Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Suran Yoo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Suran, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Silk or Lace began with my personal journey being diagnosed with alopecia. It first began during my junior year of college when I lost half my head of hair, which was a tough time being in your early 20’s and still trying to figure out your womanhood. I grappled with finding confidence in my outer appearance while trying to find a solution for my hair loss.

In 2019, I stumbled across a group of women on social media wearing wigs and hair toppers and it changed my life. When I wore my first hair topper, I cried because I felt like myself again. I could celebrate my hair, which I hadn’t been able to do for so long!

I felt beautiful, but more importantly, I now felt empowered to transform who I wanted to see in the mirror.
Inspired by the other women I found on social media, I started @the_strandie on Instagram as a content creator platform to share my experience with other women who were specifically dealing with hair loss. I thought to myself, if I can help other women struggle less with finding resources and answers to hair loss and wearing hair pieces, I’m happy to share my story.

After reading thousands of DMs on Instagram with so many women asking me how to wear wigs and hair toppers and where to purchase high quality pieces, I realized there was a missing opportunity in the wig market. Women have a hard time finding realistic, natural, every day wear pieces, not for the lack of high-quality wigs in the market. Instead, they struggle because they lack an easy and accessible shopping experience.

I think the core of it is that wigs and hair pieces are not often “show off” pieces. Meaning, a woman likely isn’t going to tell another woman she is wearing a wig (because the point is that they shouldn’t be able to tell)! The secretive nature of these products has enabled an industry that lacks transparency in many areas. As a result, women who are in the market for these pieces find it extremely difficult and confusing to shop for wigs and hair toppers.

I founded Silk or Lace in April 2020 as the first marketplace for boutique, highly curated wigs and hairpieces. It’s the first platform that offers custom search filters specifically for hair pieces and honest reviews across brands.
This is game-changing because, for the first time, customers are able to shop, price compare, and read reviews across high quality brands they trust, which helps democratize a traditionally secretive industry.

In the long run, I’d love for wigs to be worn by all people without stigma. Wigs and hair toppers aren’t just for women with alopecia – it’s for people who want to transform and elevate their look, just like you can with faux eyelashes, hair extensions, or even a pedicure. We as women dress up every part of our body, but somehow hair seems to be the last frontier of a “beauty transformation”. Silk or Lace seeks to innovate within the hair industry and introduce to all people the empowering world of hair.

Suran, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I think people underestimate the power of a natural looking wig. You get what you pay for, in terms of quality, it looking as natural as possible, and also longevity. These pieces will last you for 3-5 years. If you think of it in terms of hair color sessions, these pieces will blow your color job out of the water.

There’s so much more to the wig world than your $20 Amazon wig. Silk or Lace works with woman-owned boutique brands that sources so many different varieties and types of cap constructions and hair. They then hand-color and cut each and every piece so that they are ready-to-wear and look like it’s growing out of your scalp.

In general, hair loss and alopecia is an embarrassing topic for women. Wearing wigs still I think can have this stigma that if you wear a wig, there must be something wrong with your hair underneath. Having hair loss and thinning isn’t and shouldn’t feel embarrassing, in fact it’s really normal for a quarter of all women (yes, 25%!) who naturally lose hair as they age.

However, I really think if we can bring more transparency towards wearing wigs, it can help woman be more transparent and more accepting of their own hair. It’s like eyelash extensions or push-up bras. By feeling more comfortable saying that we got extensions or we’re wearing push-up bras, getting Botox, or microblading our brows, it helps us be more forthcoming about our “flaws” and accepting them and finding beauty in them.

I am a firm believer of do what makes you feel like your best you. If we can show women that all of these celebrities’ hair that you covet and being inspo pictures of to your hair stylist, they’re wearing wigs! If we can alleviate this pressure to have the perfect hair and know it’s ok to plop on a wig and go about our day, I think I will have accomplished my mission.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We opened our online doors in April 2020, the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Back then, I was terrified of the unknown, not knowing what to expect and how my business would survive from the very beginning.

As with many products during that time, we faced huge shortages in our supply chain. Many of our brand partners stocked less than a third of their usual inventory, giving us a significant disadvantage in the value that our marketplace brought to our customers.

I knew we had to think creatively to survive what turned out to be a multi-year long problem, not months as we initially predicted. I went back to the drawing board and listened to our customers needs and how we could solve them. While speaking with our customers, I realized that many of those shopping for pieces already had pieces they had previously purchased. When I asked women why they didn’t wear the ones they purchased, they told me that the piece didn’t work out for them due to various reasons being color, length, size, or fit. These luxury investment pieces were worn only once and left in the closet!

I realized there was then an opportunity to create supply via the secondhand market and thus “Resell Silk or Lace” was born. This service enabled us to help women sell their lightly worn pieces in a way that was both easy and safe for the buyer and seller. As the broker, we not only provided extremely detailed pictures, videos, and descriptions of the condition of the piece and updated the seller each part of the selling process, we were able to further create a brand of trust and transparency for the entire marketplace.

Resell Silk or Lace now comprises over half of the marketplace’s sales and is the leading website for lightly worn luxury wigs and hair pieces for women. What was initially a strategy to survive turned out to be one of our strongest product offerings for our business.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

A book that really defined my outlook on life is Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth. It changed my attitude towards perseverance and working extremely hard as something not to fear or feel burdened by, but rather to enjoy and look forward to.

Grit gives me the edge that I need to think differently about failure and break past barriers that both I put on myself and society may put on me. As a minority woman entrepreneur, I find challenges exciting and am constantly inspired by gritty people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.silkorlace.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/silkorlace
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/silkorlace

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