I dropped out of university and built five beauty businesses. Here's how I did it
The name Marcia Kilgore might not be instantly recognisable but her Beauty Pie brand is known the world over for being an industry game-changer with its online-only subscription model. Before founding Beauty Pie in 2016, Kilgore had built other brands including luxury day spa Bliss, make-up and skincare range Soap & Glory and footwear brand FitFlop. Here the 57-year-old serial entrepreneur shares her story and the five secrets to success she learned along the way. Kilgore didn't always know she wanted to be an entrepreneur but growing up she saw first-hand the stress that financial insecurity could cause. "I remember deciding at eight-years-old that when I was my parents' age, I would never want to be stressed about my electric bill," she says. That desire shaped her approach to work and risk. "I knew that working for other people wouldn't necessarily give me the freedom I wanted and at least when you are an entrepreneur, the risk is your own." She didn't begin with a grand business plan - she moved from Canada to New York to study at Columbia University and her tuition plan fell through so she had to get a job to support herself. "You can't sit around thinking: 'What am I going to do? You have to survive. I knew I had to use the skills I had to support myself and then I would figure it out." She started working as a personal trainer and taking beauty classes in the evening. "What ended up transpiring was that I was quite good at the beauty industry job," she says and eventually she dropped out of university to pursue a career in it. Working in her salon, Kilgore says she was involved in every aspect of the business from the laundry, to performing treatments and training staff. She says that practical experience was invaluable when she later opened Bliss Spa in London in the 1990s.