I just learned the story behind BoldHue — a new beauty device that creates custom foundation in one minute — and it perfectly illustrates something I call “the recognition moment.”
This is when your customer first encounters your product and thinks, “FINALLY! Someone solved this!”
BoldHue co-founders Rachel Wilson and Karin Layton created what Forbes calls “the Keurig of makeup” — a device that mixes custom foundation shades at the touch of a button.
No more hours wasted at makeup counters. No more buying the wrong shade. No more starting over when your skin tone changes with the seasons (like the day when you get too much sun).
What got me most isn’t the technology (though an ex-aerospace engineer applying color theory to makeup is pretty neat).
It’s how they identified a persistent, emotionally-charged pain point that affects millions of people.
In I Need That, I talk about the difference between solving a mild inconvenience versus addressing a deeply felt, recurring frustration. The latter creates that powerful “flip” from want to need.
Foundation matching isn’t just annoying (I’m told) — it’s emotionally loaded.
Wilson described how she “never felt included” growing up, and how that resonated with virtually everyone they talked to during market research. The product connects to something much deeper than convenience — it addresses a lifelong feeling of exclusion.
That’s when product development becomes damn powerful — when you solve not just a functional problem but an emotional one.
Product Payoff: Perfect Diary, a Chinese beauty brand (not a journaling tool) recognized similar frustrations around foundation matching. Rather than building a device, they created an app using AR to match users’ skin tones through their smartphone camera. This lower-tech solution still addressed the core need and helped them grow to a $4 billion valuation in just 5 years — proving that addressing emotional pain points can be more important than the specific tech involved.
Action for today: Identify an emotionally charged pain point your customers experience repeatedly. Not just some minor inconvenience, but a thing that makes them feel frustrated, excluded, or inadequate. That’s where your biggest opportunity lives. Ask yourself: “What would make MY customers say ‘FINALLY!’ when they discover my solution?”
Want to explore how to find and address your customers’ emotional pain points? Tap that reply arrow and let’s discuss what might trigger that “finally!” moment for your product. Or reach out to my team of elite (but super down-to-earth) product marketing consultants at Graphos Product.