, Amazon.

“The next stage will be for us to enable direct purchasing through us partnering with the brands to cut the middleman to increase our margins,” he predicts. “Then, once we have enough budget, we could also start our own skincare brand because we have a lot of data and a lot of customer feedback on what people need and what they are willing to pay so that would be another step that we could take in the future.”

In the meantime, the focus is on opening new markets through links to local retailers. However, when that brings in sufficient funds, Mein Skincare could itself become the brand supplying the perfect products for each individual’s skin, all with a little guidance from AI.