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Louisa Serene Schneider has by no means been brief on enterprise concepts.
She as soon as began a yoga-wear firm (“lengthy earlier than Lululemon existed,” she says) and at one other level tried to launch a language tutoring enterprise. Neither of them caught, however concepts stored coming.
Then, in 2017, Schneider got here up with an concept that she felt had momentum. She stop her high-profile job on Wall Road with what she calls a “aggressive C-level wage” to wager on herself and begin an ear-piercing enterprise.
“It was the primary time in my life that I hadn’t had a full-time job,” Schneider, now 48, tells CNBC Make It. “I used to be really terrified, and I used to be figuring out of my attic.”
Seven years later the enterprise, now often known as Rowan, is the one ear-piercing enterprise with its personal medical board and the place registered nurses are skilled to pierce ears. Rowan has 90 studios throughout the U.S. and roughly 800 staff, over half of whom are nurses.
Louisa Serene Schneider is the founder and CEO of Rowan, an ear-piercing enterprise with 90 places throughout the U.S.
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Schneider’s journey to changing into founder and CEO of Rowan hasn’t been simple. “There have been many days after I needed to surrender, and days after I would take a look at the checking account and assume, ‘I do not know if I am going to have the ability to make payroll,'” she says. “I might simply must preserve going.”
This is how she constructed Rowan right into a worthwhile enterprise that introduced in over $70 million in income final 12 months.
An answer to her personal drawback
Like many firm origin tales, the thought for Rowan got here from Schneider’s personal wants.
On the time, she was on the lookout for locations to get her daughter’s ears pierced. She’d had her personal unhealthy piercing experiences and wasn’t loving the choices to take her daughter to a mall or jewellery retailer.
“Our pediatrician did not pierce ears, and I didn’t wish to take her to any of the present ear-piercing choices,” Schneider says.
Louisa Serene Schneider noticed a spot available in the market for ear-piercing providers that supplied “security and the medical facet of piercing.”
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Her work as a hedge fund supervisor concerned assessing ailing malls, and he or she noticed a spot available in the market for ear-piercing providers that supplied “security and the medical facet of piercing, and mixing that with a celebratory and intentional service.”
Pus, “my mother and father are each docs, and I knew that for our household, ear piercing was a medical process and I actually needed it to be executed safely,” she says. “And that’s the place the thought for Rowan was born.”
Beginning small
In 2017, Schneider started working from her attic in Larchmont, New York.
Louisa Serene Schneider began Rowan in 2017 from the attic of her house in New York.
Courtesy of Rowan
She did not have the cash to construct out an precise retailer, so she began with an at-home concierge-style piercing service the place individuals might name and e mail to have a nurse come to them for a piercing appointment. Schneider says the corporate constructed its authentic community of piercers because of a buddy who teaches nursing at Columbia College.
The corporate additionally offered month-to-month subscription packing containers of hypoallergenic earrings for $20 per pair — the thought being that piercing prospects would then purchase right into a subscription mannequin for brand new jewellery each month.
Folks let you know that you just’re an fool over and over and over, after which you need to decide your self up and say, ‘OK, am I? No, I do know that is proper. I do know I can do that.
Louisa Serene Schneider
Founder and CEO of Rowan
Schneider says she and her buddy Sarah Fraser, a finance govt who’s not with the enterprise, bootstrapped preliminary operations with their very own financial savings.
“It was an expertise for me that was not like any I had had earlier than, the place individuals audibly sighed or questioned me after I informed them what I used to be doing,” she says. “Lots of people checked out me as if I used to be loopy, and so they did not see ear piercing or earrings or jewellery as an actual enterprise.”
However Schneider noticed the potential of her market: Present somebody a superb piercing expertise as soon as, and so they and their household might be lifelong prospects.
‘Fundraising is terrible’
In December 2018, Schneider paid digital creator Beth Chappo to advertise her subscription jewellery line in time for the vacations.
Inside minutes of the submit going stay, Schneider says the corporate began promoting “a whole bunch and a whole bunch” of subscription packing containers.
It was far more than they anticipated, and he or she was frightened about finishing the present orders in time. “We did not have the power to meet these orders,” she says, “so I referred to as the one folks that I might on the time, my mother and father, who drove six hours and spent the following 48 hours working with me in my attic, placing the packing containers collectively.”
Rowan at the moment employs over 550 nurses who’re skilled in ear piercing strategies.
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After the influencer’s viral submit, Schneider began a proper spherical of seed funding. Whereas Rowan was seeing optimistic suggestions from prospects, getting traders onboard was a distinct story.
“Fundraising is terrible,” Schneider says. “Folks let you know that you just’re an fool over and over and over, after which you need to decide your self up and say, ‘OK, am I? No, I do know that is proper. I do know I can do that.'”
Throughout one significantly low second, Schneider says she was offered a possibility to take investor conferences whereas on a household journey to California, solely to be informed “no” repeatedly: “Not solely was I lacking my household trip, however I used to be being informed that the enterprise concept wasn’t large enough for them.”
It isn’t misplaced on her that traders, largely males, did not see the potential in her enterprise that caters primarily to ladies. “Male traders are usually the allocators of capital, and since they do not usually get their ears pierced, I felt that there was an apparent hole on this market” they weren’t investing in, Schneider says. Different ear-piercing firms have been round for many years, she notes, however “the expertise has not modified or developed to modern-day.”
Hold the momentum going lengthy sufficient, although, and “finally you meet any individual that believes in you,” she says.
The corporate raised $5 million in seed capital between 2018 to 2021. It went on to lift a sequence A within the spring of 2021, and by that fall, raised $20 million in sequence B funding.
“Since that point, we’ve got not raised any cash as a result of our enterprise, fortuitously and with a variety of laborious work, has been very worthwhile,” Schneider says. The corporate grew to become worthwhile in 2023, she says.
Increasing their attain
In 2019, Goal reached out to Rowan for a partnership, which resulted in over 300 piercing pop-up places within the retailer’s shops throughout the nation.
In 2020, when the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Rowan continued to function by sending nurses to individuals’s properties to get their ears pierced.
“Households didn’t must forego this milestone throughout what was in any other case a very unhappy time for lots of people,” Schneider says.
The corporate lastly opened its first brick and mortar retailer the place individuals can get their ears pierced and purchase earrings in New York Metropolis later that 12 months, ending the at-home piercing service and subscription packing containers.
Rowan has 90 studios and is on observe to have 100 places by the top of 2025.
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Rowan continued to open new brick-and-mortar places. By 2022, Schneider determined to finish their Goal partnership as a result of their very own studios had been changing into extra worthwhile, and so they might present a greater expertise to prospects and nurses in their very own areas.
Rowan at the moment employs over 550 nurses, and the corporate’s medical workforce created its personal curriculum to coach nurses in ear piercing strategies.
Schneider says it is vital to her that Rowan supplies a superb alternative for nurses, who typically work three 12-hour or 4 10-hour shifts per week at a hospital, however might wish to decide up extra work on their off days.
Nurses are paid round $23 to $30 per hour, plus ideas, relying on the Rowan studio location, based on the corporate’s latest job listings.
Rowan opened its first studio in 2020 in New York Metropolis, the place prospects might get their ears pierced by a nurse and store for earrings.
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Daniela, a nurse at a NYC hospital, works part-time at Rowan two days per week. “I find it irresistible right here due to the inventive aspect of nursing,” she says. “We’re in a position to work with our prospects, pierce their ears, get them excited, whereas on the hospital it is extra of a disturbing job.”
Rowan is on observe to supply these alternatives to extra nurses and prospects: The corporate will hit 100 studios by the top of 2025 and is projected to herald $150 million in income, Schneider says.
“Each time I see a piercing and the smile afterwards and the clapping and the enjoyment of the household,” she says, “that is after I know we’re profitable. It truly is concerning the pleasure that we’re bringing.”
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