Three Utah Valley sisters — Christy Hepworth, Keri Evans and Lyndsey Ekstrom — literally had a business at their fingertips. After falling in love with nail shield wraps at the salon, they searched high and low for a DIY version with no success. The result? They literally had to do it themselves. “My husband, Adam, has a background in sticker making and other businesses, so he convinced us we could do this,” Christy says. “We had a tiny vinyl cutter in our house, and so Lyndsey, Keri and I started experimenting. Looking back, we never would have guessed we’d be where we are now.” And where is that? A multi-million dollar direct sales company with more than 400 nail wrap designs, more than 4,000 independent consultants and a passionate client base that bought $200,000 worth of product during a 12-hour period on Cyber Monday. Nailed it.
We had humble beginnings. We were continually tinkering with our product and working to make it perfect. And then Adam — who has really driven the company — said, “Hey, there’s an expo this weekend, and we should do it.” We had no inventory printed and no idea what we were doing. But we made a banner and had some order forms ready.
The response was insane. People loved our idea and they were filling out orders like crazy. We were so excited to see how well it was received — that this could actually have traction. We sold more than $2,000 worth of product at that event.
We asked ourselves, where do we take this next? We looked at when the next expo was, we built out the website and we scoured all of the daily deal sites for options to sell. Within a couple months, we had set aside enough money to have production equipment in-house.
Adam slept in the garage for a couple months. We had one small printer up there, so he grabbed a pillow and printed around the clock. When you’re starting your business, no one’s going to take care of your company but you. It’s emotionally taxing, but it could not be more fun. If you’re not a problem solver, you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.
It was an exciting time. There was one daily deal site we did two years ago that gave us the momentum we needed to push the company forward. On that day, we sold 11,000 sheets of nail wraps. We were freaking out. They asked us if we wanted to cap the sales and we said, “No! We don’t know how we’re going to print them, but somehow we’re going to print them.” That day of sales gave us the capital we needed to move into our office.
It was our customers who led us to the party model, and that switch came about a year after that first expo. We’d had a huge amount of success with these daily deal sites and with the website directly, but when we switched to the party model we had potential internationally. It directly changed the course of our business.
We are the only nail wrap company that sells directly. Retail is great, but when it came down to it, there’s no way stores were going to be able to display our 400-plus designs. It would limit the focus of who our potential audience is.
We manufacture and make all of our own products right here in Utah. All three of us are so different. We have different styles and preferences, which is great, because it means our catalog appeals to a variety of people. If you want it, we’ve got it. And if we don’t have it, you can create it. We have a consumer-based nail design. For example, someone can upload a photo of their dog and have a whole set of nail wraps made with it. Any design they can come up with, we can print it.
Managing growth has been tricky. It can almost cannibalize your other efforts. Hiring new people, dealing with expansion, getting new equipment — we’re happy to say it hasn’t eaten us alive. We’re still here and we’re still growing. We are honest and upfront with customers and consultants. We are relentless about making it right. Everyone here is working toward a common goal. Everyone supports each other. We try to be very aware of our strengths and weaknesses, and then we put together the strongest team possible to combat those weaknesses.
We’ve all been surprised at how fast we’ve grown. Originally we thought this would be something fun to do on the side as sisters, and we could have an extra $400 a month to go shopping. That was our goal. We’ve been blown away. It’s changed our lives, and it’s changed our consultants’ lives. Seeing these women be able to own their own business and change their family’s life is the most rewarding thing. We had planned out our wildest dream scenarios, and each month we keep getting closer and closer to those dreams. We’re going to be the top recognized brand in the nail art industry — and our wildest dreams keep getting wilder.
Managing growth has been tricky. It can almost cannibalize your other efforts.