We were lucky to catch up with Yegi Saryan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Yegi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

It was May 2015 and I had just been denied a promotion opportunity at my corporate job which pushed me to the edge to quit my 9-5 and start my own business. I was convinced that this was the answer to my freedom, but I had obsoletely no experience in entrepreneurship. After thinking long and hard, I decided to open a full-service salon called Yegi Beauty in Burbank, CA. I thought I could own a business, hire employees to do the operations and I can collect the profits.

Very shortly after my grand opening, I learned that running a business in real life is way different than what I learned in business school. Your projections don’t exactly come to life from your business plan!

I quickly ran out of the money allocated for employees for operations and had to put my pride aside and do a lot of the work myself. At that point I was not saying no to ANY customer. I was the receptionist, janitor, bookkeeper, hair stylist and anything else you can think of. I still remember like it was today how disgusted I felt giving someone a pedicure who had, let’s just say, not the cleanest feet. But I had to do what needed to be done to keep the doors open for my start up business. However, all the hard work paid off! Within months I was able to hire one employee at a time. Within 3 years Yegi Beauty had grown into a multimillion-dollar company!

Yegi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been a curious person ever since I can remember. Although my main education path was in business I had gone to beauty school and received my cosmetology license for fun. I was working in a corporate job back in 2015 when I was denied a leadership position. I was told that I was not good enough to manage people. My ego was crushed and it took me some time to believe in myself again. But, I had other opinions about my abilities so I decided to start my own business and give myself the title of CEO since no one else was going to do it.

Yegi Beauty started off as a full-service salon in Burbank, CA in 2015. Within a year, I fell in love with eyelash extensions and decided to revamp the salon into an eyelash extensions specialty studio. Soon after, I launched Yegi Academy and Product Line. At that point, I had been working with eyelash extensions for nine years and was not pleased with the products and education that was out there. My passion for eyelash extensions was so high I wanted to educate and grow the eyelash extensions industry to make sure it wasn’t just a passing fad.

Today, the eyelash extensions industry is booming and Yegi Beauty is one of the top recognized brands nationwide for quality products and education. Not only does our online store ship worldwide we also offer both online and on-site classes. We proudly offer a wide range of specialty products and supplies for eyelash extensions.

Along the ups and downs in entrepreneurship, I learned that I have a gift and passion for inspiriting others. That is why in 2022, I officially launched “The Yegi Project”, which is a podcast and coaching services business. I am excited to see where the road takes me next!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Funding my business was very risky, but at the time I was young and I didn’t think twice because I was sure that if I put myself in a position of where there’s no going back I had to make sure that I was going to be successful. I had pulled out my 401(k), paid all the fees for pulling out early and I had even gotten a small business loan with putting my house on the line. I was in over 100K debt starting my business and very stressed to make sure I was not going to lose my house. Looking back, that is what needed to be done since getting a business loan for a start up is close to impossible without risking your personal assets.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I had to pivot in my business quite a few times and one of the major times was when I had to make a decision to let go of all the other services in the salon and only focus on Eyelash Extension. Right now that seems like an easy decision and that was the obvious decision looking back but during the time it was very difficult to give up or let go of other services. It felt like I failed because I was not able to build clientele for my employees who provided other services like hair and makeup. Looking at numbers and what the customers really wanted from Yegi Beauty was Eyelash Extension’s so I trained the other girls in lashes and the business model changed. This was actually a blessing in disguise because very shortly we became one of the top eyelash providers in our area.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yegibeauty.com www.theyegiproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yegibeauty/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YegiBeauty/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yegibeauty/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fyegibeauty
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/YegiBeauty
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yegi-beauty-burbank-5
• Other: youtube The Yegi Project https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDkCU0REEED2CDjURrPuNw