Commercial Due Diligence on a Seoul Direct-to-Consumer Cosmetics Brand
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Reconstruct retention, LTV, and CAC from customer data for a Seoul cosmetics brand, then benchmark its competitive moat. End with a verifiable certificate.
The scenario
GlowUp Cosmetics is a six-year-old Seoul beauty brand that sells skincare and color cosmetics directly to consumers through its own app and website, riding the global popularity of Korean beauty exports. Founder-led and venture-backed, it has scaled to about ₩60 billion in revenue largely on influencer-driven launches and a small set of hero products.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Determine whether acquiring GlowUp Cosmetics is justified by identifying the key risks and opportunities in its customer economics and market position, and recommend whether to proceed.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Reconstruct customer cohort retention, lifetime value, and churn from raw customer-level data
- Compute and interpret customer acquisition cost, payback period, and contribution margin by channel
- Reconcile a management narrative against the underlying customer data and surface inconsistencies
- Translate quantified findings into a ranked risk register with actionable mitigations
- Form and defend an investment recommendation supported by evidence
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Commercial Due Diligence
Apply commercial due diligence to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Customer Analytics
Apply customer analytics to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Unit Economics
Apply unit economics to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Market Sizing
Apply market sizing to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Competitive Analysis
Assess competitor strategies and positioning to inform business decisions.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Commercial Due Diligence Analyst
This challenge mirrors the core of a diligence engagement: stress-testing a target's growth story against its own data and forming a defensible deal view. It builds the judgment a consulting or PE diligence team expects on day one.
This challenge sharpens
- commercial-due-diligence
- unit-economics
- competitive-analysis
Private Equity Investment Associate
Associates live in customer economics and market sizing when underwriting consumer deals. Practicing lifetime value, acquisition cost, and risk-ranking on a realistic target prepares you to drive an investment thesis to committee.
This challenge sharpens
- commercial-due-diligence
- unit-economics
- market-sizing
Growth and Retention Analyst
Direct-to-consumer growth teams optimize the same cohort, retention, and channel-payback metrics analyzed here. The challenge bridges to owning acquisition efficiency and retention diagnostics inside a consumer brand.
This challenge sharpens
- customer-analytics
- unit-economics
- competitive-analysis