- Rachel Liverman, the co-founder and CEO of $13 million facial chain Glowbar, says there’s a troublesome lesson most entrepreneurs don’t be taught till they’re within the trenches. Nonetheless, she took a anxious second and turned it into an enormous enterprise alternative.
A well-thought-out enterprise technique could seem important for fulfillment—however in lots of circumstances, entrepreneurs might as properly rip it up, as a result of the long run has a thoughts of its personal. That’s at the least, what Rachel Liverman, CEO and co-founder of the $13 million facial chain Glowbar, skilled.
“You can have a plan, but the universe laughs,” Liverman tells Fortune, including that it’s the one warning seasoned founders don’t inform you.
Glowbar could also be some of the standard facial chains in America, with 18 areas throughout the East Coast, and 5 new shops set to open this yr. Between 2023 and 2024, membership grew 100%, and Glowbar’s studio footprint doubled. Over the past six years, the facial chain has delivered over half one million facials and is without doubt one of the fastest-growing facial studios within the U.S. In 2023 Glowbar obtained $10 million in Sequence A funding, alongside $3 million raised earlier in household and household investments.
However the street to success is commonly a bumpy one—and entrepreneurs are higher off buckling up. Liverman began the enterprise in 2019, and shortly after fundraising and tricking out a Glowbar location in Tribeca, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“The pandemic was wild…I had the business plan, I had all the docs, I got all my investors. I had this whole plan, and then: Coronavirus,” Liverman says. “It was my first beautiful test of entrepreneurship.”
Because of New York’s pandemic mandates, Liverman needed to shut Glowbar’s doorways for over six months, furloughing staffers on the retailer till the state’s guidelines allowed for operations to proceed. She even needed to begin a GoFundMe to make sure all her staff had been taken care of.
Nonetheless, Liverman discovered a method to flip bitter lemons into lemonade—and got here out of the pandemic even stronger.
Discovering enterprise success when the universe laughs
Many individuals had been safeguarding their wealth throughout the uncertainty of the pandemic, resulting in a $2.1 trillion swell in financial savings from March 2020 to August 2021. As a substitute, Liverman noticed it as a possibility to splurge. With just one retailer completed—the Tribeca location, which had subsequently closed—and one other nonetheless in growth, she noticed an opportunity to broaden prematurely.
“It was certainly a test, and I was very lucky I was small enough to weather that storm,” Liverman says, including that she quickly took discover that landlords had been slashing hire costs as they struggled to fill empty storefronts throughout the pandemic.
“So I optimized for that time in real estate and signed probably four or five leases during 2020 and 2021—and got amazing deals. It’s one of the reasons why we have a location on Fifth Avenue and 16th Street, because it was the COVID deals.”
Liverman’s daring resolution to broaden throughout unsure occasions paid off: the Fifth Avenue location now serves as Glowbar’s headquarters. “Today, I wouldn’t be able to afford that,” she provides.
When the chips are down or enterprise isn’t taking off, Liverman has one advice for entrepreneurs: lean on others. They might even have the reply to your downside. However on the very least, they are going to present assist.
“It’s a simple thing, and as an entrepreneur, when you grasp it, it will unlock so much: asking for help,” Liverman says. “Not feeling like you need to pretend to know it all or have it all figured out. Just really vulnerable… If the founder, entrepreneur, or CEO knew everything, they wouldn’t have needed to hire a team.”
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
