Van Hong: Co-Founder of Mint Tools

Episode 734

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, I’m joined by Van Hong, Co-Founder of Mint Tools — the professional hair tool brand designing high-performance, ergonomic styling tools built with stylists in mind. Mint was founded by two best friends who combined over 40 years of beauty industry experience and electrical engineering expertise to solve a major gap in the market: salon tools weren’t designed for the people actually using them. Today, Mint’s line of curling irons, blow dryers, and brushes deliver salon-quality results with comfort, safety, and durability at the forefront.
Before launching Mint, Van spent years as a stylist himself, constantly frustrated with tools that were heavy, clunky, and unreliable. Pairing that experience with his co-founder’s technical background, the two reimagined what professional styling tools could be. From salon demos to consumer feedback, Mint has built a reputation for innovation, transparency, and products that last. Van opens up about the process of testing new tools in salons, what makes Mint different from competitors, how he thinks about safety and design for wigs and extensions, and the exciting trends shaping the future of hair styling technology.
Whether you’re a stylist, beauty enthusiast, or curious about what it takes to turn an industry pain point into a thriving brand, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

Resources from
this episode:

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. 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. Super, super excited to have our next guest here, a co founder of an incredible company called Mint Tools. And you may not know the company. Maybe, if you’re in Canada, you may know about Mint Tools, but it’s taking the US by storm, as at this moment and your hairdresser might also be very interested in hearing all about it. But van is not only a creator or CO creator of Mint Tools and the products, but also well known stylist and he decided to partner with an incredible partner who has more of an engineering background to create a group of products that he’ll get into. But wow, so, so amazing and really, really happy that that he’s here with us today to talk a lot more about it, but bringing over 40 years in the beauty industry to us through these products, definitely an incredible, incredible company that that he’s built, The design, the high performance, the ergonomic salon tools, all of those catchy points that everybody is looking for in products. They’ve achieved that I for one, love the Kays brush that is part of Mints innovative curling and styling tools. But there’s also the longer curling iron that they have for anyone with longer hair. It’s such an amazing, amazing invention, so I cannot wait to talk about what it’s been like for him to not only start this company, but go from being in a service business to actually creating the tools that obviously he saw that he needed and would felt that other people would need as well. So very excited. You’re here, van, thanks for coming.

Van Hong 2:51
Thank you so much. Kara, very honored to be on your show. Yeah. First of all, my name is Van Hong. I’m co founder of Mint Tools. When people ask me, what I do? I’m a hairdresser. First of all, so a bit of a background story. I started hairdressing when I was 19 years old, as you can see from Asian descent with early career 30 years ago that the parents wanted their kids to get into right? Most of my parents kids were were going to university, for, you know, becoming a lawyer, a doctor, etc, but my mother was a hairdresser. She’s very influential in my life. So at the age of 19, I wanted to take a year off University to buy a car, and she said to me, van, why don’t you go to hairdressing? And it’s something I never thought about before, because I was an athlete. I took taekwondo, boxing, wrestling, so arts, was it a hobby of mine at all? And she says, You know, it’s actually a good career, that it’s something you can fall back onto in case university doesn’t work out, you can put yourself through school while being a hairdresser. And I said, Okay, why not? Let’s I always have an open mind. I said, just give it a shot. Give it a try. And so I’d rolled in hairdressing school. I was the only guy in class, probably the youngest male, too. And I remembered my first day, the instructors gave us a task to do, doing french braids and being a guy who never played the dolls before. This was so difficult, and everybody else was done in literally, like 10 minutes. And for me, it took me about six hours, no kidding, and the instructor had say, man, take a break. You know, leave it, come back to it afterwards. And it was something that I honestly wasn’t natural at, I wasn’t good at, but it was something about hairdressing that challenged me enough that I wanted to pursue it. So I love it. Yeah, I finished hairdressing school and worked in the salon for a year, and went back to college as well, and finally said to my mom, I want to become a professional hairdresser. My mom says, Great. For you, Neil, I’m glad you found what you like to do, and my father says, Look what you did to my son. He didn’t want me to become a hairdresser because he’s concerned about what his friends would say and what his friends would think. Right? Because, like I said, back then, hairdressing wasn’t popular like it is now. It’s, it’s, it’s elevated to a level where hairdressing is respected now, but back then, it wasn’t right. I didn’t care. I want to do what I wanted to do, and so I wanted to take my hairdressing career to next level. I went to London, England to take the Dallas students program. Came back, found a small, 386, six square foot salon, and worked there three years, had two employees. I worked 60 hours a week, and I loved it. I was a workaholic, but I loved it. And, you know, it was something that that I would wake up and I’d want to do, it was my passion.

Kara Goldin 5:57
I’m going to back up, and I want to come back to this, because I think there’s, there’s a lot to fill in, but I want to get it out there about Mint Tools before we even jump back to the background. But for someone who is not familiar with Mint Tools, but decides after hearing this podcast that they’re going to go and order these what, like, what should they expect out of them? What is your promise? I guess, to consumers, that how it’s different, I guess, than other things that are out there. Well,

Van Hong 6:31
selfish that I designed the tools for myself, so it’s something that I have to love for myself, and it has to be a tool that I’m proud of. So when you know, before a tool is brought to market, is tested in a salon for a year, before we actually sell it, we want to make sure that the quality is there, the durability is there, and how it feels and function feels amazing. So it’s about sort of having a tool that gets you that final look, but it’s tool that you want to pick up and enjoy using while you’re getting that final look. So we want to ensure that when someone buys one of our tools. I know how hard it is when I work for Ryan money, I want to make sure that when they buy tool they feel the same. They feel like they’re getting what they pay for and what they what they expect from a Tool Company, because we’re basically a professional brand that’s sort of geared towards hair salons, but you know, it’s more for a consumer as well.

Kara Goldin 7:29
So your co founder, how did you come together with your co founder to actually create Mint Tools?

Van Hong 7:37
Well over years in the hairdressing industry, I got hired to be a stage artist as well. So doing hair shows, doing education in salons, and Kelly as well. He was in the hair industry. He was more known as a manufacturer. He was a Tool Guy, like said, before he’s an engineer. We became close friends. Be just being in the industry. And then it came to a point where I was having manufacturers send me tools at Salon to test. I’ll give them feedback. Yes, no, improve this and that. And, you know, we sat together and said, you know, we’d make a really good team. Me as a hairdresser who’s very particular with what he likes and what he doesn’t like, and Kelly, who has this wealth of knowledge of the engineering background, and he does all the logistics, all the he visits all the factories and make sure the quality control is there. So as a team, we work really well together, and plus, we were very good friends. We’re best friends. We play golf and hang out while we’re not working.

Kara Goldin 8:37
I love it. So when, over the years, as you’ve been perfecting your profession, you’re, you know, obviously, a well known stylist. You’ve tested so many tools. I love the I never really thought about the ergonomic side of things, right? That, you know, it’s it really, it’s important, right? And it’s obviously something that people who are in the industry, who are serving consumers, if they’re not comfortable, or if they get a cramp from using a certain tool, or whatever it is, then they’re not going to use it, right? They’re going to find something else. They may not tell you that this is garbage or whatever, but why do you think that more tools haven’t focused on this sooner? Right? That that the ergonomic side of this is is so key to to your products as well? I

Van Hong 9:37
think a lot of brands, they’re not owned by hairdressers, you know, so the decisions that they’re making is not based on someone who’s actually working behind the chair. For myself, I still work behind the chair, and I’m able to sort of give that feedback. I have a lot of friends in the industry, too. And. You know, ergonomics is really important. As you know, in the industry, there’s a lot of the older we get, the more aches and pains we get, and especially with the shoulders and the hands and the wrists carpal tunnel syndrome. So it’s really important to me that when I design something that it has to feel comfortable, not only for my hands, but I take in consideration, for example, my wife, you know, she may have smaller hands than me, you know, you know. So the handle has to be slightly different. It can’t just be from a particular males perspective. It has to be for the industry as well, for everybody, so that when they use it, you know, it could be for eight to 10 hours a day. I’m not looking to make a tool that would be a one time use kind of situation. It has to be something for long hours and be comfortable.

Kara Goldin 10:48
So the case brush, I mentioned this in the intro. What is it that makes it so effective?

Van Hong 10:55
Oh, that’s a big secret, actually.

Kara Goldin 10:59
Well, it’s incredible. This is

Van Hong 11:01
actually a pretty funny story, because has all to do with the bristles are really important, right? So the right density of the nylon bristles has to have the correct flex. So that has to do with the thickness of the bristles, the type of bristles, and the amount of flex that it gives so it has a ball tip as well, so that gently massages the scalp, as opposed to scratches it. And also has the, I don’t know if you can see, though, it has the natural boar bristle down on bottom. So it does two things. The nylon bristles here will detangle the hair, massage the scalp, and the natural boar bristle will smooth out any frizz or fly away and bring the natural welds from the scalp to the ends of the hair. So when we first started selling this, one of the distributors didn’t want to put this on the shelf because she thought the bristles looked too long, and she thought that was a manufacturing error. And I had to say to her, you don’t take it out, try it. And then she understood that sometimes things may look different, but is actually an improvement on what’s been around in the market for a long time. And also what’s important for this brush, or what’s unique to this brush, is that has a removable pad, so you push down on it and you could take that out, throw this in the sink and wash it with soap and water. This is a wooden brush, so you wouldn’t want to soak this water because it may crack over time, but it’s natural ash wood, so it’s very sustainable as well. But what makes people love it? It’s the way it tangles in the hair. And when hairdressers to use this brush. They often call it the balayage brush. So balayage is when they bleach out the hair and it’s all matted in the sink, and you have to brush it out Put the toner on. So this is a favorite brush for them to sort of detangle the hair before applying the toner.

Kara Goldin 12:55
So from from the moment that you decided I’m going to go and launch product and actually having a product that you could sell. How long did that take? I know it often takes a lot longer to develop products because you want to develop something, your name is around this too, right? And you’ve got to use it yourself if you’re not going to use it. I mean, why sell it? Right? And I think it’s, it’s going to create more harm than good. So how long did that take to actually get a product that that van was, you know, like, Okay, we’re ready.

Van Hong 13:35
Good question. Takes about a year and a half, actually, and it depends on what it entails. All of our tools now are exclusive to us. We design what we call the molds. So the molds are, you know, the shape, the casting of it, and we’re the only ones that have to design. Because basically, I would take a piece of paper, I would draw it out, and I would send it to the engineers and say, okay, or designers that could you make this better? Because I’m not an artist, right? So yeah, within six months of design period, and then it would take a year in the salon for testing, for testing the prototypes, and within that year, we make adjustments to make sure that it’s ready, and within three months, we can get that to to to market. So it’s actually almost a year and nine months. So, but all of our tools, we we pride ourselves to having classics, so it’s okay that it takes a longer time to perfect, because we’re not falling on the fads. We’re falling on what’s necessary, what’s necessary for styles to use in the salon on a daily basis. So it’s okay for us to take the time to perfect our our tool. It’s not going to be like a trend tool that goes away in six months. It’s sort of something that’s be long lasting for us.

Kara Goldin 14:52
How do you balance designing for professional stylists with making tools that also work? Well, I. Um, for not only work well for consumers, but are also something that consumers know that they need, right? It’s sort of a two part answer, probably because I don’t know, it might have to do with durability and price and things like that, but it’s also, you know, how do you do both?

Van Hong 15:19
Well, you know, first of all, the durability is a very important performance and the quality, overall quality, because you don’t have those stylists, or the most particular people, when it comes to their tools, they want to make sure that when they buy something, they’re going to be able to use it on their styles and not have it break down. They need something very, very reliable. Once we win the hearts of hairdressers, they will talk with their their clients as they’re using it. Clients will say, you know, what is that brush? Because they brush you’re using, what is that long barrel curling I’m using? And it goes from there we it’s primarily word of mouth. So stylist loves it. They talk to their clients. The clients will search for us, whether it’s on, you know, Amazon or website, or they can purchase it through their their stylist as well. And very point, important point you mentioned, was price point. You know, of course, we’re a business. We have to make our margins, but we want to make sure that our margins are very fair, that the quality that we bring out and what we charge is very fair. So we’re not one of these companies that’ll give you sort of a low quality product, and because of our brand charging excessive price, no, we don’t do that. We want to give people very value for further product, and so we make sure that in that case, no consumers can afford it, and stylists can basically afford to use it and and sell it to their clients as well. How

Kara Goldin 16:52
many SKUs Did you launch with when you first were getting Mint Tools out there? Three SKUs.

Van Hong 16:59
We’re very, you know, we started from scratch, shoestring budget, and we do is gonna work, but we didn’t have the funds to go in and create a whole line. So we start with the basics. You know, it was a blow dryer, a straining iron and a curling iron, and those were the three sort of components we thought Styles would need,

Kara Goldin 17:22
and how has that changed today? Like, how many SKUs Do you have? Overall? We

Van Hong 17:26
have 15 SKUs right now. Within the 15 SKUs, we have different sizes. For example, the curling iron, that’s one SKU. We have three different sizes. We have the hair one that’s one SKU. We have five different sizes. We have hair brush, which is, you know, three round brushes, and one has a pattern. Oh, actually, it has a pattern brush and a smaller, waterproof miso brush. So within 15 SKU, there’s many different sizes as well. What

Kara Goldin 17:53
trends in, like technology? Have you been most excited about? Maybe it’s in one of your products that you’ve created, or maybe you’re working on something towards that would be using this type of technology. Well,

Van Hong 18:10
the biggest innovation probably the blow dryer motors. So before these ACDC and motors, and they’re quite large, now the motors are really small. They’re called BLDC dryer motors, and they spin faster than more efficient. They blow more air. And what’s great for for us, and you know, we talked ergonomics earlier. It’s very light and small and powerful. So as we were working all day, it’s not we don’t feel the pain on our shoulders and arms. And it’s great for consumers too, because, you know, it’s not gonna take up a lot of space in their washroom. They could take it traveling. It’s smaller, compact, and they’re actually very, very futuristic looking. Now they’re hair dryers. And with our with in our tool company, we’re always advancing our technology as technology changes, for example, our curling irons. We currently have two heaters in it. We’re launching a brand new curling iron, oh, Top Secret, next year, and it has four heaters in it. So yeah. So we’re consistently upping our game as technology changes. And we can do that because, you know, I make the decisions, and Kelly makes it happen, so we don’t have to go through these hierarchy of steps.

Kara Goldin 19:28
What’s a piece of feedback maybe you got from a stylist or a consumer that’s that really stuck with you and kind of shaped the way that you either improved one of your tools, or, uh, decided we’ve got to go and launch something that is really going to solve this problem.

Van Hong 19:50
Ah, you know what there? I can’t think of one, but feedback is really important to us. When we first started, it was really important. Us to hear from styles and what they liked and what they thought we could improve within our tool, because we’re we’re relatively young company, and is, you know, sometimes, as as business owners, it’s hard to hear negative feedback within your your baby especially, and for us, Kelly and I really thought it was important to take that negative feedback and make it work for us. How can we take that feedback as constructive as opposed to them trying to sort of put us down right? So I would say there’s not one that I can think of at the moment, but we appreciate feedback, and that’s how we’ve built our business. From feedback,

Kara Goldin 20:47
looking back on any business, I guess it’s to the exact point that that you talked about. It’s not just about receiving the hard feedback, but it’s also looking back on maybe the challenges that you had and maybe the mistakes you made. I made a ton of them in creating the company that I developed. I did most things right, but there were a lot of things that maybe I shouldn’t have done. Do you have any things that you think about if you were starting Mint Tools from scratch that you do differently. I’ll share one just so you have an idea on this that I remember people told me, Oh, you have to hire people in the industry that they’re gonna they’re gonna just fast track this for you and but the problem is, is that they don’t know how to think differently. They don’t know how to think about it, from maybe the consumer who’s going there, just because they are in the beverage industry didn’t mean that they were going to be able to sort of solve my problem. So I, I, I gave a lot of permission to those people. Spent some money my own money, initially, on, on, on, hoping that they’d wave their magic wand and everything would be terrific, but it’s, I think, you know, there’s no shortcuts, and that’s what I learned along the way. But I’m curious what you would say to that,

Van Hong 22:17
no, I think it’s totally true. There’s no shortcuts, right? There’s no one person that has all the right answers, or, I think in my career, it’s sort of, you know, trusting in yourself and try not to listen to other people who, who you, you know, see as being of like in the business role, telling you how to run your business. Because a lot of times, as a hairdresser, I can see myself a hairdresser. I don’t see myself as a business person. You have people giving you advice on things to do, how to spend your money, how to, you know, to spend money advertising, for example. And you know, a lot of that goes to waste. And if, if it’s your company, you have to, you know, understand that. You know, you have to run it your way. What’s best for, for where you’re at. And if, if you’re, I’m the hairdresser, I should trust what I feel, the direction the company should go, rather than taking advice from people that you know are in a general business environment, not necessarily your your industry.

Kara Goldin 23:35
Yeah, definitely. So looking ahead, when you think about the bets that you’re making. You talked a bit about, you know, you’ve been growing it in Canada, the country that you’re from, but now you’ve come into the US, what, what is the most challenging problem that you’ve got right now? And kind of doing that, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s much bigger. We’ve had a lot of people talk about tariffs, or, you know, lots of different aspects of growing the business. I guess branding to getting the word out about Mint Tools. Maybe more people are familiar with who you are in in Canada than in the US, although you are known in the US too. But I’m curious like, what is the biggest challenge for you right now? Right

Van Hong 24:27
now, we’re quite popular in Instagram. We have a lot of support from styles all over the US as well as Canada. And the problem is that, well, we’re trying to get into distribution the people that that own these distributors or manage them, they’re not on social media. They don’t they’re not on the front lines. They’re not speaking to stylists, you know, asking what they would they use, what they don’t like. So it’s for us we’re getting known in this the hairdressing industry. Me, but it’s hard getting the business people to sort of to sort of see us and to hear about us, and that’s, that’s the hard part. So because once we, you know, it’s sort of, they’re the buyers or the purchasers, but they’ve never heard of us, but the salons are using our tools, so we have to sort of bridge that connection somehow.

Kara Goldin 25:22
Yeah, so, so interesting. So, really, really, yeah, it is. It’s a challenging aspect that you know. How do you get people, more and more of these people, to know about it? And I think you’re doing it right, though. You just have to just keep going brick by brick and and getting lots of PR and getting on podcasts and really sharing your story. But I think at the end of the day, your tools are, are getting talked about and because they work, and the results are, are really there, but I think it’s what you’re doing too, and just getting the word out there, not only into salons, but also into consumers hands. Is it’s hard, but you’re, you’re definitely doing it. Thank

Van Hong 26:08
you. Yeah, no, we’re starting at the ground level. You know, for us, our job is to create the tools that hairdressers would love. Once hairdressers order it, the word will get out. So that’s what we’re hoping. So anyways,

Kara Goldin 26:22
I love it. I love it. Well. Van, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing the journey of growing it. It’s very inspiring. I love that this came from a place of of solving a problem for yourself, and you’ve obviously had an incredible professional career, and you’ve taken on this new venture, which is new and challenging, and it’s, it’s not what everybody does. So I think that it’s pretty incredible that you decided to take this on and and you’re creating incredible, incredible product so Mint pro tools.com, it’s also available on Amazon. And thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you everyone for listening until next time at the Kara Goldin show. Thank you again. Thanks Kara. 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, best selling 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.

Click to subscribe:

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen OnApple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen OnSpotify
Listen on Overcast
Listen OnOvercast
Listen on PlayerFM
Listen OnPlayerFM

People Also Liked

733

Samantha Gold: Founder & CEO of Motette

732

Luna Aziz: Founder & CEO of Legendairy Milk

731

Cara Dumaplin: Founder of TakingCaraBabies

730

Steve Magami: Co-Founder & CEO of Fruitist

729

Lara Henderson: Founder & CEO of Pure Mama