We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jiaming Ju. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jiaming below.

Jiaming, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

As an AAPI entrepreneur with a background in economics, I am used to doing things differently.

In the early days of KUN, I had a lot of challenges with believing and positioning myself, I felt I wasn’t ready to talk about my unconventional stories to entrepreneurship; felt out of place when I made videos for social media; and experienced a lot of frustration, translating a traditional healing like Chinese medicine, to make it culturally relevant to the modern American society. As a mother of two young kids and still in training in a 4-year grilling Chinese medicine program, I was also struggling with time.

Most of the time, I felt I was not ready to present myself and KUN, my company, online. Being a second-generation Chinese medicine practitioner after my father, I was also constantly concerned about screwing up, and being scared of misrepresenting Chinese medicine and bringing disgrace to our family name, laugh.

It took me a whole year of doing, to feel comfortable in my skin.

I realized something fundamental for successful entrepreneurship, the business has to work for your schedule and personality, not the other way around. Otherwise, the venture won’t be sustainable. You need to have the confidence to know that what you offer is unique, and it just takes time for people to find you.

So my advice for young professionals who are starting out is  just to do it, don’t wait for a perfect timing or thinking you need to prepare more, there isn’t a golden opportunity, most of the time, you learn through doing, and hone your craft as you go along.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi, my name is Jiaming, and go with JM. I am a second generation Chinese medicine practitioner ( in training), specializing in chinese medicine diagnosis and customized herbal formulation, to help people with chronic health issues, to feel the best they can be.

Prior to founding @kunhealth, our virtual-only Chinese medicine clinic, I have been a globe-trotting economist for 10 years, running analysis and designing policies in the longevity economics space, from NYC to Singapore. I also used to moonshine as a contributor for The Economist.

Raised on the border between North Korea and China, where I can actually see North Korea outside of my window, I grew up in my father’s Chinese medicine clinic, smelling the Chinese medicinal herbs, and watching him heal thousands with the 2500-year-old ancient practice.

The unique thing about @kunhealth is that I combine data collection techniques with traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis, to obtain the most accurate and comprehensive health data from clients, so we can design a customized approach for their healing. @kunhealth honors the ancient-old one-person-one-formulation approach, so our customers have a truly individualized approach to health.

Our insta account, @kunhealth, also runs informational and educational content for you to improve your daily functioning through behavior changes, all wisdom is rooted in Chinese medicine.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Authenticity.

I often describe myself as an introvert with the shell of an extrovert. I am also a nerd, a woman who rarely wear makeup, a busy mum, and a lover of everything books and libraries in addition to being a minority immigrant woman.

In short, I don’t see myself a lot on social media.

So we are authentic in our way of creating content, engaging with followers, and during consultations. A 1-on-1 Chinese medicine consultation with @kunhealth is a very intimate experience, despite it being virtual, I feel privileged to hear people’s life journeys and stories, I have authenticity and genuine care for their welfare in mind always.

So even today, despite our rising success in social media, I still spend time answering followers’ questions on insta myself, and show up in reels,  often without makeup ahaha, because followers deserve to know who i am, and what we represent.

It is my brand and business, to make it sustainable, it has to be authentic.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In the economics world, I am used to writing long reports or publications.

Social media is the opposite of that.

I had to relearn English in a way because the style of writing was different.

I used to think it impossible to communicate something complex in a few sentences, but now I think once you have the information clear in your head, anything can be communicated effectively in a few lines.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kun.health
• Instagram: @kunhealth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiaming-ju%E9%9E%A0%E4%BD%B3%E6%98%8E
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY21LVW27ww

Image Credits
@kunhealth, all illustrations are exclusively designed by @omguac, the nyc-based taiwanese american illustrator, david huang