"Make sure there’s demand for it" with Koko Hayashi

Photo Credit: Zachary Lee

Koko is a Japanese female who moved to the United States five years ago. She started my Face Yoga business not long after in 2018. Soon after that, she got celebrity clients such as Kim Kardashian. She was voted #1 at The Yoga Expo LA, featured on “Shark Tank” and more!

Can you tell our readers about your background?
Born and raised in Japan, I was working for a corporate company in Tokyo after I graduated from university. Five years later, I went to Hong Kong for an MBA degree. There, I began a business that eventually failed. When that happened, I moved back to Japan to work for another corporate company. However, I wasn’t fulfilled so in 2017, I came to the United States to chase my American dream.

What inspired you to start your business?
My plastic surgery failure at the age of 27 made me realize that I should have pursued natural solutions such as Face Yoga instead of surgery. In Japan, facial exercises have been popular for many decades, so I was able to learn quickly and easily the natural solutions I should’ve looked for in the beginning. After seeing that amazing results on myself, I started posting tutorial videos on YouTube. Slowly, but surely my videos became popular as I was one of the few Face Yoga YouTubers on the platform. Because of this, I decided to officially teach Face Yoga as a business.

Where is your business based?
The business is based in Los Angeles, but all my team members work remotely. Even before COVID came about, everyone was working from home. Our clients and certified instructors are all over the world as I teach and make the certification courses available online.

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
My first income stream from this Face Yoga business was from advertising revenue on YouTube. Then, I added three more streams: mobile app, sessions (including certifications), and influencer collaborations. Before you start anything officially, it’s always good to test pilot the market. For me, this meant posting on social media to see people’s reactions, to gauge their feedback.

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
Social media is the easiest and most effective way to raise awareness of Face Yoga. Due to the nature of the business, we have found video format to be better than static images, so we focus on YouTube and TikTok now.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
This year has been challenging. Last year, more people were online due to stay-at-home orders, so our content was viewed more, which resulted in more business. This year is different though. People are used to this pandemic life, and probably this type of living will continue, so we must adjust to the new post-COVID life too. I haven’t found the answers to overcome this issue yet. One strategy that I am excited about is launching Chinese TikTok which has almost as many active users as the global TikTok that Americans use.

How do you stay focused?
Having good quality sleep is essential to focus on work. I try to exercise so I get tired physically and try to relax before going to sleep so my mind can relax too. I am still figuring out the best nighttime routine for myself. 

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
More Face Yogis have started social media and businesses due to the pandemic, but this is a good thing because it creates more awareness. Still, many people have never heard of the word “Face Yoga”, so I hope even more Face Yogis will show up in this market.
The difference between these newcomers and myself is my level of knowledge. As I’ve been a part of the Face Yoga world for a long time now, my fun and animated personality as a talent coupled with the use of technology helps me reach a wider audience. For example, we launched symmetry analysis with AI on our app and plan to develop more technology support such as symmetrical face simulation.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

Social media is the easiest, cheapest, and most effective marketing strategy for us. I had always thought it would be more cost-effective if I became an influencer, rather than hiring other influencers to promote our businesses. Michelle Phan, the makeup YouTuber who became the first beauty influencer, inspired me to try and reach this goal. I celebrated 10 years on YouTube this year, but I keep posting! Things change though and now TikTok has become more popular, so I focus on TikTok as well as YouTube. This year, I plan on launching a Chinese TikTok that has almost as many active users as the global TikTok (the TikTok Americans use is a global app, but which is different from the Chinese TikTok called “Douyin”). I highly advise any talents to show up here on social media to become industry leaders. 

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Find a business that you are passionate about, good at, and that there is demand for. If you find one that meets all 3 criteria, you win.
1. Be passionate about it. You love the business and cannot stop thinking about it.
2. Be good at it. You should be able to do the things you do better than others without a lot of practice or experience because you are talented. Talent can also be based on genetics or childhood experiences.
3. Make sure there’s demand for it. This is the most important thing. We must watch market trends. For example, if you want to do an in-person business, it is harder to predict the situation due to the pandemic. Also, a lot of talent or expert jobs will be replaced by robots soon. So there will be little demand for human experts. That's why we focus on the face yoga app to replace me.

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
My favorite app is our Koko Face Yoga app of course, but other than that, I like checking TikTok for educational purposes. Many people still think TikTok is just a funny dance showing platform, but you would be surprised by how much you can learn. There are so many great ideas and a ton of helpful information to be found there. I keep learning about new trends, news, useful apps, business ideas, and more.

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
My favorite business tool is my paper notebook. I use so many online tools such as Trello, Asana, and Slack to manage projects, but the best is my paper notebook. Every time I have tried to put my to-dos online, I just go right back to a physical notepad. To me, writing down things on paper strengthens my memory and encourages inspiration. I don’t know why, but it works for me. I also have lots of fun shopping for next year’s notebook too, the excitement of looking over new notebooks!
Another paper tool that I love includes post-it notes, the yellow color specifically. I carry my post-it pads everywhere so I can remind myself of any urgent tasks. But more importantly, I like writing down challenges to solve or to-dos on them and then putting them on the fridge, so it’s easy to keep track of them. If you’re exposed to the notes all the time, you will be looking for the solutions unconsciously, and you will find the solutions at some random time, maybe when you are working out, walking, while falling asleep, or anytime.

Who is your business role model? Why?
There are many business role models I admire, but one of my favorites is a colleague that I used to work with at a consulting company. She would smile every time she had a challenge come her way. She takes even negative news positively at first and then thinks about how to solve issues.  

How do you balance work and life?
If you are an entrepreneur who loves what you’re doing, I think it’s ok to have no balance between work and life. I love what I do, so my work is my life. In other words, if you don’t enjoy your business, you should try to quit it and find something else, because your work consists of a lot of time of your day, which is your life. 

What’s your favorite way to decompress?
I have not been able to enjoy meditation yet even though I keep trying. For now, the best way to relax is to work out at gyms. It was challenging at the beginning of the pandemic because gyms were closed, but now, thankfully, gyms are open.

What do you have planned for the next six months?
I plan to go back to Japan for a month, so am excited at getting the chance to try and learn new face techniques there. Also, I’m excited for more in-person events including media appearances. One of my upcoming annual events is The Yoga Expo Los Angeles in January 2022. I’m hoping that it will still take place. It is hard for me to teach Face Yoga with a mask on, but I will be wearing a clear plastic mask so people can still see my face.

How can our readers connect with you?
https://kokofaceyoga.com/