We were lucky to catch up with Patty Rappa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Patty, appreciate you joining us today. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
When I arrived in LA almost 12 years ago, I wanted to work in the beauty and aesthetics industry in some way shape or form. I’d just spent the last decade in the corporate world and I was ready for a new beginning. I figured these women must have the most amazing lives, working with celebrities, looking fabulous themselves! I didn’t know much about beauty but I knew tech so I created a beauty gaming app that would gamify makeup hauls, built in NFTs all kinds of stuff (totally before my time), but all in the name of getting a fast front row seat into this world. Got to hang backstage with A list celebs, designers and influencers.
I thought a gaming app is fun, but if I really want to understand this industry, I need to learn the business side, so I asked for an internship at a business brokerage house to work on specializing in buying and selling beauty/salon and spas. That way I could really see their financials and understand how they made money (otherwise who else is gonna open up their books for me)! Immediately tapping into my corporate experience I could see where they made money and also where they were failing. It was all about their systems. The companies who had systems that empowered their people thrived. The companies that were micromanaged or lacked systems were the ones that needed to sell or at least my management help.
I decided to take on a few medspa franchises that were needing management help, see if we could turn them around and get them cash flowing again. Mind you I had never even been to a medspa before. Only had only done basic facials and massages all my life. Scared but I was still up for the challenge and in less than 6 months, we had them not only cash flowing but totally thriving. We built marketing and development systems in that were so successful, they no longer needed to sell. I thought “I’m pretty good at this, wonder what I could do if I had my own brand?”
I spent the next five to six years going to trade shows, aligning with doctors, lawyers and truly learning the legal and clinical side so I could offer the complete package, not just the business side. If medspa. That’s when I went out in my own to build Luz Lounges. We called them Luz because it’s not only where luminous skin begins, it’s an energy and an experience. I refinanced my car, pulled out what I could and started out with a single room, two nurses and a doctor in the back of a hair salon. Sounds completely shady but I promise it was cute and totally legit, even had our own entrance.
Five years later we are in the process of opening up 100 aesthetic lounges nationwide, have a huge corporate training center and medspa in Houston, TX as well as a thriving multi room flagship in LA. Needless to say, it’s been a journey!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m the daughter of immigrants and so from day one it’s was instilled in me that I was bright to this country to do something more with my life. Now that was kind of hard because my family back in Argentina were all super accomplished business owners and entrepreneurs, so the pressure was on!
I also had to learn how to grow up and fit in, something that didn’t always go so smoothly. I was literally living two separate lives, my traditional home life full of cultural rules and disciplines, then my fun American life full of house parties and boys. It all caught up with me a little too fast and by the time I was 17 I ended up pregnant. Needless to say, this was not in my parents’ plan for my life.
I never shied away from my choices so I chose to see it through. I was convinced I could have my thriving career while still being a mom. Prayed about it and felt the power in me rise (God always has me no matter how much I f-up).
I didn’t have the luxury of taking unpaid internships so before I graduated college, I started a tech company building websites out of my house in Orlando where I grew up. Seven years later sold it and that gave me the means to move to the west coast, where I had envisioned being my whole life. I now had a 10 year old child and needed to get him to college before hitting LA, so we finished raising him in Oregon. Once he was off to college, I packed up my life and headed to LA where my real story started, as shared in the previous section.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I feel like my entire life is a story of resilience. Not know how or when I was going to get to the other side of things but always making it through no matter what. It was all about faith really. Not only believing in myself but very much believing in my higher power to guide me and keep me shielded in the storms. I always had to go through the storms but always with grace and definitely with protection.
One particular story that comes to mind is when I did finally set off to work on Luz Lounge. I didn’t intend to leave my prior company as a partner and investor. However my then partner began doing some very unethical things in my absence and when I figured it out and called her on it, she fired me (she held majority shares) and tried to take over my shares in the proceeds. Needless to say she didn’t get away with it but it took two years of fighting her in court to get paid what was owed back to me. All while I was trying to get my spa off the ground and living on minimal income. She bad mouthed me and worked so hard to cause me to fail, she eventually lost focus, lost control of her other spas and was forced to leave by the franchising company we all worked with. Getting fired from my own company ended up being the biggest blessing after all..
That was a tremendous test of faith and resilience I’ll never forget.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The lessons I’ve learned is to never ever doubt your own ability to conquer and prevail. Tough times are gonna hit. Look at what we just went though, this pandemic. It really doesn’t matter how bad a situation gets. It only matters if you make a decision to #1 have faith and #2 do the work required to get on the other side. That’s it. The rest is out of your control. You just can’t lose if you wake up every morning holding on to those two essentials.
Contact Info:
- Website: Luzlounge.com
- Instagram: @luzlounge
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/pattyrappa
- Twitter: GlampreneurGirl
Image Credits
Michael Morales, Photographer