SOMETHING PEOPLE DON'T USUALLY KNOW ABOUT ME: I’m a classic introvert. People think I’m really intimidating and cold. In reality, I’m just really anxious and not sure what to say. SOMEONE I ADMIRE: My mom. She left her friends and family in Korea and immigrated to America so that my brothers and I can have a better life. FAVORITE DISH: Nothing beats a fresh bowl of pho after a long night out.
Koh Kim
Bringing skin care to the forefront of the gaming generation
SEEING A NEED REFLECTED IN OTHERS TOO. If you ask Koh Kim, self-care is for everyone. Yet, you wouldn’t know it based on how the industry markets itself. As the CEO and Founder of EVENPRIME, a self-described “self-care brand for the gaming generation,” Kim capitalized on her long-standing career in consumer tech for a unique perspective on skincare.
In the early phases of EVENPRIME, Kim believed every type of product and service would soon bleed into the gaming world through its users’ lifestyle habits. So, instead of waiting for that fusion to evolve, she created a nexus for self-care and gaming.
“Gaming is a part of everything these days,” Kim observes. “There is this transformation of consumers and behaviors in how they want to discover products and how they expect those products to react and relate to their own lives and experiences, online and offline.”
“Even without the intimate knowledge of the skincare side, I knew that influencers and gamers faced unique skin and skincare challenges. They are facing screens all day, don’t get regular sleep, not always eating or drinking the ideal diets, and yet they often care about how they look on camera—even if it’s cooler to pretend you don’t,” she laughs.
Coming from tech, dermatology was not originally in Kim’s field of expertise. “I’m on camera all the time in my work, being asked about my own skincare. And I knew about my own needs, my own routine, but not about how it might affect others, or how someone could benefit from my insights. But that’s what got me thinking about the bigger picture.”
UNTAPPED DEMOGRAPHICS LED TO REPRESENTATION AND GROWTH. Born in Korea but raised in the United States, Kim always had the benefit of understanding multiple cultures, as well as an understanding of Korea’s influence in this industry. Still, as a queer woman of color with mutli-national experience, she knew EVENPRIME needed meet consumers where they are.
Gaming isn’t only for entertainment; it’s interlaced with brand awareness, media, education, and research. “Everyone has experience with games,” says Kim, whether they realize it or not. “At work, in training, at home with PCs or consoles, on their phones, in handheld devices, on their large and small screens alike.”
EVENPRIME connects consumers directly with top Korean care products—vegan, cruelty-free and based on skin type. EVENPRIME not only caters to the unique skin needs of gamers, it also meets gamers where they are online.
For Kim, innovation like this is everything. “Hand me the rules, and then back up a little,” she says. “Give me space to figure out how the game is really played, how the rules get broken, how to take advantage of the spaces in between and then find a place for balance and win-win situations.”
Just like Kim founded EVENPRIME to highlight one untapped market that deserved attention, her next focus will turn to web3 and crypto in 2022.
“For me, EVENPRIME was about meeting people where they were at, with needs they had, because I also experienced them firsthand. I believed in myself first, in that way,” she says. “I didn’t see it then, but I see it now.”
