When Gene Oh first tried an alcohol-aid jelly stick during a night out in Seoul, he immediately wondered why nothing like it existed in the U.S. By the next day, he was already telling his co-founder Felix Lee that they needed to bring the idea home.
That experience led to the creation of day-guard, a Korean-inspired jelly stick developed across two countries. Felix worked closely with manufacturers and labs in Korea, while Gene tested samples with American consumers and gathered feedback on everything from flavor and texture to packaging.
Family has also played a major role in the company. Gene’s father, a doctor, helped develop the formula. Also, Gene’s grandparents’ journey from Korea to the U.S. continues to shape how he thinks about risk, opportunity, and building.
We talked with Gene and Felix about adapting a popular Korean wellness product for American consumers, discovering that their real customer was not who they expected, and what they refused to compromise on while developing day-guard.
Let’s jump in:
K-Snax: Gene, you’ve talked about discovering alcohol-aid jelly sticks while studying abroad in Seoul. When did they go from being a cool Korean product to something you felt you had to bring to the U.S.?
Gene: It started when I studied abroad in Korea and noticed everyone there takes jelly stick products before and during drinking. The first time I tried one, a Korean friend handed it to me on a night out. I loved the concept immediately, this delicious candy you take before or during drinking, and I woke up feeling amazing. The taste, the portability, how I felt the next morning, it all clicked. Literally the next day I told my cofounder Felix we had to bring this to the US. That was about two years ago, and we never looked back.
K-Snax: Gene, your grandparents came to the U.S., opened a dry cleaner, and created opportunities that eventually allowed you to take a risk like starting day-guard. How does their story shape the way you think about what you’re building?
Gene: My grandparents came to the US with no money and no English fluency. They made this massive leap and sacrifice, leaving everything they knew in Korea so my family here in the States could have a better chance at survival and the opportunity to build something from nothing. That inspires me to this day. Even on my hardest days, I remember how blessed I am, a great school system, a great family, growing up in a great part of the country, and now building a business in New York City. That is exactly what I believe the American dream is about, and I want to honor their legacy by scaling this company and taking it to the next level. I feel like I should have less fear in my own pursuits because they did something so heroic to put me in this position. I always want to make them proud.
K-Snax: Gene, your dad is a doctor, and he helped you develop the day-guard formula. What was his reaction when you told him you were going to build day-guard full-time and pass on pursuing medical school?
Gene: Deep down, I am sure he wanted me to be a doctor. He genuinely loves his job, he tells me he could not see himself doing anything else, and that he thinks I would like it too. But he has watched me put everything into this company for the last two and a half years, every spare moment, and now it is my full time job. We have grown significantly and shown real traction, so he sees the persistence, the effort, the vision, and it is slowly starting to pay off. That gives him conviction in what I am doing, especially since he was such an instrumental part of bringing the formula to life. I think he feels like we are doing this together, because we very much are, and he is proud of what I am doing. He still jokes sometimes about the road not taken to medical school, but at the end of the day, I know he is proud of me and supports me a hundred percent.
K-Snax: Felix, you screened dozens of manufacturers before choosing one. What were you unwilling to compromise on?
Felix: The first thing I wasn’t willing to compromise on was ingredient quality. I needed a manufacturer that was not only capable of sourcing high-quality ingredients, but also flexible enough to acquire ingredients outside their existing range. When you’re developing a product, there are moments where you have to use a specific ingredient because it offers the best bioavailability or the best taste, and I wanted a partner who was willing to go get that ingredient rather than push us toward whatever they already had on hand.
The second was U.S. experience. Since this was our first time creating a product like this, I only wanted to work with manufacturers who had produced for clients in the States and understood the U.S. regulatory landscape. That familiarity removed a lot of risk for us.
Last but not least, we wanted a manufacturer that could work with healthy sweeteners and natural flavors, so the product could taste good without compromising on health. A lot of the other jelly sticks on the market were relying on unhealthy flavoring, and that was exactly what we wanted to avoid.
K-Snax: Felix, you worked with labs in Korea while Gene tested samples in the U.S. How did building day-guard across two countries shape the product and your partnership?
Felix: It was a strategic advantage for us. Being in Korea gave us access to some of the best product development and nutrition science labs, while Gene had direct access to our target customers in the States, so he could gather feedback for each new iteration. That mattered a lot, because our product had to be tailored to the American consumer’s taste preferences. And it went beyond formulation, Gene was also able to get input on packaging design directly from potential U.S. customers.
Being based in Korea also saved us a lot of time. If a sample wasn’t even worth testing because the taste was off, I could give the manufacturer feedback on the spot and start building the next iteration right away. If we had both been in the U.S., we would have lost time waiting for samples to ship over, on top of the timezone gap. Having me on the ground made communication with the manufacturer much quicker and easier.
K-Snax: day-guard takes inspiration from something already familiar in Korea, but still relatively unfamiliar to many Americans. How did you decide on what to preserve from the Korean category and what to adapt for American consumers?
We wanted to preserve the jelly stick format itself, because that’s the reason these products exploded in Korea. Korea has had hangover remedies for decades in the form of beads, pills, and shot bottles, but the jelly stick is relatively new and now it’s easily the most popular variant. That format is what we built around.
In terms of what to adapt for American consumers, we wanted to make sure the texture, taste, and formula actually catered to them. I brought hundreds of the Korean sticks back to Brown while I was a senior, went out to bars and clubs, and handed them out to learn what Americans wanted in taste, texture, packaging, and flavor. We also beefed up the formula, not just with the same liver supporting ingredients you find in the Korean sticks, but electrolytes for hydration, B vitamins for energy, and prebiotics for gut health. It’s the most comprehensive version of this product built specifically for America.
K-Snax: When you first launched, you described the product as a soft-launch prototype and said you were developing a second version. What did customers teach you that changed the product or the way you positioned it?
We found out our customers weren’t actually college students like we originally hypothesized. They were mainly social, health conscious millennials living in big cities. So we rebuilt the product to serve them properly, both in formula and in packaging and branding. That’s why we added B vitamins for energy, prebiotics for gut health, and electrolytes for hydration. We wanted Day-Guard to be not just the best for hangover mitigation, but the most comprehensive product for supporting overall health.
K-Snax: You mentioned that the customer data eventually showed you were initially targeting the wrong audience. What surprised you most about the customers who actually connected with day-guard?
The surprise was realizing it was social, health conscious millennials, not college students trying to get trashed at parties. Their concerns around alcohol are completely different, they genuinely care about liver health, gut health, and the long term consequences of drinking. A lot of them are also drinking because it’s part of the job, happy hours, client dinners, it’s not always a choice. They want a solution that helps them stay on top of their game while still performing socially and at work, and we wanted to serve that need as directly as possible.
K-Snax: You’ve received guidance and support from the founders behind Magic Spoon, Rip Van, Hero Cosmetics, and Fishwife. What advice genuinely changed how you operate?
We’ve had the privilege of an incredible group of mentors and investors who believe in what we’re doing. The most important lesson, simple to say, hard to live, is to laser focus on one or two priorities at a time. In the early days it’s easy to chase every shiny object, and we did our fair share of that. Through our own trial and error we’ve internalized that focus is what actually moves the needle daily, weekly, monthly. Now that our team has grown, full time employees and interns included, keeping everyone aligned to the same priorities is critical to how we operate.
K-Snax: Since we’re K-Snax, we have to ask: what are your favorite Asian snacks?
Since I’m Korean, I have to go with Samanco ice cream and Saeukkang, shrimp chips. One sweet, one salty, hard to pick just one.
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