A small remark from a customer, a fix within days: why we regard feedback as the plan

One line on the product team's task list has stayed with me. The default profile for a new user was pre-filled as a 35-year-old weighing 60 kg. Whoever built the first version meant no harm; they needed a number so the first screen would not be empty. But I looked at it and said plainly that it made no sense. When a woman opens an app and finds it already "knows" who she is, and gets it wrong, every figure that follows, from protein targets to energy needs, loses its weight in the first second.

From that small detail I drew a principle that HOPE applies to both product and sales: trust is built or lost in the details people do not bother to say out loud, so a company's job is to open enough channels for users to speak, and then to fix things fast.

The product is rewritten from very small sentences

The IKI Beauty & Wellness app today is quite different from its first version, and almost every major change began with something a real user said.

One customer told us the app defaulted to a dark background and was tiring to read for anyone with weaker eyesight, so we needed a light theme. We put it on the task list and built it. It sounds minor, but it shows who the app is designed for: young people with good eyesight, or the women of every age that IKI serves.

The pre-filled profile changed in the same way. The app now asks first and enters afterwards: name, contact, height, weight, age. No more numbers guessed on the user's behalf.

So did the form of address. At one point the app addressed everyone with a masculine default. I asked the team: what if the user is a woman? Personalisation that does not know who it is speaking to is just guesswork with a nice interface. The app now greets users according to the gender they have stated.

What I want investors to take from this is not a feature list. It is tempo: from the moment someone speaks to the moment the product changes is measured in days, because we regard feedback as an input to the plan, not a comment to be filed.

Personalisation is a measuring tool, not a promise

When I sit with the problem of the Vietnamese women IKI is built for, I see a clear gap. They live between two separate worlds: cosmetics that promise from the outside, and daily nutrition on the inside that is mostly guesswork. And they have no way to measure what actually suits them.

So the AI layer in the app is designed as a tool for measuring, not for promising:

• Meal recognition: users photograph or log a meal, and the AI estimates what is in it so they can see what they are actually eating.
• Label scanning: reading a product label so users understand what they are buying, rather than relying on advertising claims.
• Personal pathway: based on what users record themselves, the app suggests a next step that fits them.

The boundary I keep is clear. The app is a tool for proactive self-care: it helps users observe their habits and work out for themselves what suits them. It does not replace advice from a doctor or other healthcare professional, and we do not use it to promise health outcomes to anyone. HOPE's products are dietary supplements, and everything we say, inside the app and outside it, stays in that position. I believe this is a long-term advantage: as regulation of supplement advertising tightens, a company that builds trust by showing customers something measurable has the least to change.

Make the habit easy, and show people why

Another lesson from feedback: people often forget to photograph their meals. I do not see that as the user's fault. I see it as behavioural data. So we allow manual entry and let the AI compute the rest. Fewer steps, users stay longer, and the habit gradually forms.

I also learn from apps that are stronger than ours at passive measurement, where a device collects data on its own. I accept a fact: a nutrition app that relies on user input will have a ceiling on accuracy. We do not pretend the ceiling is not there. We compensate in two ways: asking for as few actions as possible, and always showing why a number came out the way it did. The two weaknesses I grade our own product on are that data entry still takes effort, and that trust in the numbers must be earned. Both are on the upgrade list.

Selling is accompanying, and accompanying must be measurable

The same principle applies to the sales team. I have told the team that our role is to accompany the customer, not merely to close the order. But "accompany" is a word that is easy to say and hard to check. If it cannot be measured it is only a slogan.

So we measure what can be measured:

• Response speed: over the 30 days to 10 October 2026, median response time to real customers was 1 minute, and 80% of messages were answered within 15 minutes. These come from real conversations, not self-reporting.
• Practice with simulated customers: AI plays customers of different personality types and scores the salesperson on six criteria. The compliance criterion loses heavy points if the salesperson promises a guaranteed result or states figures without basis.
• Where the machine cannot reach: the system reminds sellers of their daily tasks, but there is a notes field for them to add what the machine cannot see. A machine cannot care for every customer. The system's job is to take the part a machine can do, so people have time for the part only people can do.

A reader might ask: what does measuring reply speed have to do with care? I think it is directly related. A person who is deciding, asks a question and is answered within a minute has been respected before buying anything.

What investors and partners should understand from this

I do not want to say HOPE is perfect. I want to describe how HOPE operates.

• Customer feedback goes straight into the work plan, on a short cycle, with someone accountable.
• Personalisation is used to measure and to help customers understand themselves, not to promise results. That is also why the model adapts as supplement advertising rules tighten.
• Accompaniment has a number: a median response of 1 minute is a figure we can be checked on, and we will keep measuring it.

Two other pieces in this column cover returning customers as the real yardstick and the legal guardrails as part of the product. This piece is the other half of both: for customers to return, the product has to listen; to hold the legal line, the tools have to measure rather than promise.

A health company grows out of small questions like "can we have a light background", "why does it say 35", "why does it call me sir". I want HOPE to be a place where those questions are heard within the day.