Before Tatcha had customers, it had costs – and a founder willing to do whatever it took to cover them.
When Vicky Tsai founded Japanese skincare brand Tatcha in 2009, she quickly learned how many difficult decisions came with starting a business. At one point, she even sold her engagement ring to fund an early product run.
Less than a decade later, however, that early risk had paid off. In 2019, Unilever acquired Tatcha in a deal widely reported at around $500 million, marking a milestone for a founder who had started with limited resources and a series of personal bets.
Before founding Tatcha, Tsai already knew what hard work looked like. She had spent her early career working in high-pressure corporate roles that required regular travel. Over time, she has described the lifestyle as one that eventually took a visible toll on her health and skin.
The moment Vicky Tsai decided to build Tatcha
It wasn’t until she took a trip to Japan that she realized she could do something about it. In Kyoto, she was drawn to a self-care approach that was rooted in daily skincare riturals through a more slow, deliberate routine.
The experience naturally had her thinking about what she could change in her own day-to-day lifestyle, and whether or not she could help implement something just as valuable into other people’s lives.
She returned to the US and got to work, brainstorming how she could translate this new cultural experience she became so fond of to a broader audience. And the start was just about as practical as startup life can get.
Without outside funding, Tsai resorted to financing her early inventory by selling personal assets and cutting costs where she could. Because in those early days, when you truly do believe in something, those risks really can feel worth it.
Funding the business with personal trade-offs
Of course, those decisions meant trade-offs that extended beyond the business, but Tsai was willing to do whatever it took to keep her vision alive.
Tsai launched Tatcha in 2009 with a product called Aburatorigami Japanese Blotting Papers, which are essentially papers that help remove the excess oil from a person’s face.
While they were still tied to Japanese beauty culture, she knew that starting simple would help her sell enough products in the US without asking consumers to immediately buy into a whole new routine they were unfamilar with.
Those early moves saw Tsai working out of a garage, where she continued to refine and pitch her idea to anyone who would listen. The days may have felt long and uncertain, at the time, but she kept pushing the business forward.
Tatcha’s early years of trial and persistence
In hindsight, there was no clean separation between building the business and building a life. Tsai has said that Tatcha’s retail launch coincided with the day her daughter was born, which saw two life-changing moments arrive at once.
She didn’t let that pressure keep her from building. Over the next decade, Tsai built Tatcha into a globally-recognized luxury skincare brand with a real retail presence, eventually landing onto the shelves of big name retailers such as Sephora with more unique products that continued to pull people into the checkout line.
By the time Unilever stepped in with yet another life-changing opportunity, the headline was already written. A founder sells an engagement ring to get started, builds a prestige brand, and cashes in on what was reported as a $500 million deal.
It’s the kind of founder story many spend a lifetime trying to achieve, but Tsai has never been one to stay silent about the personal costs it took to build it.
When life and business collided
In more recent interviews, she has described those years as physically and emotionally demanding. She has also spoken about stepping down as CEO under investor pressure, then returning during the pandemic as the business faltered and internal strain grew.
Outside the company, the build coincided with personal upheaval, including burnout, pregnancy loss, and even the end of her marriage. She recounts these experiences plainly, as events that unfolded alongside Tatcha’s growth rather than apart from it.
More recently, Tsai has focused on what those experiences should change in the world around her. She has advocated for workplace policies such as miscarriage leave, arguing that pregnancy loss should not be treated as something employees are expected to navigate in private.
She has also supported initiatives in girls’ education through charitable partnersips with organizations such as Room to Read. The focus, now, is on making the personal costs of building a company more visible, and as a result, harder to dismiss.
In that sense, Vicky Tsai’s story never really ended with the sale of Tatcha. To this day, it continues in what she chooses to make visible, and possible, for other women navigating similar paths.
