351 | Weaving Trust Into Every Customer Experience | with Beau Wangtrakuldee
Beau Wangtrakuldee is the founder and CEO of AmorSui, a science-backed medical supply brand bringing innovation, safety, and sustainability to the $58B PPE industry. A former scientist turned entrepreneur, Beau is reimagining protective apparel with clean chemistry, circular materials, and design that finally puts the user first.
After a lab accident exposed the flaws in traditional PPE, Beau built AmorSui to bridge the gap between safety, comfort, and sustainability: offering PFAS-free, recyclable, and biobased alternatives trusted by global brands like Thermo Fisher Scientific and Benco Dental.
Whether you’re building a mission-driven ecommerce brand or rethinking your product’s lifecycle, Beau shares a masterclass in turning real-world problems into scalable innovation, proving that circular design and commercial growth can coexist.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- [00:30] Intro
- [01:01] Building comfort and safety into every product
- [01:46] Creating a business from personal experience
- [04:37] Designing products people actually reuse
- [06:10] Validating ideas through real user stories
- [08:12] Raising capital before manufacturing begins
- [08:47] Allocating funds beyond first production run
- [09:45] Navigating minimum order quantity realities
- [10:32] Launching pre-sales with finished prototypes
- [11:04] Stay updated with new episodes
- [11:14] Balancing safety standards with speed to market
- [12:37] Episode Sponsors: Electric Eye & Heatmap
- [15:18] Marketing through word-of-mouth momentum
- [17:01] Refining targeting through early experiments
- [19:00] Discovering growth through customer feedback
- [21:34] Testing demand before building logistics
- [23:17] Learning quickly by shipping imperfect products
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[24:09] Focusing every decision on the end user
Resources:
- Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
- Modern PPE brand that protects people and the planet amorsui.com/
- Follow Beau Wangtrakuldee linkedin.com/in/beauwangtrakuldee
- Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
- Clear, real-time data built for ecommerce optimization heatmap.com/honest
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Transcript
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Building a successful brand is all about experimenting as fast as you can. And just be open-minded about the feedback and the data from the customer that you get. Just open, have open ears and eyes. Be ready to listen and observe.
Chase Clymer
If you wait for it to be perfect, you've waited too long, you need to get it out there and get feedback from your customers. And then they will tell you how to make it better. Or if it was a bad idea, if it was a bad idea, who cares? Now you know it's a bad idea, move on with your life.
Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm welcoming the show Beau Wangtrakuldee, coming to us as the CEO and founder of AmorSui, a science-backed, medical supply brand reimagining products on the front line of healthcare and science. Bo, welcome to the show.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Thanks for having me.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, you're obviously reimagining these products for healthcare and science. What are the actual products that you are bringing to market over there?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah, we're thinking in terms of reimagining and disrupting the medical supply category. But right now, focus mainly on offering better PPE, personal protective equipment, protective apparel. So you're thinking about better lab coats, better medical gowns, reusable isolation gowns, better fire-resistant clothing, and unique items like fire-resistant hijab, things that are protecting people's lives, make them more comfortable in day-to-day life, and then also clean and sustainable at the same time.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, that's amazing. I remember when this opportunity to interview you landed me in my inbox. And I was like, Oh, wow. I totally get this. This is such a fun niche. This is cool. So where did this idea for the business and where did the thought that these products needed to be improved upon come from?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah. Well, before I get into it, I heard you say, niche, is this one. And I didn't know before I started this company that the medical supply industry is actually a billion dollar industry and is 200 billion globally.
So when you say niche is actually not niche. Like one in four people wear personal protective equipment or PPE to work. You think about scientists, people working on gas, laboratories and hospitals and clinics. And so, you know, as you think more about this, you will start seeing people wearing lab coats and things like that.
But great questions on how it got started. My journey started seven years ago now, even before COVID. And my background, I am a PhD scientist, chemist. My last role in the lab I was running and overseeing the lab at Penn Medicine before I started this company.
What happened to me is I really saw a gap for personal protective equipment and medical supply that really prioritized the user of the product first. Whether that is quality, comfort, protection, clean products, from many things, sustainability to help the people that are wearing.
Before I finished my PhD Chase, I was in a chemical spill accident that was caused by a lab coat that did not fit me. So the sleeve was too long. I was working with a large scale experiment that the sleeve got caught on the experiment that the chemical basically came down on my body. And the lab coat itself, you know, when it got spilled on, it was completely burned through in like a second. And so you could imagine my right side of my body was burned by the chemical.
I was out of commission for two weeks. And what that experience has taught me is allowing me to see into this category when I try to shop for my own products of how little to none, the products in these categories really focus on delivering all this quality that really puts the user first instead of just cost efficiency and basically disposable or cheap products that you can use, you can throw and replace really quickly. And so the medical supplier, the supplier, the distributor could sell a new one to you again.
Chase Clymer
I want to just double down on this question here. Obviously, the experience of that helped you see this opportunity here and that you wanted to make a product that was not only the quality was better, but it wasn't disposable. It wanted to be reused, reusable and then more sustainable in the environment and the ecosystem as well.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yes, you're correct. Sustainable means many things. Sustainable also means that the user or our customer also needs to love the product so they don't buy it and just sit on the shelf or use it once instead of the shelves. You use it over and over and over again and lasts longer, it could be washable or it could be biodegradable and we have a recyclability at the end of life where it won't end up in the landfill.
Like, you know, I think if you ever go into a dentist's office or a medical office, you see how many gloves are in the trash can, how many disposable gowns are in the trash can, how many face masks are in the trash can. That's basically what we tried to build is, is there any product that is better at those disposal that also protects it, comfortably? And it just happened that the functionality and style and fashion came into that design of the product because we want people to use it in order for it to really deliver upon sustainability.
Chase Clymer
It can't protect them if they're not using it.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Exactly.
Chase Clymer
Okay, so now you have this aha moment. What's next? How long was this cooking around in your brain before you started to take action on it?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
It actually took quite some time for me. I think I had an accident a few years before I started the company. And I think the fact that it took too long. I think it's also my background. I'm a scientist. I work in a lab. When I see problems around a product that I could launch a business with, the first thought is not like, “Oh, I could launch this business with.” I think the first thought is just like, “I can't believe no one is offering something that really protects people when it's personal protective equipment.”
Chase Clymer
Yeah.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
And everything in the market is this flimsy, disposable or cotton that basically just got burned right through. The first question is, I can't believe there's no one offering this. But over time, I keep checking back in. I don't really see the product that I still want.
And truly what really jumped start this idea is that I was at lunch with 20 women scientists, 15, 20 women scientists, and I came back from that accident and I shared my story with them of why I was out for two weeks. And I heard that every single one of the women at my lunch table have a story to tell about an accident, near-miss accident or something that happened because of a lab coat or some PPE that did not fit them.
And so it was not my problem. It's other people's problems. So from that lunchtime, I end up speaking to 100 women to start the first product of AmorSui, which is a five-resistant line that goes under the lab coat. And we make the first production and pre-sew it. And that's how the business got started.
Chase Clymer
Gotcha.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
It starts from trying to find a solution for a problem that I found.
Chase Clymer
Now, when you say you pre-sold it, did you do something like a Kickstarter crowdfunding type campaign to launch the first product?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
A crowdfunding type campaign. And at the time, my target audience was women scientists. So I launched it on a little platform called IFundWomen. It's still existing today, but I think the offering is a little bit different. And we raised $30,000 in 30 days pre-sold a product. And that was the first money that I used to produce the first lot of products for AmorSui.
Chase Clymer
Yes. Absolutely. And was $30,000 the goal or was that. Did you exceed your goal?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
It was $25,000. So you're right. We exceeded our goal by a little bit.
Chase Clymer
Nice. Nice. And then so with that, was that all for funding the first purchase of the actual product? Or did that money also go into building a new website or any of the other weird capital expenses that come along with building a business?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Great questions. I think 25 was the minimum we needed to do the first production. So because we went a little bit over, there was a little bit of money left to do marketing and website. And in fact, a lot of marketing already went into the crowdfunding campaign, actually getting us word of mouth to speak to an organization like Harvard and MIT and others. So just right after we launched a crowdfunding campaign, I was able to sell additional enterprise sales directly to the Research Center.
Chase Clymer
I just want to point this out for the audience because I almost glossed over it, but I realized that's just because I do so many of these interviews.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah.
Chase Clymer
So you said 25 was the minimum that you need. So 25,000 was the minimum purchase price for. And manufacturing has had this thing called minimum quantity limits, Or MQLs or what was.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah. MOQ.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, there we go.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Minimum order quantity. You got it.
Chase Clymer
Yes. And so it's not that you wanted to spend that amount. That was the amount that had to get spent.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah. That's the quote that we got. And we made our product. Our first lot was made in the US. So of course, the price is a little high. But that's the price point that makes sense to have quantity at the right price point and we still make a margin on the product.
Chase Clymer
You have the crowdfunding campaign. It's successful. How long until that campaign ends until you actually get these products to ship?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
3 months. I think I launched it in August and then I delivered it before Christmas. You had finished tech specs on the product before then?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah.
Chase Clymer
Nice.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
We launched a crowdfunding campaign with a picture of a photo shoot of a model of a product or model.
Chase Clymer
Oh, so you already had the samples and everything.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yep.
Chase Clymer
Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week, so don't miss out. Now back to the interview.
Chase Clymer
Is this industry that you're in regulated? Was there a little more hoops to jump through than me just launching like a t-shirt brand?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
It is a little bit more regulated. You do have to follow. It's different from. I got questions all the time. “How are you different from FIGS? How are you different from other scrub companies?” The difference is that you're right. There's a little bit more regulations and quality testing for personal protective equipment.
From our perspective, Lab coats should protect against you know, like blood fluid, things like that gown should do the same. Fire resistance should actually stop fire and not set on fire. You know, that makes sense. So there are those things that we need to meet. But we also strategically launched a product that doesn't require medical device approval.
So like there's no pre-market authorization like some of the products in this category. We focus on a certain product that is frequently used like gowns, lab coats, viruses including and such. There's enough frequency across different sectors, but it doesn't require 510k market authorization. We just need to do technical testing and third-party testing and meet those testing regularly that our products are up to quality to be able to sell.
Chase Clymer
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You launch the product on Kickstarter, you get the website live and you have some additional inventory to sell. How did you get the word out there to sell this beyond your friends and family, beyond. You said you do some marketing on Kickstarter. Well, on the iFund Women campaign. I'm just curious about that marketing strategy. How did you get the word out?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
One of the things, obviously, we sell. Initially in our brand, we really do direct consumers. So we focused on user PPE. And that's me in healthcare professionals, nurses, doctors, dentists, PA, scientists, students. And so mainly, you know, like I thought in the beginning, it's about community. And because we don't have a lot of dollars to spend, it's about plucking into a community of scientists. Where do they hang out?
Can I ask them to tell their subscribers about our product, rather than as live events? Can I go to dinner and talk about the products or do a product display? Or can I put it in a newsletter that they could share over 5,000, 6,000 or whoever in that network? And I think it all comes down to that word amount brand awareness, but the product quality that once people get it, use it, they show it to their friends. They tell other people about it. So one person becomes two, four, and such. And so in the beginning, we really rely on word of mouth and a low risk spend that plop in into the community of where our audience hangs out.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's a core thing that comes up often here is there like trying to figure out where my customer was and they would go there. And at the beginning, oftentimes, they were doing things that weren't necessarily scaling. You can't go into farmers markets. It's a great idea for a smaller business or maybe a trade show for you as a comparable analogy. \
But the founder can't be doing that as the business grows on and on. But those first years doing that and finding those customers and building that rapport and building that list, like you said, then the word of mouth starts to kick in and it starts to really take off. And then you can get into more, I don't know, traditional channels like ads or whatnot. But yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Now things look a little bit differently now that we understand who our audience are, who our customers that are most valuable are, we know who. Sally or Mary Jane of the world who's buying from us.
It's a little bit easier in terms of, you know, if we create a digital ad, what does that person look like with the age range? You know, like what are the keywords that we should put in order to really attract and feel like it is delivered to them? You know, which trade shows are we going to where these people are hanging out? Like we know down to the title, amount they would spend, you know, the product, how they would talk about the products and things like that. But in the beginning, it's all about trying it out, showing up at the place that you think they'll hang out and then kind of see it land.
So sometimes it surprised me, like I said, within two months of launching the product, because someone, a student at Harvard or a professor at Harvard discovered us, you know, like they're actually referring us into the department of the university and become enterprise sales. And that's just something that, you know, I think you can overlook also that your customer, if you're delivering the right product, that by answering the problem they have, they will take you to where they think you need to be.
Chase Clymer
Yeah. Well, that's just the secret to business is having a product that's actually good. Awesome. Alright. So now looking back, are there any lessons learned that you want to share with our audience? Maybe some mistakes along the way to help them maybe do better next time?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
And I think broadly could apply for everybody, but I think personally to me specifically, specifically, you know, I'm a scientist, you know, I feel like I'm sometimes a perfectionist and like to do things in perfection before I launch or do anything. But in building this business.
As I share with you, you would be surprised with some of the things that happen and some of your hypotheses that things will happen this way when you learn something, might completely look a little bit different. I learned that it's building a successful brand. It's all about experimenting as fast as you can and just be open-minded about the feedback and the data from customers that you get.
Like open, have open ears and eyes, be ready to listen and observe and kind of use that to inform the next step of building the next growth and improving the brand over time. I will give you an example. When we launched our Lab coat product, we had no idea that a big part of the business that now drives our Lab coat sales is embroidery and personalization.
And, you know, we start getting, you know, like when we start working with Inferencer to launch this product, they always ask us, can you embroider it? Can you embroider it? Can you embroider it? You know, and when we start listening to that, we start recognizing that that might be an important part of offering to try to sell our lab code. And so
We don't have that logistic figure out yet. But once we add that to our website, it's now drive, I think, over 75-80% off sales of lab code. People buy lab code and they also add embroidery. It's an upsell as well, correct?
Chase Clymer
It's an upsell.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
It's increased our AOV. It's also reduced our return rate because when you put your name on something, you could definitely not return it.
Chase Clymer
And I'm assuming it's profitable as well.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And you wouldn't know that unless you launch a product, unless you listen to the product. And if we don't offer embroidery today, a lot of business of selling that lab coat would not come.
Chase Clymer
I want to ask a follow-up question about something you said at the beginning there as a perfectionist, as a scientist. Would you say that maybe the conflict between you as a scientist and a perfectionist versus being a successful entrepreneur and iterating fast and quick, was there a conflict there where you were potentially waiting too long to make, launch things to test or make changes because you wanted them to be perfect when they should have launched maybe at a sooner version.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah, sure. Yes, absolutely. My older version would be, oh, I heard about this embroidery thing from an influencer. But I don't know how I could get these lab coat embroidery yet. I don't know how much I would charge. I don't know who would buy it. So let's not offer it until I figure that out. But the way that we actually go about embroidery, we put it on the website.
We didn't even know how to fulfill that yet. We just want to see how many people request embroidery. We want to see an order that comes with embroidery. And then in the back end, I spoke with my operation team, Yuko, to figure out how to get these lab coat embroidery when we start having, you know, like we did it in pairs even though we don't know how it would work.
Chase Clymer
Oh, so you launched it with an actual split test on the website.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Exactly.
Chase Clymer
Oh, that's cool.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah. We didn't know in the beginning people would actually order it with embroidery. We just put it on offer and see if people would actually order it. And there's actually like A/B testing about the cost of how much people would pay and see like, are you people doing one line, two lines, how much price sensitive they would be.
So we did all those tests too. Now, we just moved into our new warehouse where we could turn embroidery products really quickly because that's a part of customer experience that makes this all better for us.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing. And you were saying that a younger entrepreneur, Bo, would have just taken that idea, put it on a shelf until it was perfected.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah, until we know how to do everything.
Chase Clymer
Yeah. But now more mature, you were like, we'll figure it out. Let's go.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yeah, let's go. Why don't we just put it on a website and see if people would buy it? And that's exactly what informed a lot of things that happened to push this specific product. And now we have the capability to embroider any uniform or anything that currently offers on our website for cheap and fast.
Chase Clymer
Yeah. And I think that's what I want listeners to take out of this is if you wait for it to be perfect, you've waited too long, you need to get it out there, get feedback from your customers, and then they will tell you how to make it better. Or if it was a bad idea, if it was a bad idea, who cares? Now you know it's a bad idea, move on with your life.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yep. Exactly.
Chase Clymer
Well, is there anything I didn't ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience? It's not clear to me.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
I think the most important thing here is to listen to your customer. Particularly in my field, I'm dealing with customers who are healthcare professionals. have a PhD, have MDs, they have RN. These are smart customers. So they will tell you what they want. They will tell you what they don't want.
And they will take you wherever you need to be if you are getting the product right. So I think just as building any brand, it's all about being customer-focused, focusing on your customer. And that's all I have to say.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, I'm sure there is a crossover of people in my audience that are in Ecommerce or aspiring to be in Ecommerce and people that may still be working in a field where some of these PPE things are necessary to perform their day-to-day jobs. If I'm listening to this and I want to check out the product, where do I go?
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Yes. So easy. Amorsui.com. A-M-O-R-S-U-I. Again, A-M-O-R-S-U-I. We're on Instagram, AmorSui Clothing. A-M-O-R-S-U-I.clothing.com.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. I'll make sure to link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you.
Beau Wangtrakuldee
Thanks, Chase.
Transcript
