For Glosslab founder Rachel Apfel Glass, getting a weekly manicure always felt like a chore despite her penchant for it.
It was “a very joyless and inefficient experience,” she recalls.
For years, Glass couldn’t find in the market what she was looking for. So, she decided to quit her job in finance and fill that void in the nail care space herself.
“I talked about recreating the nail space for years,” Glass shares. “After having my second daughter and ultimately leaving the world of finance, I decided to make it happen,” says the former investment banker.
Though Glass had no background in cosmetics or product development before creating Glosslab, she did have an entrepreneurial spirit and an acute market awareness.
“I have been entrepreneurial my whole life,” says Glass. “I was constantly having ideas, from starting charity fundraisers as a kid to running small business ventures in college and business school. I always knew I wanted to have my own business, but I had to find the right idea,” says the Columbia Business School alum.
After her aha! moment, Glass dived into market research to learn the ins and outs of running a nail salon startup.
“I found very little data about the industry—metrics on customer visits, services, etc.,” she shares. So, she decided to have boots on the ground.
Glass hired Taskrabbits to stand outside of nail salons throughout New York City at different times of the day to collect data on customer footfall and what services they were getting. “It informed how we initially planned our concept—location, number of stations and forecasting of services by time of day,” the beauty founder explains.
She also went to a nail technician training school and tapped dermatologists and healthcare professionals to learn everything about nail health and hygiene.
In 2018, Glass launched the business with two self-funded locations in New York City, in the Flatiron District and the West Village, respectively.
Through its initial fundraiser in December 2020, Glosslab raised over $3 million. Five months later, the funding reportedly more than doubled to $7 million.
“Given that our services resonate more with females, this was definitely challenging in the beginning,” says Glass.
“In the early days, investors are investing in you as much as they are in the concept,” she notes.
“Once we were able to show the brand and prove our model, this opened a lot more conversations. Investors found the unique positioning of Glosslab and our omnichannel strategy quite compelling,” adds the nail care entrepreneur.
Since then, the mani-pedi brand has received additional backing from the likes of former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez, Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff and Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin.
Glosslab is one of the first brands to offer completely water-free nail services, focusing on efficiency, hygiene and sustainability.
“Hygiene, for me, was always a concern when getting my nails done, so this has been at the forefront of what we do,” says Glass.
“I’m a lifelong germaphobe and was made fun of for this constantly until COVID-19 happened and everybody became a germaphobe,” she quips.
Besides being more hygienic, a waterless manicure provides better cuticle health and longer-lasting polish, she adds.
It’s also less wasteful. On average, a waterless mani-pedi can save around 10 gallons of water per service.
In addition to being waterless, the membership-only nail salon also has a “hospital-grade sterilization system” and contactless payments and check-ins.
The unlimited memberships, which include unlimited mani-pedi services, free gel polish removal and product discounts, are billed monthly ($160), quarterly ($130) and bi-annually ($125).
The nail bar has expanded its retail locations in NYC from two to six. It has also opened brick-and-mortar in Florida, Texas and Washington D.C.
Continuing to grow its footprint, the brand has teamed up with European Wax Center co-founder, Joshua Coba, who is overseeing Glosslab’s franchise development and the expansion of their proprietary product line.
When asked what advice she would give other female entrepreneurs looking to scale their business, Glass says, “it takes a lot of hearing no—but it’s so important to stay with it. Trust your gut and keep going. It has always worked for me that if a door closes, it’s for a reason and that something else is set to open.”
