We recently connected with April & Jonathan Sigg and have shared our conversation below.

April & Jonathan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our mission has always been to provide the most cutting-edge and non-surgical aesthetic treatments, making them accessible to all at affordable prices.

Our motto from conception has been, that our clients are beautiful, and beauty doesn’t have to be expensive.

From the conception of the business in 2009, we realized that non-surgical aesthetic procedures and laser treatments were too expensive for most people. Our first step was to disrupt the laser hair removal industry by bringing our prices to nearly 1/5 of what our nearest competitors were. Our goal was to, rather than charge high ticket prices to a few, perform our treatments in volume, offering and making them accessible to as many as possible.

Our model then, and repeating it, was built on three key points:  product, process, and people. We knew that people would be the key to our success. We also made it our mission to treat our employees as we, too, would want to be treated. With that, we were able to build not just a business successfully but a culture where every employee felt needed and could also thrive.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My wife, April, and I were together looking for a career change. I had been working in emergency medicine as a physician assistant for over ten years and felt burnout. I knew I still wanted to work in medicine and enjoyed working, mainly with my hands. During this time, there was a small Medspa I had been going to for laser hair removal on the back of my neck. This was during the recession, and one day, when I went to my appointment, his doors were closed as he had gone out of business. I called the owner and asked him what happened, and he simply said he could no longer afford to laser in this economy and keep his doors open. At that point, I had the idea to see if I could make a go with his laser hair removal machine. We had a 30-minute meeting at a small restaurant. On a napkin, we wrote up a contract allowing April & I to pay him $500 a month for his laser, and in return, if we made a success of it, we would buy the machine within one year. As the Laser was sitting in his closet, not being put to use, he agreed to this plan, and from there, The Laser Lounge Spa was born.

We then needed a storefront and found a strip plaza with eight empty units due to the recession. We approached the owner and explained we had no money to pay for rent then but would put up a nice sign if he would give us at least six months of free rent. He gave us eight months. We then took a Home Depot credit card with a $20,000 limit and Purchased supplies to do a build-out in the space, which we only did at night to avoid Local inspectors. Within eight months, with my wife and I being the only employees cleaning the floor, taking phone calls, and offering the services, we looked to expand as we outgrew the space.
We moved out of that space within eight months and never had to pay a rent check.

Our mission and motto from the very beginning was to provide high-end aesthetic services at affordable prices. Our motto is that all our clients are beautiful, and beauty doesn’t have to be expensive. We based our business on providing services that could be affordable and obtainable for most working people. We successfully achieved this very quickly with laser hair removal, being almost half the cost of our nearest competitors, and with our Botox prices being substantially lower than all of our competition. Although we were not making much money initially doing this, we were gaining a solid following. It then became about offering the top investment services, giving it a boutique feel but offering it in volume
The more we were able to buy from our vendors, the better price we were able to offer to our customers. To date, this is our goal and motto without compromising the service.

With now 17 locations in five states, this has allowed us year after year to be one of the top companies and providers of laser, hair removal, and injectable aesthetic procedures in the country. We have since expanded our aesthetic offerings to nearly 100 different procedures. We are still very stringent on staying with our philosophy of not being a jack of all trades, but a master of one. Our core skills are non-invasive laser skin treatments, laser hair removal, medical facials, and injectables.

Unlike most medspas, what makes us unique and different is that we allow minimal deviation from our core services. We are known for and always want to be known for the above services. We often give the analogy to people that if I want my teeth whitened, I go to my dentist; if I want an injectable filler, I go to my Medspa. I don’t go to my dentist for my injectables, and I don’t go to my medspa for teeth whitening. Our philosophy is to stay with what you know, be the best at it, and not deviate. This, again, is what makes us unique from most within our industry, but it also is what makes us stand out from nearly all of our competition.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Knowing we wanted to expand, we realized we would also need some capital. During the recession, very few banks were lending, especially to new start-up businesses. We needed money to do a build-out in a new, more prominent location, which was a freestanding building. We also knew we wanted enough capital to buy us at least one brand new laser at this point; the previously rented laser was no longer working. A friend had put us in contact with a gentleman named Ken Sutherland through the church we were attending. He had run multiple businesses in the past with great success, and we found he could be a potential investor. He put together a meeting with four additional friends, at which point I put together a business plan and a three-ring binder presenting my intentions and projections. As we look back at it, it was extremely rudimentary, but it worked. Each investor contributed $25,000 for us to pay back over three years, giving us a total capital of 125,000. With this, we could build out and obtain our new laser!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Probably one of the most memorable, but not necessarily most strategic, marketing attempts we did was in the infancy of our business. We wanted to promote our laser hair removal and thought it would be a good idea to rent a caveman mask and costume and place someone on the side of the main road holding a sign for laser hair removal. We found a young college student and paid him $10 an hour to stand by the street. At that particular time of year, it was summer and nearly 90° out. He stood by the road for over an hour, jumping around, waving the sign in his hairy caveman outfit. Within an hour, he returned to the spa, pulled the mask off, threw it on the ground, and said, “I’m done!” Even for the young college student looking for extra cash between the heat and the humidity, This was more than he could bear!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jontheinjector