Toni Ko: On the Personal Sacrifices of Entrepreneurship

WSJ Secrets of Wealthy Women

The Wall Street Journal

Careers, Business

4.6 • 955 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Toni Ko, founder of NYX Cosmetics and serial entrepreneur, speaks with WSJ's Veronica Dagher about the business lessons she learned from her Korean parents, the lack of glamour in entrepreneurship, and the surprise disappointment of a well-earned early retirement.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We've all felt left out and for people who moved to this country that feeling lasts more than a moment.
0:07.0	We can change that.
0:09.0	Learn how it belonging begins with us.org.
0:12.0	Brought to you by the Ad Council.
0:25.5	Hey, it's Veronica Dagger, the host of the Wall Street Journal, Secrets of Wealthy Women. The Podcasts where Women Share How They Tackle Career, Money, and The World.
0:29.9	Today we're speaking with Tony Koh.
0:31.9	She's the founder of Nick's Cosmetics.
0:34.9	Tony came to the US as a 13-year-old from Korea,
0:38.3	and she got started in business almost immediately.
0:41.7	It inspired her to launch her own brand, Nick's Cosmetics. She was just
0:47.0	26 years old at the time and her first investor was her mom. That paid off. Fifteen years later, Tony sold Nix to L'Oreal for a reported
0:57.0	five hundred million dollars. It sounds like the American dream, but there have been some personal challenges along the way,
1:05.3	and especially after she got that big payout. And she's here to tell us about all of it.
1:17.0	20, you moved to the US from Korea when you were 13. What was that like?
1:18.0	Oh it was very difficult.
1:20.0	I was excited actually in Korea.
1:22.0	I was 13 years old and like when my mom my parents told me that we were moving to us all I thought was oh my god I'm gonna get to as many
1:31.1	Bananas as I can and there's houses with swimming pools and you know
1:35.2	Disneyland that's what I thought but I was putting seventh grade I did not
1:40.2	know how to speak English and just like being dropped off at school and having to
1:47.2	trying to have to learn without knowing the language was really difficult for me.
1:53.2	How did you cope with that?
	...

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