A Mind for the beauty business

Drawing on her experience working for L’Oreal Romania, businesswoman Maria Pauna decided that setting up her own salon, Make-up your mind, was “worth it” and underwent a makeover from employee to entrepreneur. Becoming the sole importer of Biotouch for Romania, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova has put gloss on her venture, and she’s now extending her business after spotting the beauty of the franchise system.

Anda Sebesi

Maria Pauna’s career played a crucial role in her decision to set up her own business, the beauty salon Make-up your mind. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in 1999 and soon after that started to work for a multinational company, L’Oreal Romania.

The businesswoman gained a lot of experience working in several of the firm’s departments and had the chance to take courses at the Make-up Forever Academy, one of the most famous make-up schools in Europe.

“I became official make-up trainer for L’Oreal and that was the beginning of my future career as a trainer and beauty coach,” says Pauna, owner of Make-up your mind.

In 2004 she launched a make-up and eyebrow studio as part of a beauty salon, the first woman to make that step on the Romanian market at that time. In addition the entrepreneur

started an educational campaign with L’Oreal Romania that helped her understand the beauty market and its needs.

In the meantime, Pauna continued with her own education. In 2008 she took courses at Biotouch, the oldest school for semi-permanent make-up, and one year later launched her own make-up studio. “Michell Peck – Madonna’s facial specialist – was a guest at the event, and that moment marked my entrance into the professional league.”

She adds that she became both official trainer and sole importer of Biotouch for Romania, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova in 2011. “Besides that, we also launched the first school of semi-permanent make-up in Romania this year,” says the entrepreneur.

The idea to set up her business came in 2004 when she returned from Paris as a specialist in so-called “visagism”, known as the art of studying and bringing to light the beauty of each human feature.

“This made me want to do such a thing in Romania, so I started by having a few customers a week. But persevering with it I managed to achieve great performances,” remembers Pauna. She strongly believes that her talent drove her to develop such a business, and that she was able to use it in the right way. “For me it was a single step from passion to business,” notes the owner of Make-up your mind.

As with any new concept or service that appears on the market, the educational part is very important. “My passion is still to teach Romanian women how to become more beautiful and to train specialists up to be highly skilled in doing this. I have managed to organize a coaching session for 400 Romanian women this year,” says the salon owner. Asked about the most difficult moment her firm has faced, the entrepreneur says there were plenty such moments and there still are. On top of that, if she started another business she says she would change the blind trust she had in those she has trained during her activity.

“People change from one day to another and when you need them most you are vulnerable. I think that I would be more pragmatic and careful about contractual issues like foreign businesspeople are,” says Pauna. It is clear that L’Oreal has been a very good business school for the entrepreneur as she learned to implement several principles of business management that she met there in her own enterprise.

According to Pauna, one of the most significant challenges that Make-up your mind has faced was that this type of business has the shortest guarantee term. “The evolution of this world is volatile and technologies change from year to year. Plus, there is an ongoing process of investment in such a company. If you invest in your business as much as you should invest in yourself, you will eventually succeed,” believes the entrepreneur.

She decided to enter on a niche where the competition is pretty tight because few specialists have the real financial muscle to fight with the old state-owned institutions and chains of salons.

“In addition you have to constantly go abroad in order to improve your professional skills, to participate in different specialized trade fairs and to bring new products, technologies and know-how that are already being implemented in large European chains of salons,” says the businesswoman.

Pauna believes that what differentiates her from the crowd is the fact that she chose to specialize on a free and unexploited market niche.

Besides that, she has remained faithful to her strategy and managed to capitalize on everything as much as she could. In addition, starting this year Pauna has begun to franchise her business, training beauticians from Targu Mures, Ramnicu Valcea, Bacau and Ploiesti.

As for future plans, the entrepreneur says that because she has become the sole importer of Biotouch for Romania, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova, starting this fall her main focus will be on training and distribution. “I chose that approach because semi-permanent make-up, evolving cosmetics and minimal surgery are the future. This was proven after two years of working in my own studio. This segment represents about 60 percent of my business,” concludes Pauna.

anda.sebesi@business-review.ro

Company profile

Make-up your mind

Number of employees: 6-10

2010 estimated turnover: EUR 200,000

2011 estimated turnover: EUR 400,000

Initial investment: EUR 70,000

Tags: maria pauna