Salonist aims to bring technological transformation to the beauty and wellness industry- Neeraj Gupta

Everything we do is practice for something greater than where we currently are.  Practice only makes for improvement.  – Les Brown

In 2015, Mr. Neeraj Gupta met one of his friends in Singapore. He was running a Salon in Paragon Mall Orchard Road Singapore. They have shared their business perspectives-where they are lagging, what are the productive approaches, how they are converting the visitors, and all.  Knowing that Salon's business is growing and even then his friend is not generating sales, Mr. Gupta becomes keen to know the pitfalls behind.  For the same, his team started visiting the other Salons in Singapore. 

 The research has clarified that with so much chaos in managing the Salon, they are failing to streamline the appointment, billing & invoice, inventory, sales reports, data security, and more. 

 The Salon business in the 90s was using the old or conventional techniques for operating their day or day activities. Most of them were only using manual ways to complete the tasks. The analysis said that there is a lot that needs to be improved. 

 In crux, we can say that the beauty and wellness industry needs an easy-to-use and reliable solution that supports the absolute ecosystem of business activities.  Considering all,  Mr. Neeraj Gupta decided to create an all-in-one tool that supports or optimizes the daily needs of business operations.  His scrum masters have used Trello and Jira to manage the goals and created a cloud-based Solution- Salonist in 2017 in Singapore.

 This is a Salon Software that aims to satisfy all the challenges faced by Salons, spas, medical spas, aesthetic skin clinics, massage therapy centers, etc, hence, promoting their brand value. 

 It was first launched in the beta version and later installed in other locations of Paragon Mall Singapore. They have given their inputs; thereafter, have improved or added features as per the business specifications.

 Begins Neeraj, “ This experience has given me an in-depth understanding of the pain points of this beauty and wellness industry. "

Salon Management Software to Revolutionize the Beauty Industry - 

Currently, Salonist is used by a number of Salons in 60 countries. The diverse array of features it includes let it fit in the industry of all sizes.  However, enabling the Salon owners to improve the business visibility, save time, increase revenue, and customer retention rate. From online appointments, POS (Point of Sale), Report & Analytics, Multi-location management, Reward, and Loyalty program,  product inventory to online store (to sell online products to Salon), it has all!

Salonist is a simple, flexible, and easily accessible tool with compelling calendar scheduling functionality responsible for Salon bookings.

 Says Neeraj, “We are the power to revolutionize the ways the SMEs are operating, converting leads to customers."

10K Customers, 60 Countries, Expanding 100% Y-O-Y

Salonist holds 10,000 customers across 60 countries. From this, 60% are in Singapore/USA and 40% in India. As Neeraj has not revealed the actual revenue rate, it is expected to be $1 Mn. Though, he has said that Salonist is developing more than 100% year on year by means of ARR.

In the past few years, particularly, it has added a bunch of potential customers. Big names, like Knuckout, Abila Beauty Salon, Kelture Aveda, Amuma, Studio 99, Kosa Wellbeing, Oregano Spa, and Salon have chosen Salonist in the last year. It has 100+ skilled teams of professionals.

 The startup profited from monthly subscriptions registered by customers. Also, it has different avenues like selling consumables, such as emails and SMS integrated.

Neeraj reveals, "In Singapore, we have the credit card processing method for customers to process the payments. Our main focus is on those businesses that have different outlets and strong business presence in the wellness industry."

Though, in the USA,  Salonist experienced challenges from competitors like Zenoti, Shedul, Phorest, and MindBody Online.  Mr. Gupta has felt that these names do not provide customer support and products to the wellness industry. In these particular categories, Salonist is leading and is unique in its own terms or offerings.

And, this leads him to turn the business of Salonist into $50 to $70 Mn by 2024.  In the coming years, more unique features such as Whatsapp API and Shopify integration are anticipated to be included to make it accessible for major beauty and wellness industries.

India, Cloud, and Approaching Customers Globally

 As Salonist customers are based in Singapore and other countries, Neeraj believes to expand the business in India majorly because of the increased number of Salon chains there. 

 He also added to offer mobile-based Salon software as mobile usage is more than that of the desktop one, particularly in the rural regions. Also, when questioned if ever a Salonist faced some issue in selling products from India, he denied it. Because of the sales team in India and Singapore/USA, it was easy for them to sell abroad. Even, there was less of a percentage of resistance there, surprisingly, adoption was more!

“For start-ups that prefer to go global, Neeraj pushes to work on one market niche.  Yes, not everyone can reach globally, particularly, large B2B companies, so selling in foreign markets is part of the company's global strategy. But, eventually, he believes in a golden sentence-create a founder-centric company, a feasible product, and approach or secure the first customers, rather than bothering about metrics.”