Growing up in Connecticut, Victor Oh, Engr ’12, ’13 (MS), remembers spending much of his childhood building intricate structures with Lego bricks and then, as a teen, creating gadgets that could help with household tasks. At the age of 11, Oh remembers making a modular mop with odd parts found around his house, including an empty toilet paper roll, duct tape, and plastic rods, to help his mom clean the floors. While earning his degrees in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Hopkins, he honed both his problem-solving skills and his desire to one day launch his own company.
When the pandemic first hit, Oh was the head of digital innovation for Asia Pacific at BASF, helping to drive digital transformation for the world’s largest chemicals and materials company. Prior to BASF, he was a lead analyst at Lux Research and advised Fortune Global 500 clients around innovation in synthetic biology, advanced materials, and sustainable consumer products. Oh saw how traditional focus groups failed to give brands the volume and variety of consumer insights they needed to remain competitive.
“The $600 billion global beauty industry is growing every year,” Oh says. “In order to keep up with changing consumer tastes and remain relevant, brands need to use a more modern solution to obtain meaningful feedback on their products.”
In November 2020, Oh launched TactileAI, a San Francisco–based enterprise SaaS platform, industry shorthand for “software as a service,” allowing users to connect to cloud-based apps. TactileAI aims to make consumer testing in the beauty care industry more accessible, data-driven, and scalable for its clients, including two top-20 global beauty companies: Beiersdorf—whose brands include Nivea, Eucerin, and Coppertone—and AmorePacific, a South Korean beauty brand.
As the company’s founder and CEO, Oh shares what he’s learned since he first launched TactileAI.