We were lucky to catch up with Shi Robinson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shi, appreciate you joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

I started my nail business my senior year of college. I had just got back from studying abroad in London, where I first started practicing nails on myself. Over the summer I practiced even more on my close friends and family members and even took a course with a well-known nail tech from Hartford that moved to GA and flourished. The course didn’t go too well, but I still continued practicing and stocking up on supplies. When I moved back to campus, I started doing nails out of my dorm room. It started off very slowly and only my close friends would support but then I started getting booked by friends of friends and next thing you know I was doing more nails than studying/going to class and even stopped working my on campus jobs. Eventually, I started getting clients that didn’t even go to my school and were coming from all over Boston or other parts of MA! It was mind blowing. I would take clients in between my classes during the weekdays and then all day and night on the weekends. At this point it was eat, sleep, nails! Nothing else mattered to me, and I met some great people and built some great connections which made everything seem even more worth it.

Shi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the proud owner of Shi Nailed It, LLC. I’ve been practicing nails since 2019, took a break because of COVID and graduate school, and then went to nail school in 2021 and got licensed. Ever since then, I’ve been doing nails full-time, first as a traveling nail tech and now shop-based. I do gel manicures, acrylic nails, and gel/acrylic pedicures. Soon, I will be offering gel X and structured manicures. My focus of my brand is and will always be health AND beauty. It’s one of the main reasons why I started doing nails in the first place. No matter where I went, my nails were always getting butchered. I would go to the traditional shops and get cut up or over-filed and the pedicures never did justice for my feet. Therefore, I started doing my nails myself. Once I was able to shape my nails and design them in ways that were cuter than what I used to get done, I never went back! I never intended to do anyone else’s nails to be honest but after seeing my nails, some of my family members and friends wanted me to do theirs too. Eventually, word of mouth along with social media took things to another level, which I wasn’t expecting at all. So now here I am, almost 4 years in and now looking for ways to better and expand my business!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

My business has been fully out of pocket. From the nail course to nail school and all the supplies, everything was with my own money. In the summer of 2019, I had two jobs – one at a retail store and the other at a fast food restaurant. I saved all of my money for nail supplies so I could be prepared to do nails on campus. I think it was about $1,000 in total – I tried to only get the essentials and I remember breaking even within the first few months, I was so happy about that especially because I knew I was only charging about a third of how much those services really cost. That meant I was servicing a lotttt of people, which made me happy and encouraged me to keep going.

Have you ever had to pivot?

What people don’t tell you about entrepreneurship is that you’ll always have to pivot and to be honest that’s life in general because you just never know what can happen. There will always be slow seasons, especially in the beauty industry so I know this one income alone isn’t enough for me and the lifestyle I want for myself and my family. From time to time, I pick up part-time, seasonal, or temp jobs to help fill in the gaps and I’m always learning about new things and always wanting to explore and try different careers. I went to school for clinical psychology. I started an MSW program and took a break because I was miserable and missed doing nails. Although I might go back one day, that just isn’t my main focus right now. I’m more focused on nails and the beauty industry as a whole. I thought of picking up other trades as well because there’s nothing wrong with being well-rounded and I’d like to be a jack of all trades. Presently, I’m interested in real estate – one of my long-time goals has always been to own property; I want multi-family homes and commercial property, so that’s what I’m going to focus on next.

Contact Info:

• Website: linktr.ee/shinailedit/
• Instagram: shi.nailedit
• Facebook: Shi Nailed It