A Conversation with Moody Ciran: Turning Some People's Obsession Into More People's Affection

By Zhiyan Chen

Edited by Jing Liu

When someone calls themselves a "born entrepreneur," it can come off as pretentious. But during our two-hour interview, Ci Ran — who had been animated and energetic for most of it — suddenly turned serious when this topic came up.

"One day I had a nightmare. I dreamed I was 40 and unemployed. And the first thing I thought wasn't 'What job should I find?' but 'What should I start?'" He slowed his pace, telling Anyong Waves.

Forty is still far off for Ci Ran. More precisely, he won't even turn 30 for another few months. Yet as founder of colored contact lens brand moody, he has already led the company through six funding rounds in three years. Last year's RMB 1 billion Series C — at the time, the largest single round in the industry — was just the latest.

His ambitions clearly run deeper. "Organizational capability is the core competency," he repeated throughout our interview. A consumer goods company, he argued, can rarely sustain a "we have it, they don't" product advantage. What matters long-term is "efficient organization and high-quality transmission" — the only way to escape the trap of one-hit wonders and dry spells. Case in point: beyond colored contacts, moody has already launched personal care brand pinpoint and sunglasses brand wave.

As a member of "X·36Under36," we see Ci Ran as an emblematic "contemporary entrepreneur." Unlike the "grassroots" and "self-made" generations before them, today's founders compress their growth into radically shorter timelines. They must become business "hexagonal warriors" — not just deep in operations, but managing external capital and internal teams, mastering social and traffic games, while also commanding organizational strength and entrepreneurial spirit.

"Organizational capability" has been a buzzword in Chinese business circles for years. But those who obsess over it tend to be more seasoned entrepreneurs. For a founder whose company is only three years old, Ci Ran's awakening seems almost premature. In his rare public appearances, he barely discusses business operations — it's always organizational issues. Yet this may be precisely how Ci Ran, and his generation, find their edge: more advanced management philosophy, and a more acute sense of crisis.

Another example: at founding, Ci Ran paid double the market rate to lock in 18 months of exclusive production from a Taiwanese supplier. The goal was clear — deliver the best possible product experience, and seize moody's window for differentiation in colored contacts.

Beyond that, you can easily spot his "contemporary traits": Cornell graduate, world-traveled at a young age; not yet 30 but already on his third startup; skilled at finding opportunities in industry gaps; carrying more lightness than the "must make this life count" heaviness.

On Ci Ran's desk sits a large One Piece figurine. It comes from his nickname: "Luffy," the straw-hat boy created by manga artist Eiichiro Oda, "the man destined to become Pirate King." Unlike most figurines that follow the original style, this one carries strong Chinese aesthetics — from a distance, you might mistake it for a standing Guan Gong statue. At its center, Luffy holds his straw hat, wears straw sandals, dons a red robe, and gazes forward.

In early June 2022, we launched the X·36Under36 S-Class Young Entrepreneurs List. Starting today, we'll roll out a series on these individuals. This is the first piece.

"A Cube Has More Emotion Than a Cuboid"

Anyong: Most contact lenses are named around function, but moody's names evoke mood — "Teenage Daydream," for instance. What's the thinking?

Ci Ran: "Teenage Daydream" is our series for small-diameter users. They want their eyes to look alive without seeming exaggerated. So we used more understated designs, wanting consumers to return to childhood wonder at magic worlds, the feeling of owning their first pair of ballet shoes. Who says only teenagers daydream? Those who dream are forever young. Every moody product — packaging, design, naming — carries its own story. We want to give consumers an immersive emotional experience.

Anyong: Colored contacts are ultimately a fast-moving consumer good. How much can consumers actually feel these emotions?

Ci Ran: Your instinct is right — not many perceive it. But keep at it, and some will. Those people become our most loyal fans.

Anyong: How do you turn "those people" into "more people"?

Ci Ran: This is classic hit-product thinking: find the right pain point, deliver the solution to a group, win them over, and let them share — creating a blockbuster. But the basic logic of consumer goods is: I must always solve a specific problem for a specific group first. Viewed another way, this mirrors entrepreneurship's underlying logic. As Zero to One puts it: You are always starting with a big share of a small market.

Anyong: Naming the company moody too — does this reflect your belief in emotion's importance for consumer goods?

Ci Ran: Indeed, moody's literal translation is "moody" or temperamental. But we mean more than the somewhat negative connotation — we ask: do you truly understand your emotions? Emotions are diverse, nuanced; they're a powerful medium for self-knowledge. We want to explore and accept our different emotions with consumers, not suppress them, understanding ourselves better through emotion. One small example: we found colored contacts' ubiquitous rectangular boxes are conceptually limiting — visually, they struggle to express clear concepts and emotions. Rectangles naturally constrain emotional expression.

Anyong: Why can a square express emotion better than a rectangle?

Ci Ran: Colored contacts have never felt like high-value products. We wondered: could moody make people perceive value? Luxury offered some inspiration. Jewelry, diamond rings, high-end bags — most luxury packaging has at least one square face. In the world, rectangular things outnumber square ones. A square, where length equals width, subconsciously signals value to consumers.

Anyong: Don't we already have enough emotion in this era?

Ci Ran: Sometimes it's still suppressed. We're told to restrain our emotions, reserve and hide them — especially as we enter adulthood and work. I think this increasingly erodes our humanity.

Anyong: What brand spirit does moody advocate?

Ci Ran: When naming the brand, four of us co-founders sat on a very cold floor for three days and nights without success. Finally I asked them: if you could go back to 18, what would you tell yourself? Everyone started saying they wished they'd been braver. As we spoke, we all cried. Everyone expressed a kind of "regret": living as the child others wanted, not as who we wanted to be. I think regret mostly stems from suppressed, ignored emotions — not understanding or embracing them, leading to irrational decisions. Finally I said: I hope this brand helps people deeply understand, identify with, and embrace their own emotions.

Anyong: You've mentioned having anxiety disorder. How do you understand, identify with, and embrace negative emotions?

Ci Ran: I take daily medication for anxiety. But making peace with emotion isn't through pills — it's making anxiety a friend. Though anxiety sometimes has positive aspects, mostly it's just annoying. When you know it won't leave, you can only coexist. And coexistence means understanding.

Anyong: Understanding anxiety sounds easy in theory.

Ci Ran: When I encounter emotions, I use special descriptors. "Charmander" means anger. "Squirtle" means纠结 and hesitation. "Bulbasaur" means being soft-hearted. Naming the emotion before it fully releases creates a pause — the brain recognizes it as emotion. When we encounter anxiety, human inertia lets it run rampant. So we need more positive dopamine and serotonin, giving ourselves short-term, achievable goals.

Anyong: Has anyone called you extremely rational?

Ci Ran: An investor once asked me the soul-searching question: are you rational or emotional? I thought I was rational — and lost that investment. This fund had a principle for investing in post-90s founders: they invest in emotional people. I thought seriously about this. A year later, I realized I'm actually emotional — but I reached this conclusion in an extremely rational way: if I were rational, decisions would require sufficient data, algorithms, and computing power to verify. But most of my decisions, even without enough data, algorithms, or computing power, I still insisted on making. I'm actually more emotional.

"What Do I Have That Others Don't?"

Anyong: Do you read negative consumer reviews?

Ci Ran: Constantly, and repeatedly. Not just me — I pull the team in too. For thoughtful negative reviews, I even leave likes.

Anyong: What counts as a "thoughtful negative review"?

Ci Ran: Not simply "moody is trash," but objective analysis of gaps between lens designs and actual appearance, or how they perform in certain scenarios. Those get my like.

Anyong: How do you address "thoughtful negative reviews"?

Ci Ran: Contact lens returns as Class III medical devices involve rigorous, cumbersome procedures. But internally we've discussed whether we could relax refund conditions for better consumer experience. Initially no one agreed — the operations director slammed the table saying "no," fearing rising return rates. I said: let's open refunds on one channel first. Result: return rates quickly returned to baseline, while complaint rates dropped. Many consumers care most about a brand's timely, sincere attitude.

Anyong: Service is relatively easy to adjust. But product-related negative reviews — aren't those fatal for an emerging brand?

Ci Ran: Two years ago, one review said newly purchased lenses showed wear. I was furious — this was serious quality issue. I asked the factory, which claimed to be China's only producer with six product inspection photos traceable to every unit. We checked — the worn lens showed no issues at packaging. Eventually our on-site team discovered: the factory's underwater inspection process couldn't 100% detect micro-cracks, with an error rate. Later, we worked with the factory to establish moody-specific production standards, reducing error rates. The cost was higher expenses.

Anyong: Some reports mention moody initially paid double market rate to partner with a Taiwanese factory. Why choose higher costs?

Ci Ran: How to understand consumer goods differentiation — "what do I have that others don't." We found that beyond international giants like Johnson & Johnson and Bausch + Lomb, the colored contacts industry largely lacked high-quality product supply, while big brands couldn't meet fashion demands. So the differentiation conclusion for new colored contact brands: supply chain material selection.

Anyong: What was the difference with double the price?

Ci Ran: Of 15 registered Taiwanese factories, I visited 14; 48 registered Korean factories, 15 mainland Chinese, 10 Southeast Asian — I visited them all. Only this Taiwanese factory could produce to international daily disposable oxygen permeability standards. But they initially refused our orders.

My COO and I stayed in a hotel near the factory, ordering fried chicken for lunch every day, dining with their sales staff at night. Three months of this before we got a pricing conversation. The price: double normal rates. Do it? I said: absolutely.

After signing the first order, I told the factory: I want a one-year agreement. If future orders hit certain volume, price drops to half.

Anyong: What are you getting from the factory now?

Ci Ran: We exceeded targets year one. Now moody is that factory's largest mainland Chinese customer. I can't say too much on price, but with our current order volume, we should be among their globally lowest prices.

Anyong: Looking back at securing this supply chain, what was the biggest significance?

Ci Ran: Several things: first, ability to provide above-industry-standard products, with 99% production yield — far above ordinary factories; second, oxygen permeability meeting international standards, healthier and more comfortable for consumers; third, precisely because we paid double, we could demand supply chain adjustments for moody, creating the market's first small square box.

For the earliest 18 months, this factory took no other mainland clients. This gave moody an 18-month product differentiation window.

Anyong: "Differentiation" core is anti-industry-rules — how much of this came from being an outsider team?

Ci Ran: One premise: my family does medical device and pharmaceutical sales. Though not contact lenses, I long knew colored contacts as Class III medical devices have extremely high barriers and complexity — far higher than outsiders imagine.

Also, much of what we do now, new businesses, aren't colored contact-related either.

Anyong: "Differentiation" works short-term but can't be a consumer goods company's "one trick." What lets a consumer company go further?

Ci Ran: Technology, aesthetics, and creativity — these are a consumer company's core. This is moody's mission: bringing better consumer goods to the world through these three. Now we're developing beyond moody: personal care brand pinpoint and sunglasses brand wave.

Anyong: For consumer goods companies wanting to scale, is category expansion the only choice?

Ci Ran: Depends on the company. For Chinese consumer brands, given shorter histories and certain category limitations, expansion is necessary. Another possibility: multi-brand within the same category, even upstream/downstream exploration. For example, earlier this year we co-founded the "Corneal Contact Lens Technology Innovation Research Institute" with China Eye Valley, for industry and consumer education.

Multi-category, multi-brand matrix approaches can, to some extent, serve a consumer goods company's channel and product capabilities.

"Organizational Capability Is the Most Fundamental Competency"

Anyong: moody is registered in Shanghai. How was the pandemic for you?

Ci Ran: These two months, I really leveled up at housework. Now cooking and chopping vegetables daily is quite proficient. The personal insight was profound. Without this environment, you wouldn't feel how enormous, how real macro impacts on business can be.

Anyong: Did the pandemic change any decisions for moody?

Ci Ran: First, I don't think there are success stories — you can change too little.

Frankly speaking, I mostly provided support and resources; the real effort came from frontline staff. Beyond resuming shipments, they organized donations of supplies to four district Fangcang facilities. From idea to execution, very fast completion.

Anyong: You've expressed in many settings that organizational capability matters more than product or supply chain for consumer companies. Why?

Ci Ran: Precisely, as head of a consumer goods company, organizational management capability is the core competency.

Anyong: Does this stem from consumer goods' particular nature?

Ci Ran: Consumer goods are creations. The creative process — from planning to material selection to final presentation — involves many different personalities and roles. For the leader, how to connect them becomes crucial.

Beyond pharmaceutical companies and certain tech products, a consumer goods company can rarely sustain "we have it, they don't" products for two years. This means core competitive moat is actually efficient organization and high-quality transmission. So organizational capability is clearly the most fundamental competency.

Anyong: Consumer goods can be understood as two parts: high concept or good aesthetics, and high-quality, high-efficiency execution. As consumer company CEO, can both be balanced well?

Ci Ran: Early in moody, I once met Jiang Xiaobai's Lao Tao (founder Tao Shiquan). I'd seen a Jiang Xiaobai poster at Chongqing airport that felt off-brand, not meeting my standards. I asked Lao Tao: when you see such posters, are you anxious?

Lao Tao's words woke me: as an organizer, manager, your job is getting the right people, in the right framework, doing the right things. Mistakes will happen, but you can't focus entirely on them. That's not what a CEO can or should do.

Anyong: We rarely hear startups discuss organizational capability — it seems like mature companies' concern. When did you realize its importance?

Ci Ran: I started entrepreneuring in 2010; moody is my third formal startup. The first two taught me this. Both were education-related. First problem: founding in senior year of high school, managing teams student-union style, democratizing everything. Second problem: team division and equity arrangement.

Actually, talking "organization" for those two startups is overstating it — it was really management and team issues.

Anyong: How did moody's team form?

Ci Ran: Of the initial four, shortest acquaintance was 7 years, longest 16 years — we'd all co-founded before. Later in hiring, I realized one thing: there's no "most suitable person," only the most cognitively适配 person for this stage. Next questions: how do I know so many people? And how do I know if they're strong, if they're适配? My solution: be my own headhunter.

Anyong: Specifically?

Ci Ran: Our 6th employee was immediately sent to Beijing to learn headhunting. After one month back, we partnered to recruit a marketing head. He provided contacts, I handled WeChat conversion. My only requirement for these people: no headhunter had "touched" them. Headhunter-touched, I don't touch. Because I knew I couldn't compete then — no point wasting time.

Anyong: How many did you convert?

Ci Ran: 120 phone calls, 30 in-person conversations, finally found that one right person.

Anyong: How did the 1 in 120 get hired?

Ci Ran: We first connected on QQ, chatted about interesting topics, added WeChat, met in person, decided to join — then I accompanied her to convince some former subordinates. Now our skincare brand pinpoint is built by that team. Every founding member was personally recruited by me.

Anyong: With hiring comes firing. How do you let someone go?

Ci Ran: If firing feels difficult, the essence is insufficient cultivation. I found a method to solve this —

Step one: package yourself in direct language. When firing, I write myself a script, which I must memorize, with no embellishment. Step two: free yourself with clear algorithm — I did nothing wrong, my decision is right, don't hesitate. Step three, crucial: recognize "guilt" and "pity" are two different emotions.

"Big Yet Not Mediocre Is the Eternal Proposition"

Anyong: What's moody's biggest problem now?

Ci Ran: Consumer and industry education. I once reflected: starting out with dreams of disrupting the leaders, then gradually becoming the leader to be disrupted.

Anyong: Very "Versailles."

Ci Ran: No joke — this is actually an extremely tragic experience. When you're in this position, you discover many traits you wanted to disrupt now exist in yourself, and often you're helpless.

Anyong: For example?

Ci Ran: I realized it's not that my products worsened — everyone's products improved. I may not provide clearly differentiated service and products short-term, so I must wait. The challenge is: during this waiting, how to keep doing correct things?

Industry education we're doing, R&D formulations, license applications, clinical trials, offline channel entry — these count.

These are all I can do. The rest involves time-dimension barriers in the medical device industry that can't be crossed. This is the biggest challenge.

Anyong: Over time, product differentiation likely fades.

Ci Ran: Agreed, and I firmly believe it will happen.

Anyong: So ultimately, leading companies return to that eternal proposition — how to be big yet not mediocre.

Ci Ran: I agree.

Anyong: Though your time at Hongshan was very brief, it's a distinctive label. Why did several crucial investments ultimately come from Hillhouse Capital?

Ci Ran: Actually simple. I really like Hongshan; I learned enormously there. But when preparing this project, Hongshan had already invested in a competitor. When I approached Hongshan investors, that competitor's deal had already closed.

Anyong: As a relatively young consumer brand, moody's market valuation is already high, but some believe colored contacts have limited ceiling. Long-term, what kind of company will moody be?

Ci Ran: Investors invest in this company, not just the moody brand. In their judgment, it's verifying whether what you do is sound, whether the team fits. In our entrepreneurial process, we've somewhat proven team capabilities from supply chain to channels, and product and content creation capabilities. These capabilities do exceed ordinary companies.

Additionally, investors see our organizational vitality and extensibility — including developing beyond moody into other categories and brands.

Anyong: As fellow entrepreneurs, how do you and your father differ?

Ci Ran: His breadth of tool usage may differ from my generation. Rural background, tested into Fudan University, studied pharmacy — could have had very stable work, but had the guts to choose a path few took in that era: pharmaceutical sales. He didn't have many chances to see the bigger world. He had no exposure to capital, strategy.

But he's more resilient than me — which I greatly admire. He still runs 10km daily, in better physical shape than me.

Anyong: How much did he influence your choice to start a business?

Ci Ran: I didn't choose entrepreneurship — it's in my bones. The root connection is certainly with him. In a traditional Chinese family, father an entrepreneur, mother a professor — the child will likely choose entrepreneurship? Maybe distance creates beauty? (laughs)

Anyong: Under what circumstances would you give up entrepreneurship?

Ci Ran: I once had a nightmare: I was 40, and my first thought wasn't what job to find, but what to start. I think I'm either entrepreneuring, or on the path to choosing what to start.

Image source: Visual China

Layout: Yunxiao Guo