Steve Sun: Founder & CEO of Biology Fragrances

Episode 846

What does it take to turn fragrance into something you don’t just wear — but actually feel?
On today’s episode, we welcome Steve Sun, Founder and CEO of Biology Fragrances — a brand redefining scent as a daily ritual rooted in emotional well-being. With a background spanning design, media, and storytelling at companies like The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures, Steve brings a unique lens to building brands that connect on a deeper level.
Raised between Taiwan and the United States, Steve’s early experiences with scent—from traditional remedies to everyday rituals—shaped his perspective on fragrance as something functional, not just aesthetic. That perspective led him to study perfumery and ultimately launch Biology Fragrances — a small-batch, plant-based brand designed to support mood, energy, and overall well-being. Today, the brand is growing across DTC, Amazon, and retail, including a nationwide launch in Sprouts Farmers Market, bringing fragrance into a completely new channel.
In this episode, Steve shares what it takes to build a new category around “functional fragrance,” how he blends storytelling with science to create emotionally resonant products, and why consumers are starting to think about scent as part of their wellness routine. We also discuss his unconventional approach to distribution, lessons from building billion-dollar entertainment brands, and what it means to create something that truly connects with modern consumers. Steve also reflects on the founder journey, the challenges of educating a new market, and what’s next for Biology Fragrances.
If you’re interested in building a differentiated brand, creating products that connect on a deeper level, or redefining how consumers experience everyday rituals — this episode is for you. Tune in now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control, control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go, let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Today, I’m joined by Steve Sun, founder and CEO of an incredibly fairly new brand called Biology Fragrances. It’s a brand that is rethinking fragrance, not just as something you wear, but something you feel. So, Steve’s background is incredibly unique, like many founders. He did not come from the industry that he’s starting a company in, but he’s been thinking about it, and then decided to make the move, which we’ll get into today. But before launching Biology Fragrances, he helped build some of the most iconic entertainment brands in the world, from a little brand called Walt Disney, not just Steve, of course, but was part of, part of the team there, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Yellowstone, Harry Potter, you name it, I mean, the guy has just done it all, so helping turn those brands into major retail and cultural phenomena, but his own journey started much early, growing up between Taiwan and the US, where scent, ritual, and traditional remedies played a big role in everyday life. So, I cannot wait to hear more about Steve’s story, how he’s blending storytelling, science, and wellness to create an entirely new company, new category, and even bringing fragrance into unexpected places for distribution. So, I’m really looking forward to learning more. So, Steve, welcome to the Kara Goldin show.

Steve Sun 2:18
You did your research, I respect that. Thank you so much for having me on.

Kara Goldin 2:23
Absolutely, well, for listeners who may not know or haven’t heard about Biology Fragrances yet, how do you describe the brand and what makes it different?

Steve Sun 2:34
What makes it different is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We are a functional fragrance brand that’s 100% natural, and when you hear 100% natural or aromatherapy, you tend to think of a very distinct market or a consumer base. We really want to democratize that. We want to open up that scope of modernizing essential oils, something that’s super traditional, something that’s been only really marketed towards a very specific consumer base, and make sure that everyone can reap the benefits of something that is very traditional, and that’s why our packaging is loud and modern, and the way we, you know, show, show up to the world is super, super vibrant, super chic, super fun. You just don’t want to take ourselves too seriously.

Kara Goldin 3:21
I love your packaging, but I love the fragrances even more. So, let’s go back to the beginning. How or what environment you grew up in? So, you were bouncing back and forth between a couple of countries, I understand, and culturally very, very embedded kind of in you that I understand led you to really launch Biology Fragrances.

Steve Sun 3:46
Yes, so I was born in Taiwan, and it’s an island, you know, small island, and very traditional Chinese values, so kind of like you, Kara. I grew up in a big family, so I have four older sisters. My parents kept having children because they wanted a son. That’s super important. It’s a little sexist in Chinese tradition. So, after my third sister was born, my mom suffered a stroke, and because of that stroke, she had debilitating headaches. So, she would use ointments like tiger bombs of the world, like these, like menthol creams and ointments, to just like kind of give her instant relief. And I remember as a kid, I was like, “Mom, you smell, you smell like medicine, mom, you know, you just want to be like close to her, but she smells like menthol, she smells so like medicinal all the time. Later on in life, she developed breast cancer that runs in the family, my grandmother passed from breast cancer, so I’ve always had, like, you know, sensitivities to ingredients, cancer-causing ingredients, and that really was, like, kind of the genesis of a little bit of biology, because I was born in. In Taiwan, immigrated to this country. I’m also gay. In elementary school, I was also kind of bigger, so I was made fun of a lot, bullied a lot. Like, I just.. so I would really like hide, I would just be in my head a lot, and because of that, I just formed imagination. I would create these worlds in my head, so because of that, I guess I have a very high, like, affinity to colors and smells and moments, because that was for me, like, my protection to

Kara Goldin 5:38
escape.

Steve Sun 5:39
Yeah,

Kara Goldin 5:40
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Steve Sun 7:34
No, because when I was a kid growing up, my parents are so strict, and I think because of the culture, there was no love. There was not a lot of, like, you know, what you’re gonna be amazing. It was just like, go be a lawyer, go be a doctor, figure it out, make some money, and don’t die. Basically, we immigrated this country, like, really, like, just just do something good. So, when I was a kid, I always was a creative, like I mentioned, when I got into college, my parents were like, be a doctor, be a lawyer, or nothing, and but then I was kind of a punk, in sense, like a little punk rocker, so I always wanted to be in creative, and thank goodness, because if I was a lawyer, I think I would be the worst lawyer, if I was, you know, I would be the worst, so I’m very happy that I chose this path of creativity. I’ve always just loved design, and I’ve always loved mixing and matching colors and scents and things of that nature. So to be where I am now, an entrepreneur with a brand doesn’t seem real as an immigrant, as someone that was bullied, as someone that my parents never gave me like validation, I just feel like it’s so eye-opening. It’s like, oh, I actually did this, and despite all the barriers and the things and people, the headwinds, you’re like, I’m here, I’m an entrepreneur, and you know, and gonna step into the light a little bit. So I did not think maybe this way.

Kara Goldin 9:02
I love it. So you had a very successful career in entertainment building, working with a team to build some very massive brands, and what made you think now was the time to go and do something different, including go and start a fragrance company.

Steve Sun 9:26
Yeah, I think what it was, you know, I worked for, as you mentioned, like Disney’s and Paramounts and Warner Brothers of the World. I also lived in Shanghai for a while with Disney, so I have this great career at 32 I was a vice president at Paramount, and I don’t say that to brag, I’m saying that I, that was the apex of my career, that was ever, that was the goal ever. And when you would compare, you know, the SVPs, the EVPs, the presidents in creative, it’s not a creative role anymore, it’s. Really, people management, PNL, it’s about you really lose that creative side, and I’m a creative, I never claim to be someone else, and that’s what I signed up for, and when I got, when I became a vice president, so young, I just felt sad, I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do now? Like, do I just keep climbing this, you know, this ladder, which I don’t want to do, or, you know, I could do something on my own, you know. I, so, during the pandemic, while everyone was at home, I was like, huh, okay, so what do I love? I love brand building, I love my mom, I love everything that my heritage, my store, I love design. What, what vehicle can I kind of bring everything together and create something? So I thought back to, like, me as a kid, and the escapism aspect, and the creativity, as like, scent would be a great platform, and so really that was the genesis of it all. It was kind of like exhaustion from corporate me wanting to have an identity and like really show off a little bit, and that was what what created biology.

Kara Goldin 11:12
So biology is rooted in functional fragrance. Can you talk about that concept a bit for maybe somebody who’s not familiar with what that term means.

Steve Sun 11:23
Yeah, so functional fragrances is there’s numerous definitions of this, right? So functional fragrance for us is aromatherapy plus essential oils. So all essential oils have functionalities, some are for serenity, some are for excitement, stimulation. They’re all researched and show that they have qualities that can enhance your mood, clear mental clarity, etc. etc. We just wanted to bring that to the forefront in our marketing, in our communications, on packaging like this is what it’s for, and be hit the consumer over their head on this new methodology that we’re really, really excited about to the forefront and to a wider audience, and that to us is what functional fragrance is about.

Kara Goldin 12:16
So you studied perfumery at the Institute for Art and Olfaction. What surprised you most about the science and the craft behind Sense?

Steve Sun 12:28
Well, natural fragrance. So we work in the world of naturals versus the synthetics. The number one thing about natural fragrances is that the molecules that are natural don’t last as long on skin, so the longevity is not as strong as the synthetic counterparts. So that really surprised me, because you can, you know, you’re mixing and matching, and you know after a couple hours the wear it wears off, but I also had a light bulb moment, because I’m not going to force or add things into our formulations just so that it can last on your skin for eight to 10 hours. In fact, that’s something that we’re against. That to me was a light bulb moment, because I saw a white space when I heard about that. I was like, oh, there’s a way to attack natural fragrances. Is it the form? You know, that’s why we lead with our 10 ml roller balls. Our fragrances are meant to travel with you. It’s like a lip balm, right? Lip balms don’t last on your lip, lipstick doesn’t last on your lips all day. In fact, if it lasts on your skin all day, you need to scratch your head. What’s in here to make it like not wear off?

Kara Goldin 13:46
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally

Steve Sun 13:48
famous, same as fragrance. So that’s something that was really interesting to me, the science behind the longevity.

Kara Goldin 13:54
So you launched, you launched the fragrances. How many fragrances did you launch with, and how long did it take you from the moment that you said I’m going to go do this, assuming you wrote a little mini business plan and then figured out what skews you were going to go with? How long did that take

Steve Sun 14:14
a year of like research and development, and when you say Kara, when you say business plan, like no, there was no business plan, it was just like me having fun. My first goal was to just sell into one retailer in Palm Springs. There’s this little cute place called Mojave Trading Post. They were, it’s like the Fred Seagulls of the desert, so chic, so selective, and beautifully curated, and I was like, if I get in there, happy days, pound on the back, go back to work, and literally, like, this was at month six. I had formulated six fragrances based off of things I love, based off of my mom, based off of songs I heard as a child, or my favorite movies, so they’re all highly inspired. It by my life and things I adore, and I set out, and I brought my box of fragrances to Mojave Trading Post, and they’re like, “Yeah, we’ll take you. This is wonderful. We love the packaging, we love the story, we love the scents. I was like, “Oh my god, this is so easy. It’s not easy. It was just, you know, beginner’s luck, I guess.

Kara Goldin 15:20
I love that. And when you first launched, did you see a moment where you, I guess, gained confidence that you knew it was going to take off? I mean, it’s always great to get that first sale right, but then I’m sure you saw after that it’s not as easy. There’s all kinds of hurdles that go into play, and when did you think, okay, this can work

Steve Sun 15:47
to tell an immigrant person that’s come to this country with so many insecurities and headwinds, that when did you gain the confidence to, or the business is legitimate? I still don’t think that way. I every day is still like, oh my god, like, do I belong here? As this, I don’t know, I maybe have to work on myself a little more, but the proof is in the pudding, I think. You know, I just think when I got the little bits of validation, whether or not it was Mojave, whether or not, you know, we got into Urban Outfitters as a test run, very early on, it was just like, all right, I guess I can just put more time, you know, this is a self-funded endeavor, so it’s like, I’ll put more money in it. It just increased my passion for

Kara Goldin 16:35
it,

Steve Sun 16:36
but to say that, oh, like, I’m confident I have my two feet on the ground, I don’t, I still don’t feel that way. I’m still so grateful I get to meet people like you. I’m getting into the hands of consumers nationally, like to me every day is I’m just so freaking grateful that we, I got to do this. So I have to work on myself, I’m not that confident, but I think that stands for itself.

Kara Goldin 17:05
I love it. So, of the six that you launched with, have you.. what have you learned about, I guess, what the consumer wants? I think that there’s always this, okay, we’re going to go out and launch, and I love this fragrance, but it isn’t necessarily the one that all consumers want, right? And then you start to figure out this is the leader as part of the selection. I mean, in our case, when I launched Hint, it was I love cucumber water, and it ends up the cucumber water is very polarizing, either you like it or you really don’t like it, and so people would, if they had that as their trial experience with our brand, then they would just, and they didn’t like it, then they would walk away, they would also become very passionate about, or I should say, the ones that didn’t like it became so passionate about the fact that it was like cucumber water, and so trying to get those people back to try a different flavor, you know. We would say, why did you try cucumber if you don’t like cucumber? So, anyway, I mean, you know, there was all this logic we thought, but it doesn’t matter, because the consumer has spoken. So, did you see any of that sort of behavior? I guess amongst your early consumers,

Steve Sun 18:32
100% You know, I wanted to play with, like, smoke sense and Szechuan peppercorn in the early days, you know, it was so polarizing. I was like, on paper, it’s cool, and it’s very authentic to me, but it just doesn’t work, or it doesn’t resonate. But I think, most importantly, is for my brand, is that it doesn’t follow trends. I don’t. I try not to follow what’s out in the marketplace. I don’t think that. I think that, for me, is much more of an uphill battle to just be another brand with another sandalwood scent or another dupe. That’s that to me has never been why I got into this industry. It’s about creativity and innovation, and if I become just another dupe brand out there, that wouldn’t be fun for me, right. So, what has always been great is, yes, there are trends, and yes, there are notes and ingredients that resonate, but it’s always got to have that biology flare. Our best seller is Joy and Deep, two very, very different fragrances. Joy is a jasmine tuberose, bergamot, sandalwood, so very daytime, very light floral Ford, and our second bestseller is Deep, which is cinnamon, patchouli, cedar wood, so it’s very night and day, but. Those two have really just been our kind of hero products, and you know, so when we get into retail, we make sure that in the assortment those are the two that they lead with. However, we do have other great scents that maybe are not as commercial, however, I think without those our brand messaging wouldn’t be as powerful. I think it’s so important to have, you know, your cucumber, or with one of our scents called Mystery, which is Cade, which is that smoke, but we round it out with vanilla, we round it out with citrus, so it’s like, what is that? Ah, that’s so interesting. We want people to, what is that? That is so interesting. So, like, yes, we get the consumer when they come in, they come in to eat to our restaurant, it’s the Jasmine scent. But then they come back the second time around, then they can get a little bit deeper into our brand. So we always want something a little bit more, you know, interesting. So we have something that invites you in, but then there’s more to come, just to pique everyone’s interest and excitement.

Kara Goldin 21:05
So, what’s one thing you’ve had to unlearn coming from kind of big companies, big entertainment companies into entrepreneurship? I think I always hear from entrepreneurs who came from large companies many years ago, that was me. Where it’s like, okay, this is so much harder than I thought it was going to be, and there’s so much heavy lifting. There’s not fighting internally for budgets. There’s, you know, how much do I have in my piggy bank, right? And in order to go out and create more product or tell the world that I’m out here, whatever it is, but what has been kind of the, I guess, the unlearning or unlocking that has been challenging.

Steve Sun 21:57
Two things, like you hit the nail on the head. I don’t have unlimited budget now, so when I make a mistake, it’s on me. I’m like, crap, like, all right, there goes my dog food budget for the week, or whatever. It’s like that’s like really the biggest thing, like it hurts a lot more when it’s not on someone else’s diet. But the second thing I think is in American corporate culture, you can’t fail, you can’t ever be vulnerable and show mistakes, or that you don’t know something, right? You kind of fake, you make it, or you blame someone else. I think, as an entrepreneur, it’s so frickin humbling. You don’t know what you don’t know, and when you don’t know it, the quicker you realize you don’t know it, the better. Then you can partner with actual industry leaders, people that know what they, what to do, and get, get advice from them. I think that’s number one. And secondly, when you fail, fail so quickly, don’t get all confused, literally fail. Okay? What did I do wrong? And be very, very reflective of what you did, and then pivot and move on. I think that to me is the most important thing as an entrepreneur.

Kara Goldin 23:09
Yeah, definitely for founders who are listening. So, how do you know when an idea is worth going all in for?

Steve Sun 23:20
Okay, well, I think when a huge retailer, such as Sprout, we just launched there this month, oh, last month, 500 plus stores for someone to take a risk on us, and we’re seeing the sell through, I think that’s when you know you have a good product on hand, and that’s when you’re going to be like all in, because when you’re on that scale, when you have that production, and when you’re getting comments and write-ups and awards, and all this validation, you can’t help but have to lean into that, right? It’s, it’s when you’re getting all this validation out in the marketplace, that’s when you know, like, the consumers are overjoyed, and they keep returning, and they’re sending you social media right now it’s like instant gratification, like you, you launch something, it goes in store, the consumer buys it, they post on it, and they’re like, I love this, it’s the best thing, I’m taking it on, that to me is like a full circle, and that’s when you know like you’ve got a hit product, you’ve got a hit brand, you just kind of kind of have to keep going at that point,

Kara Goldin 24:40
where do you feel like your consumer is learning about you? I mean, there’s placements and sprouts and Mojave trading posts, but where else, and how else are you getting the word out about Biology Fragrances?

Steve Sun 24:55
Screaming, I’m just kidding, on the rooftop. No, it’s. Literally, it’s such a diverse.. there’s so many ways to get your message out nowadays. It’s very, get very, very difficult. However, we’ve been very fortunate from day one, just from social media, natural organic posts, people just posting about us all the time. We were found the buyer at Urban Outfitters, shout out to Gregory, found us through social media. We were on The Today Show, so even you know, just being on The Today Show, Al Roker’s, you know, smelling our scents, and like, oh, I love this is another touch point for the consumer, being in before Sprouts, being in 60 highly influential boutiques, fashion and beauty boutiques around the US was another touch point for us. So, we’ve been very, very fortunate with just the organic nature of how this brand has grown and how we’ve been able to kind of promote ourselves. It’s been very, very organic.

Kara Goldin 26:00
I love it. So, when you think about the next, it’s not even a chapter, but maybe the next few pages for Biology Fragrances. What are you most excited about that’s coming up? You have a lot of cool distribution, new products, new scents, anything like that, that you’re most excited about.

Steve Sun 26:24
I really want to dominate this masstige or mass and prestige market. I think there are so few brands that really play in this area. There’s a lot of brands that are purely mass and there are brands that are prestige. I’m so excited to be kind of in the sweet spot that I can be a hybrid, you know, high-quality product, accessible price point. There’s just so much learning and teaching to the consumer. This is really just the beginning, I think that instead of just getting into different categories so quickly, I really want to master functional fragrance. I really want to play in this world. I don’t want to just get into candles because everyone else is in candles. I don’t want to do things just because everyone else is doing this. I want to make sure that what we do always upholds our three pillars, which is natural functionality and portability. Those three three brand DNA is in everything that we do, so you know, ensuring that any new product categories that we get into always play in those three.

Kara Goldin 27:39
I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Absolutely, love what you’re doing at Biology Fragrances. It’s a fresh take on a category that has been growing for so many years, but you guys have just done an amazing job, and I love the storytelling around it as well, and the everyday ritual and functionality, everything, so definitely everyone needs to check it out. Biology Fragrances and explore all the different products. Joy is amazing. They, you had mentioned that I absolutely love it. So, Steve Sun, founder and CEO of Biology Fragrances. Thank you again, and thanks everyone for listening.

Steve Sun 28:25
Thank you so much.

Kara Goldin 28:26
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit, and of course feel free to subscribe, so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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