Everyone loves a celebration, but most people struggle with how they feel the day after. Fortunately, Morning Recovery is now on the market.
Morning Recovery CEO and founder Sisun Lee was a Product Manager at Tesla when he came up with the beverage’s concept during a trip to Korea. Ultimately, Morning Recovery is intended to be a hangover remedy of sorts. It’s a 3.4-ounce drink centered around the Oriental raisin tree known as the Hovenia Dulcis. Its other ingredients include prickly pear extract, vitamin B complex, electrolytes, and the anti-oxidant dihydromyricetin.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Sisun Lee about Morning Recovery on behalf of A Global Lifestyle. More on Lee and his creation can be found online at www.morningrecoverydrink.com.
AGL: Before launching Morning Recovery, you had worked at Tesla. When in your Tesla employment did the Morning Recovery concept come to you?
Sisun Lee: It was gradual. I joined Tesla in May 2016. Around January 2017, I started to receive feedback from friends and family about Korean hangover drinks that I gave out as samples over the Christmas break. This was the initial spark that led to a series of sampling, studying, and testing to launch Morning Recovery as an Indiegogo campaign in July. We incorporated a company to work on this full-time in August, one month after our successful Indiegogo campaign.
Morning Recovery is related to the Hovenia Dulcis tree. Where did you first discover this?
From Korea. Hangover drinks are a $200M market in Korea, in an alcohol industry that is 25 times smaller than the U.S. It turns out that Hovenia has been used for thousands of years in East Asia as a way to recover from alcohol and protect one’s liver, but without a full understanding of its science. We understood that it has a key flavonoid called DHM through Dr. Liang’s work at UCLA where they published studies around DHM as a method of helping you minimize your hangover.
What was the most difficult part of coming up with Morning Recovery?
Two things stand out. First, understanding FDA regulations to ensure our product was compliant and safe for consumption was difficult. I’ve only worked within tech prior to this and never dealt with FDA regulations before. I think trying to understand everything at light speed was the difficult part because the content itself is not that difficult.
Second, I got kicked out of the country because I didn’t have a visa, and scrambled to launched this company while finding a way to get back in the country. I raised $450,000 in June from U.S. VCs so I could apply for Obama’s International Entrepreneur Rule. The Trump administration canceled that policy in July. I launched Indiegogo from Canada in July, and used the revenue we generated as a way to apply for a business visa. I came back to the States in mid-August. Visa processing is insane in the U.S.
What are some of the advantages of Morning Recovery versus other potential hangover cures?
It’s all about the efficacy. We don’t dump DHM into water. Everyone can get DHM. You can just buy it online. Amazon sells 98% purified DHM powder. Focusing on efficacy means we have to build the trade knowledge of extracting DHM from Hovenia ourselves, and process it to maximize its efficacy/solubility. This is where our research team from USC comes into play. We’re a “science first” company whose mission is to fundamentally understand how alcohol impacts the human body, and then help neutralize its toxins. We’re just getting started, but this is a big difference vs. pure brand play that we see in the market today.
Can the Morning Recovery drink be mixed with anything else? Or does it have to be consumed on its own?
Yes. In fact, we’re working on cocktail ideas.
When not busy with work, how do you like to spend your free time?
I like to travel, watch the NBA, and work out.
Finally, Sisun, any last words for the kids?
Just that we’re consistently investing in R&D to improve our formulation. We have a new formula that will be updated in our drinks come April!
