At A Glance

Jack Jia had no intention of becoming a skincare tycoon, but Musely was created when a personal mission and technological advancement met. Discover how he built a powerful company out of dermatology, E-Commerce, and customer service that is transforming lives by providing patients with individualized care!

Who is Jack? 

Meet Jack Jia, Founder and CEO of Musely!

About Musely

Musely is a prescription skincare company with a focus on accessible and effective telemedicine. Musely provides medical skin care treatments through technology, enabling top dermatologists and pharmacists to deliver and administer medical treatments to tackle all your skin and hair care needs. With its revolutionary approach, Musely enables the Science of Youth quickly and inexpensively from the convenience of home.

Jack’s Journey

A self-described serial entrepreneur, Jack’s previous companies focused solely on technology. He admits that he ventured into dermatology by accident, noting that Musely started out as a content app for women to share lifestyle tips. “Within a couple of years, we had a million content shares with the #1 category in the UGS app was beauty and skincare,” he says. he app’s user, a.k.a muses, were recommending brands and disclosing their experiences. Knowing little on the subject at the time, Jack decided to invite the best and most popular skincare brands to join his platform and promote their products.

Eventually, Jack did learn that the vast majority of the 900 skincare products on Musely were moisturizers that couldn’t effectively treat skin conditions. “In addition to answering the question ‘how can we take this further?” from a business need, there was a personal need - my wife has had melasma since our son was born 20 years ago.”  In search of a solution, they came across prescription skincare. The discovery drove Jack to pivot from a content app to a telemedicine company.

Musely’s company culture derives from the idea ‘fail fast, iterate fast, iterate to success.”  Jack says that he would have never discovered teledermatology without getting involved in the content and skincare marketplace first.

Accessible Dermatology Through E-commerce

Cutting out the ‘middleman’, E-commerce shortens the path giving customers direct access to the best products, Jack says. The direct-to-consumer model disrupts the distribution channel. “Our doctors want the best medications for our patients,” he emphasizes. At Musely, we compound our medications. 99% of our medications are not dispensed with the traditional pharmaceutical products because they simply don’t exist.” Doctors prescribe patients a customized formula based on their condition and within 24 hours, a Musely pharmacy will make the medication. “Streamlining the process makes our custom compound medications much cheaper than pharmaceutical made medications,” Jack points out.

The Team at Musely

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Musely is a company of 150 people with 80% located throughout the United States. Comparing his team to a network, Jack says Musely’s board of certified dermatologists typically serve the state they reside in plus a few surrounding states, with marketing, engineering, and customer service members distributed around the country (local employees come into the office once a week). Necessary to operate during COVID, the remote structure has supported the company’s exceptional growth over the last 5 years.

The CX Philosophy at Musely

Musely is not a typical E-commerce company – you don’t order a product and get it in X number of days – there are a lot of components to make a customer happy, Jack says. “The medication must be made and checked for you by a pharmacist before it is shipped out. And this takes time.” Communication is imperative to ensure customers understand the process and when they can expect to receive their order.

The CX Journey: Virtual Visit, Treatment, Education

A customer-patient’s journey begins with a virtual meeting with an assigned dermatologist who looks at medical history and pictures to devise a custom treatment plan. Education plays a major role in CX at Musely. “Most people know how to use moisturizer, but don’t know how to use skincare medication. If the skin isn’t properly prepared so the medication can penetrate below the epidermis to the root layer, it isn’t going to work,” Jack points out. Incorporating UI (user interface) and UX (user experience), Musely created an E-nurse to guide customers in how to apply medication to their skin. By checking in with their E-nurse and assigned dermatologist, patients are guaranteed results within 60 days. 

Accessibility and Communication

Using the Musely app, customer-patients have full access to their dermatologist and can send an unrestricted number of messages anytime for the first 60 days of their treatment. “This gives people a deep sense of comfort,” Jack notes. “If they are experiencing a side effect or reaction, they can communicate with their dermatologist immediately, which they probably can’t do with in-person doctors given the standard routine of waiting to get an appointment.”

Business Growth and Revenue Strategies

Excellent Customer Care Leads to a Marketing Campaign

Musely’s excellent customer care didn’t go unnoticed, and a natural marketing campaign soon developed. Jack uses his wife as an example, “We call her ‘patient zero.’ After two decades of trying to find a solution, she was ready to give up. She didn’t believe it would work, but after a month of using a compounded medication, she was cured.” Within a year, Musely had 10,000+ patients with similar stories who were seeing results for the very first time. Jack continues, “Until Musely, nothing worked for them. Consequently, the slogan ‘Musely Works’ was coined.” Now every year, thousands of patients submit photos documenting their journey of transformation, which “has become the best vehicle of marketing” for the company. “5 years later today, ‘Musely Works’ has served 800,000 patients”.

To encourage a community where people feel safe to share their journeys and not feel alone, a patient only forum was created, now with 300K patients participating. For many, the experience has been life changing. “We’re more than just a business,” Jack says. “Musely has a social mission now.”

Innovation and Adaptability

Customer-Patient + Medicine = Innovation

At Musely, the main drivers of innovation are the customer-patient and medicine. The company launched in 2019 with just two products – the spot cream, which targets hyperpigmentation, and the anti-aging cream, which targets age-related skin concerns while reducing dark spots. Notably, Musely’s age demographic has grown from women 30 – 60 years old to 30 – 90 years old. “Today, we have 17 treatments,” Jack reveals. “As our customer base asked for more treatments to address their conditions, we evolved and expanded our treatment options.” Working with 24 certified dermatologists, they developed medications that could be used on other parts of the body with at least 80% efficacy level. “Our private cream for dark spots on the private area is now one of our best-sellers. We wouldn’t have known that was even an issue if we hadn’t listened to our customers and doctors,” Jack adds.

New findings in skincare make headlines regularly and Musely relies on its network of medical experts to isolate which advancements are safe and effective for its customer-patients. “Formulas are changing – our pharmacists can compound them to make treatments that are not commercially available. In total, we offer over 100 different formulas,” Jack notes.

Balancing Personal Touch and AI in CX

Musely’s main goal in CX is to foster “wildly happy customers,” Jack says. A US based customer service team is trained about treatment products and conditions to provide personal and efficient support (medical related questions are handled by doctors). New hires are shadow seasoned service agents for a month to prepare for working with customers. AI is leveraged to handle order related inquiries while freeing up team members to handle more complex situations. “Using a combination of human touch and technology, we find that customer issues can be resolved online, through email, or a telephone call,” Jack explains.

To streamline communication, Musely employs Zendesk and a multi-channel approach, which includes direct-to-website post, email, chat, and phone. Each ticket is responded to within hours, Jack notes, and then reviewed by the customer for service quality. “There is a high volume coming in and using this feedback system, we get a sense of any issues and weak spots and how we can improve on them. It’s about iteration to perfection.”