How To Do One Thing Really Well, With Vanita Parti MBE

My stage of life also played into my entrepreneurial mindset. Going back to work after a baby was really difficult 20 years ago. Most employers wanted me to be full-time and I couldn’t commit to that. I didn’t want to have a compromised career, so I knew I had to do something for myself. Luckily, I’m very determined: when someone tells me I can’t do something, it only motivates me to prove them wrong. People laughed at me when I said I was starting an eyebrow business but it still excites me to think about pushing boundaries and exceeding expectations. I’m a solutions person – there’s always a way to navigate around a potential roadblock.   

One of my biggest lessons has been learning to mitigate risk. As an entrepreneur, you have to constantly weigh up the pros and cons – sometimes I’ve pushed for things and it hasn’t been the right decision. But I’ve learnt it’s the kind of risk we can’t afford. I’ve also learnt to lean on my team, gather opinions and then make a decision. I admit, sometimes I still say, but why? What’s stopping us? When we started pitching to department stores, it was a risk because we had no proof of concept. I remember the panic, racing down to Southall, trying to find therapists and getting them back to Bond Street. But I knew this was my chance and I couldn’t let it slip away. I knew we could finesse the service in time – for the time being, getting the opportunity was what counted.  

A big mistake I see some business founders make is running before they can walk. I know the feeling because I was always worried about losing an opportunity. The best thing about beauty services is that you don't have to invest a lot of money up front. Customers can have the service, pay you and then you pay the department stores. The whole cash flow cycle is quite stress-free. Products weren’t in our original plan but customers were asking about the issues they had and how they could look after their brows and help them grow at home. That’s where the idea for a brow oil came from. It was really the first product of its kind at the time – the brow category barely existed. Then we started creating brow pencils with spoolies and it slowly evolved from there. The key point is we’ve never gone crazy and overbuilt the line-up. I don’t want to overwhelm people. It’s about having products that are easy to use, effective and contain good ingredients.  

Not having a secure foundation can compromise your brand. There were times when we took on more than we should have. You have to balance opportunity with the ability to offer customers a consistent, reliable service. I'm much more comfortable with that now but as an entrepreneur, it’s easy to feel like you want to conquer the world. 

The pandemic really made us think about why our brand survived. What was it about our brand that our customers absolutely loved and wanted from us? Our partnerships were mainly through department stores and that was a bit scary when the footfall decreased. We had 30 brow bars and closed 15, including New York, which was heartbreaking. But it was also kind of a relief. We were doing too much and we needed to focus on the thing we did exceptionally well. Now we have six local boutique offerings, which I’m really proud of because the business is so much more robust. Our customers are getting what they expect and we’ve focused a lot more on that 360° experience. It’s been a real learning curve.  

If there’s one piece of advice I can share, it’s that you can't do everything. Just do a few things exceptionally well. In the past, we’ve succumbed to trying other services in the department stores, like waxing and nails, but what we’ve learnt is that there are other experts out there doing them really well. For us, it was just a distraction. Our customer comes to us to get fantastic brows or lashes – things in the eye region – and we’re the market leader. We don’t have to prove ourselves in any other way.  

We’ve maintained our position in the market by being really authentic. We make sure we understand what the customer wants from us and deliver it consistently. We’re not into gimmicks or trends – which are hard to resist when the competition is so fierce – but the end goal is always to give the customer their best brow look and help them feel their most confident. That way, they come back, they tell their friends and that is really how we’ve built the business.