Joyce Nyambura Maina is the founder of God’s Favor Salon & Spa, a beauty business that is located near Kenyatta Market in Nairobi.
I started my business in November 2020. At the time, the economy had slowed down and business was not very good for many people. But I took a leap of faith after getting an empty space that I thought was strategic for a beauty salon and spa business. I used a startup capital of around Sh. 200,000. These funds went into acquiring the right licenses to operate and the right equipment and technology. I officially opened business on November 21, 2020.
My business did not take off at once. It took quite a while before it could become self-reliant. Luckily for me, I had been in this industry for a long time and had built a client base that was loyal. So when I opened my own business, the majority of these clients were ready to give me a startup helping hand by giving me business and referrals.
This came in handy at a time when the business required a lot of operational capital to survive the tough economic period of 2020 and 2021 that was flared by the pandemic.
Over the years, I knew that I would end up owning a dedicated beauty salon business. This is because of my passion. I have always been a hairdresser. Converting this passion into business was naturally imminent. However, I don’t take the years I worked under employment for granted. It is through employment that I learned the nitty gritty of running this type of business profitably.
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There are a few mistakes that I made when I started this business. One of these was budgeting. I didn’t have a budget. This meant that my finances were an open book; they could be spent on impulse or beyond the required limits. By working without a budget, I ended up losing quite a lot of money.
After I understood the power of budgeting for business income and operational capital, I realized that budgeting is the strongest form of financial accountability that anyone in business must adhere to. It is through budgeting that you will how the money you out into the business is spent and on what the income the business makes is allocated.
Being in the beauty industry, customer satisfaction is the ultimate milestone. This is a very diverse field where customers have very different tastes. One customer’s taste and satisfaction will not be similar to the next. I have learned that you have to be really multi-skilled to accommodate all the varying needs of your client base.
At the same time, I have learned that it is very important to hire assistants with the right skills. No customer will return for business if she is served by an inexperienced assistant because looks and appearances are very personal.
My business finances changed when I learned how to work with a business budget. This success influenced my personal finances too. I started to budget the personal salary I earned from the business. I also learned to separate my business and personal money accounts. Today, my business funds operate strictly from a business account whose funding capacity I have been building.
The answer is always simple! Don’t complicate your decisions and aspirations. You have a goal but are procrastinating about failure, stop and just take the first step. At the end of the day, you will either earn or learn.
A version of this profile feature on Joyce Nyambura Maina was also published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.
