Successes

 “The personal service and beauty industry can be intimidating,” admits Atalie Friedrich, co-owner of the new Ivy & Stone concept salon near San Diego, California. “There are a lot of people pursuing careers, and you have to figure out what’s going to set you apart, what’s going to make you unique.” The answer came when Atalie started her own business with former colleague Kelsey Biggers. 

How it Got Started: Atalie is an accomplished hairstylist who has been in the business for 14 years. The past 10 years were spent at a salon where she had also become the manager. Then the pandemic emerged. Covid-19 hit the personal service industry particularly hard, and her salon closed during the shelter-in-place mandates. This forced a pause in her career that motivated Atalie to go back to school and learn some new skills. She took business and entrepreneurship classes at her local community college. Her entrepreneurship class required some independent study, and it was through this requirement that she found MOBI. Atalie had to present her independent work to the rest of her class, and she found it very easy to take notes and articulate the MOBI curriculum in her presentations. She also loved that the quizzes for each session tested her knowledge along the way. Learning about entrepreneurship inspired Atalie to start her own business. 

“With salons being shut down for much of 2020 due to Covid-19, I had time to think about what I really wanted for my future. I decided to learn about entrepreneurship and business, and something hit me,” Atalie says of her inspiration. “As long as you work for someone else, you are lending your time. I realized I wanted to be the owner of my time.” 

She approached a colleague from her current salon and asked whether she’d want to become partners in a new salon business. “I decided to partner with my colleague of six years, and it was the best decision I ever made. We are great partners and had a blast designing our look and decor, we love bouncing ideas off each other, and we support and lift each other up every step of the way.”

How MOBI Helped: “Knowledge is power, and MOBI gave me such a fantastic foundation and great general overview of everything I needed to know before opening a business,” Atalie shares. “It was very organized, straight-forward, easy to read, and easy to understand. I can't say enough about what a wonderful resource it truly was!” In particular the MOBI Starting a Business course helped Atalie understand the expenses to expect as she started her business. By opening a salon suite within a larger space housing a wide variety of beauty and personal service businesses, Atalie and Kelsey were able to reduce overhead expenses like utilities and rent, minimize some of the risk incurred through other lease options, and still offer an independent, personalized, and safe salon experience for their clients. 

Through MOBI, Atalie also learned which permits and licenses she would need as well as the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to structure her business. Ultimately she and Kelsey decided to form a limited liability company, or LLC, to limit their personal responsibility for the liability and risk associated with the business. She felt the LLC structure gave them important protections by law. 

What’s Next: “We love owning our own business. We feel true freedom, we can set our own schedules and work around our lives,” says Atalie, who is also the mom of a busy toddler. “Our dream for the future is to have a full, high-end salon. For now, our main focus is excellent customer service. We know it’s the service that sets you apart and makes you successful. Our clients love our salon, the personalized setting, the attention to detail, and getting their services one client at a time. We plan to explore marketing opportunities as well as adding revenue streams, such as featuring art and jewelry from local artists, selling beauty supplies, or offering new services. We’ve just launched Ivy & Stone's new website too!” 

To learn more about Ivy & Stone concept salon, visit https://www.ivyandstonesalon.com/.