Framing Success
You may know him as one of the hottest brow specialists in the industry or you may know him from Bravo TV’s hit reality show The Singles Project, but however you know him, one thing is for sure: Joey Healy is one to watch. “I’m equally as passionate about entrepreneurship as I am about eyebrows,” he says. The humble beginnings of Healy’s empire started in 2010 with his one-man mobile brow-shaping service that catered to the well-heeled ladies of the Upper East Side, and he quickly established a name for himself with the quality and elevated level of his time-intensive, hands-on services. “I became this come-to-you service that was about education and being in the comfort of your own home. I needed a novelty to hook people in and it worked. That was how I created a point of difference,” says Healy. “It was a great way for me to have no overhead and charge a premium price because I was giving the convenience of me coming to you.”
By reinvesting profits in himself and in his brand, Healy launched a product line in 2011 and opened his eponymous Brow Studio in 2012. Rather than splash out on a street-level mega salon, he chose to operate on a smaller scale in a one-room space on Fifth Avenue, creating an environment that’s in tune with the brand’s core philosophy of intimacy, comfort and dedicated luxury service. Healy personally checks each client in and out of his or her $135 appointment, reinforcing the atelier feel of his business. He collaborated with Spruce & Bond (the reincarnation of hair-removal specialty brand Completely Bare by Cindy Barshop) to create Browlab and a team of brow protégés trained in his techniques. This allowed him to introduce a masstige element to his business model through the introduction of his premium services to an expanded client base. He currently has a six-week waiting list, and utilizes Booker as his booking software system, which enables clients to set up appointments directly through his website. Today, Healy enjoys membership in an elite group of niche service entrepreneurs who generate more than $1 million in yearly revenue, in large part thanks to his shrewdly conservative business practices and savvy audience engagement through social media. —Maureen Sheen, senior editor