Derek Weng, MPP/MBA’16, Expands Direct-to-Consumer Business with LemonBox

LemonBox, a dietary supplement business, recently announced the close of a $2.5 million pre-series A round of funding in December 2020, yet another milestone on its rapid rise to becoming the largest direct-to-consumer brand in the China personalized supplement market – just four years since it launched.

Founded and led by Derek Weng, MPP/MBA’16, the company brings American-manufactured supplements to the Chinese market, providing a personalized product based on recommendations from US-registered dietitians and health experts.

The entrepreneurial spirit began for Weng at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, which is where he began his UChicago journey, before applying to Booth and pursuing the dual degree.

“When I joined Harris, I was immediately exposed to the diverse academic and professional network of the University, and it prompted me to think deeply about creating a start-up, an avenue I had always wanted to explore,” Weng explained.

As an international student in the US for eight years, friends, and family back in China would ask Weng for American supplement products, such as vitamins. “They would ask me questions about what kind of products they needed to take, but I wasn’t a dietitian or an expert,” Weng said. “And that made me realize there just might be an opportunity here.”

He saw this gap in the market and came up with the first iteration of LemonBox: a consultation platform that would give users customized nutrition data. Weng brought this version of LemonBox to the Polsky Center’s 2017 Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), a nationally-ranked accelerator program and one in which several Harris teams have been successful.

On his decision to apply for the NVC, Weng explained, “The NVC was a go-to resource. It was a no-brainer for me. The combination of Harris’ data-driven approach, coupled with the experience of the NVC program at Polsky Center, taught me the fundamentals of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and run a real business.”

That training is a big reason he didn’t hesitate to bring in talent from the University to help. Last year, two Harris graduating students joined LemonBox as summer interns. “They did great, bringing a passion for better policy and social impact, as well as key analytical skills that Harris is known for. It was a win-win, and I’m hopeful that I can provide more opportunities in the future for young professionals from UChicago as they explore career paths and we work to take the business to new heights.”

His early career experience began in the corporate world. Upon graduation, Weng worked for Walmart where he led cross-border e-commerce business development between the US and China. For two years, he went between the two countries and established a supply chain for Walmart, while working on LemonBox in his spare time.

In 2018 Weng decided to pursue LemonBox full-time and moved back to China, leveraging the contacts he’d made from Walmart. It was during this period that the company evolved from being a consultation platform to offering its own products.  That same year, the company was accepted to Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, and raised a $2 million round of funding. This allowed Weng to launch the products, invest in his supply chain, and work on a new facility in Silicon Valley.

From there, Weng set his sights on bringing the direct to consumer (D2C) model to China – a trend that has been booming in the US, but hasn’t been well understood in China, he said. “All these little brands [were] coming out from Instagram. It was just fascinating,” said Weng. “I felt like there was a huge opportunity back in China to follow the same trend.”

Adapting the DTC model for the Chinese consumer in this way, Weng now runs LemonBox mainly on a MiniApp through WeChat, the Chinese messaging and social media app, and with December’s round of funding, he plans to invest more into the company’s marketing. LemonBox has also made all of its standard products available on Tmall, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, including the recently launched gummy supplements, the company’s first gummy products.

“We are incredibly proud to be one of the leading brands in the personalization vitamins industry in China, and this ability to innovate and adapt to changing market conditions has been one of the keys to our early success,” explained Weng, “Our vision for the future is quite simple – to use data from nutrition scientists to provide people with high quality and simplified products and services.  That’s how we’ll unleash the potential of LemonBox in its next phase.” 

This story was adapted from an article from the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.