Author:Dhani MauPublish date:Apr 18, 2019Updated onMay 14, 2019In 2016, with three consistently booked nail salons in Los Angeles and a large, international, organic social media following, a natural next step for Olive & June would have been to open locations in every millennial-trafficked neighborhood across the country, but founder Sarah Gibson Tuttle gave herself a different mission: "I needed to figure out how to teach everyone in the world how to paint their own nails," she...
"I wanted the space to look like a stylish best friend's house," she says of the interior design. Social media was always a priority for Tuttle; in fact, she runs the company's account herself to this day, consistently responding to comments and DMs — pretty rare for a founder of a growing business at Olive & June's scale. "I think the mistake some brands make is, as you scale, you look to outsources parts of your job," she says.
"That's where it started and then it blossomed into a lot more," she says. "To me, innovation was key. I didn't want to just do a well-branded product; I said I want to change this industry. I want to take this 10% of the market and make it 50%." In addition to market research, she was inspired by her many friends in the beauty entrepreneur world, like Jen Atkin, who's been vocal about the beauty industry's waste problem when it comes to excessive packaging.