In The Room with Danielle Cohen-Shohet
Welcome to another episode of The Room Podcast! In this week’s episode, co-hosts Madison and Claudia chat with Danielle Cohen-Shohet, Co-Founder and CEO of GlossGenius. Danielle, a freelance hobbyist makeup artist, started GlossGenius when she knew that there had to be a better way to manage a business and engage with clients. From scheduling to booking and payments, GlossGenius meaningfully helps freelancers and small businesses in US salon and studio spaces.
In this episode, Danielle talks about building for a specific need and passion, developing a tech platform for hyper-local businesses, and where the beauty industry is going next. Let’s open the door.
Season 4 of The Room Podcast is sponsored by our friends at SVB and Cooley. This episode is now live on all podcast streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Key Theme 1: Building for a specific need and passion
Before building GlossGenius, Danielle had the experience and a passion for running a small business. Coming to market with these core beliefs, she knew there was an opportunity to help small business owners with technology in the beauty wellness space and change how they felt about their businesses. Combining her personal experience and passions with the pain points people around her experienced, Danielle could clearly navigate through product-market fit.
Key Theme 2: Developing a tech platform for hyper-local businesses
Danielle says that growing hyper-local businesses across the country is hard, but it’s much easier when you can offer a tool like GlossGenius that provides value to a business owner, no matter who else in their periphery is using it. So rather than relying on a critical mass initially, the GlossGenius product creates value for business owners, no matter where they are or no matter who around them is using it. From this, GlossGenius was able to create a community of business owners across every state. Channel distribution wise, word of mouth spread has been the most effective for GlossGenius as customers feel that they’re part of something.
Key Theme 3: Where the business industry is going next
As COVID-19 has significantly affected the beauty and wellness industry nationwide, the past two years have initiated meaningful discussions around empowering local businesses. With the world slowly re-opening, Danielle sees some hopeful beauty trends, including the average ticket price increasing as customers are willing to pay more for beauty services. People also feel more experimental in their beauty routines as more customers are booking services they have never done before. Another positive trend is the increasing average gratuity customers give to their beauty practitioners, indicating an increased appreciation for local businesses.
Join us next week for another episode of The Room Podcast. Hear this episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Episodes go live every Tuesday at 7AM PST/ 10AM EST.
