Courtney Claghorn by no means deliberate on operating a nationwide magnificence chain—it began with a easy gripe in 2008.
Recent out of faculty and dwelling in Los Angeles, she realized spray tans had been each costly and shackled to UV‑mattress salons.
When she vented to her boyfriend, Sam Offit, he challenged her to show that annoyance into a gap.
“He was like, ‘If you happen to really feel this fashion, different girls in all probability really feel the identical manner… Perhaps there’s a gap within the market which you can fill,’” she tells Entrepreneur.
The thought clicked. Collectively they scraped up $1,000—$500 every—purchased a fundamental spray‑tan machine and pushed the eating desk in opposition to the wall of her Santa Monica condo to create space for a pop‑up studio.
Pals signed up first, then pals of pals, and shortly Claghorn’s evenings had been booked stable with bronzing classes whereas her days had been nonetheless spent at a fintech desk.
The aspect hustle’s momentum compelled her hand. Inside months, she was making sufficient to gamble on herself, quitting the 9‑to‑5 and leasing a tiny storefront just a few blocks away.
When SUGARED + BRONZED formally opened its doorways in 2010, the studio was little greater than a reception desk and a remedy room, but new clients stored arriving—and returning.
Each spare greenback went again into the corporate as a result of Claghorn set a strict aim: she would bootstrap till ten worthwhile retailers had been operating. That self-discipline formed the tradition, forcing lean operations and tight coaching requirements lengthy earlier than exterior traders appeared.
A coast‑to‑coast growth might need appeared formidable for a enterprise constructed on $35 therapies, however phrase‑of‑mouth and Instagram selfies did the advertising and marketing for her.
By 2019, retailer quantity ten was slicing its ribbon, and Claghorn lastly invited San Francisco–based mostly Foremost Put up Companions to take a stake and speed up development.
The champagne barely chilled earlier than catastrophe struck. Covid‑19 shut each studio for nearly a 12 months, vaporizing income in a single day. As a substitute of folding, Claghorn handled the pause like a reset. “[We had to grapple with] rehiring and retraining and returning from zero to 1 earlier than we may develop once more,” she explains.
Groups had been rebuilt, security protocols tightened, and constant clients rushed again the second restrictions lifted. Immediately, SUGARED + BRONZED operates greater than thirty‑5 areas, employs roughly 4 hundred folks and reported twenty‑p.c 12 months‑over‑12 months development in 2024, with inner projections topping fifty million {dollars} in income for 2025.
Studios now stretch from Los Angeles and Austin to Miami, Philadelphia and New York, with Washington, D.C. slated to debut this spring.
Success hasn’t smoothed out the calendar’s bumps. The actual windfall arrives each spring when competition season begins. From April by way of June, income jumps thirty to forty p.c, then stays elevated till Labor Day. “It’s like in a single day, the entire world wants a tan,” Claghorn laughs.
To maintain tempo, she spends the quiet winter months on a hiring blitz, placing each new technician by way of what quantities to a magnificence boot camp so studios can deal with the onslaught with out sacrificing service or sanitation.
Service alone, nevertheless, solely reaches clients inside driving distance. Anticipating that limitation, the corporate quietly started R &D on a proprietary product line earlier than the pandemic.
The primary half—exfoliating scrubs, hydrating lotions and a feather‑mild tanning mousse—hit cabinets on the finish of 2024; the second half rolls out this 12 months. Claghorn says the road is “totally different from something that’s in the marketplace [and] enhances our providers, each sugaring and tanning, by way of exfoliating [and] moisturizing,” whereas giving purchasers a approach to deepen or prolong colour at dwelling.
If the merchandise catch on, they may uncap development by including e‑commerce margins to brick‑and‑mortar income.
Beneath the shiny branding sits a playbook any scrappy founder can research.
First, specialize: by focusing solely on sugaring and sunless tanning, Claghorn created a memorable identification in a crowded magnificence sector and constructed unmatched experience that justifies premium pricing.
Second, earn earlier than you spend: 9 years of bootstrapping compelled operational self-discipline that turned a promoting level when Foremost Put up Companions got here knocking—proof the idea labored in a number of markets.
Third, diversify neatly: launching merchandise lets the model keep prime‑of‑thoughts between appointments and monetizes clients who reside too removed from a studio.
Lastly, embrace discomfort. Claghorn insists evaluation paralysis is the dying of fine concepts. “Discover a approach to make that first greenback, get your first sale,” she advises. “As quickly as you’re discovering your self simply making decks, spreadsheets, projections and plans, that impulsively turns into your job—that’s not being an entrepreneur… Be comfy within the uncomfortable.”
Her journey additionally underscores tendencies shaping the broader magnificence trade. Personal‑fairness funds now hunt for area of interest ideas with franchisable processes and robust unit economics; UV‑free tanning appeals to wellness‑centered shoppers cautious of pores and skin‑injury dangers; and repair manufacturers are racing to turn out to be product manufacturers, blurring the road between salon and residential routine.
Most necessary, SUGARED + BRONZED’s pandemic rebound exhibits that experiential magnificence—providers delivered by human palms—nonetheless holds energy in an age of on-line every little thing when the providing is concentrated, secure and shareable.
What started as a $1,000 experiment in a cramped eating room has grown right into a coast‑to‑coast enterprise on observe for eight‑determine gross sales. Claghorn didn’t invent spray tanning, however she noticed what everybody else missed: clients who wished the glow with out the mattress, the burn or the boutique price ticket.
By fixing her personal irritation, she solved it for hundreds, turned a aspect hustle right into a profession and created a case research in how shortly a small, effectively‑aimed thought can scale when the founder retains shifting.
The subsequent time an on a regular basis frustration makes you roll your eyes, keep in mind the entrepreneur who traded her eating desk for a twig gun—and ask your self what alternative is likely to be hiding in plain sight.