Entrepreneurship stories: Ilmi Beauty
We are truly happy to present our second episode of “Entrepreneurship stories” with amazing Ilmi Beauty!
For our entrepreneurship series we will share inspiring stories from young business minded entrepreneurs with courage to pursue their dreams!
Three founders of Ilmi Beauty: Sara, Oona and Ilona
Tell us about yourself?
My name is Oona Kallela and I'm graduating from Aalto University with a Master's degree this spring. I'm majoring in Industrial Engineering and Management, so I have a tech background. During my studies, I've been actively volunteering in our student association Prodeko, and participated in many extra activities in Otaniemi. Additionally, I started doing eyelash extensions in 2016 as an entrepreneur.
Currently, I'm working as the COO and co-founder at Ilmi Beauty, a lash extension-focused start up, where I combine my passion for the beauty industry and engineering.
Introduce your company, what is Ilmi Beauty all about?
Ilmi Beauty is a beauty start-up specializing in lash extensions. Operating in this specific niche only allows us to focus on and prioritize their quality and development since a lot of delicate chemistry and application technique is required to make high-quality eyelash extensions. Furthermore, one of my co-founders is a licensed pharmacist - we only use the safest materials and equipment in our salon to minimize allergies when operating near our customers' eyes. We offer traditional volume eyelash extensions in four different styles. In addition, we have developed a new type of short-term weekend eyelash extensions that take only 30 minutes to apply compared to the two to four hours traditional extensions require. We opened our first salon in Helsinki city center in November 2021.
Our team consists of six people, including our three founders (Sara, Ilona, and I), and three employed lash technicians. One of our founders, Ilona, is currently participating in the entrepreneurship program called Silta in the U.S. investigating the opportunities of taking our high-level eyelash extension expertise abroad to larger markets. Also, in Helsinki, we are constantly looking for new lash technicians to join our growing team (contact us if you are interested: info@ilmibeauty.fi)
Can you remember the moment when you first came up with the idea of Ilmi Beauty?
Ever since I started doing eyelash extensions, I've noticed the industry's issues. From the customers' side, it's challenging to find good quality lash extensions, and/or the service selection is complicated. Few service providers offer trustworthy information about eyelash extensions. Additionally, the working conditions of lash extension technicians are unfavorable and nearly all technicians are forced to work as self-employed. On New Year's Eve of 2021, Sara, Ilona, and I started discussing these issues together and decided that we could tackle them with a company that provides high-quality extensions and good working conditions for lash technicians.
How did you find the courage to build your own business? Did you have any previous experience with entrepreneurship?
The Aalto community encourages entrepreneurship and I always saw that as a possible career path. Also, during my studies, I've encountered other entrepreneurs so I had quite a good image of what this career path looks like (though there have definitely been some surprises!).
I have been a self-employed lash technician before so starting a business in the beauty industry wasn't new for me. Also, I did an internship at Business Finland in 2020, where I learned about the Finnish start up field.
Ilmi Weekend - short term extensions
What challenges did you have to overcome at the beginning of your entrepreneurship journey?
Since we all have an engineering background, none of us had experience with marketing. In the beginning, we knew nothing about marketing and had to learn a lot by trying almost every (online) marketing channel possible. Luckily, we got some help from our network and quickly learned what was working and what was not. I’ve grown to have the utmost respect for people who study or work in marketing.
Can you describe your typical day? How many hours a day do you work on average?
I work full time for this company. I try to have 1 or 2 days off a week, but it's often difficult to separate work and free time as an entrepreneur. At the moment, our bottleneck of growth is employees, so I still do customer work around 20 hours a week. On a typical day, I have 1 or 2 customers and the rest of the time I do our social media, find suppliers, organize our storage, develop our services, put out "fires", or anything else business-related.
Share one or few tips you would give someone starting her own business? Maybe something you would have liked to know in advance?
Don't underestimate the significance of a good education. I constantly use skills I've learned from my IEM studies in my daily work. Enjoy your student life, the entrepreneurship will be there when you graduate!
Thank you Ilmi Beauty for participating our interview! Remember to check Ilmi Beauty’s website and social media for more inspiring content!
Stay tuned for the next episode of entrepreneurship stories…
