In our Founder Spotlight series, OEMReview revisits publicly published interviews with consumer-product founders and draws out the manufacturing and product-development lessons most relevant to OEM and private-label brand owners. This edition looks at Tree To Tub, the soapberry-based natural skincare brand founded by Michael Koh.
From a grandmother’s mountain remedy to a product concept
Michael Koh’s brand starts with an ingredient, not a marketing plan. As a baby in Taiwan with severe sensitive skin, he was treated by his grandmother with soapberries — a naturally foaming fruit she collected from the mountains. Years later, after immigrating to the United States, Koh noticed that Americans with eczema, psoriasis and reactive skin had few genuinely gentle alternatives to harsh, chemical-heavy cleansers. The gap became Tree To Tub: a line of soapberry-based shampoo, body wash and facial cleanser.
The manufacturing story: from a kitchen to a farmer collective
Like many first-time founders, Koh and his co-founder Brian began naively — trying to extract soapberry juice in their own kitchen. It didn’t scale. Their turning point was recognising they needed real manufacturing expertise, which they pursued by finding industry advisors through LinkedIn.
They then partnered directly with Taiwan’s largest soapberry farmer collective and manufacturer, running rounds of samples to build formulations that used natural essential oils in place of synthetic ingredients. Going upstream to the source of the raw material — rather than buying a generic base — became the brand’s technical moat.
Interestingly, Koh’s hardest problem wasn’t the factory; it was demand. Early Facebook ads and influencer campaigns nearly drained the company’s funds before he realised his real customer was the sensitive-skin sufferer, not the generic “natural/organic” shopper. Moving onto Amazon is what stabilised the business.
“Do few things well, and outsource the rest as much as you can.”
— Michael Koh, Tree To Tub
“Amazon saved our business… we’re great at products and branding, however, we were horrible at generating traffic,” Koh said, describing the split of strengths every product founder should be honest about. By year three the brand reported around $3–4M in revenue, profitably.
What OEM & private-label brand-builders can learn
- Own the ingredient, not just the label. By partnering with the farmer collective at the raw-material source, Tree To Tub secured both supply and a differentiated story. If your brand rests on a hero ingredient, get as close to its origin as your volume allows.
- Kitchen R&D validates the idea; a real manufacturer delivers the product. Home experimentation proved the concept but couldn’t produce a consistent, compliant, scalable formula. Know when to hand the formulation to professionals.
- Define the customer before you scale the spend. A great formula from a great factory still failed to sell until Koh corrected who it was for. Product-market fit sits alongside manufacturing, not after it.
- Play to your strengths and outsource the rest. Koh’s team was strong on product and branding and weak on traffic — so they leaned on a channel (Amazon) that supplied demand. Honest self-assessment is an operating advantage.
Written by Dee Truong for OEMReview. Brand names are used for identification and commentary only. Read the original, full interview at Starter Story.
About the author
Dee Truong is a Vietnam-based professional with experience in the beauty and consumer-product sector. Her interests include product development, market trends and the commercial side of bringing consumer products from concept to market. LinkedIn
