A year or so ago, not that many people had heard of Louisa Schneider's ear piercing brand, even those who had actually been stung by her licensed nurses. But she made a dramatic move to change all that, and today if you have a tween (or even a body part in bed), you probably know the name of her company: Rowan. It is not only safe; it's the cool place to go.
Schneider punctured the market, so to speak, by treating piercing as a medical procedure. It was a new idea in 2017, and perhaps obvious in retrospect, but it had to fail and rotating to find the right business modelone that would allow her brand to shine as the hypoallergenic jewelry she sells. Today, by all accounts, Rowan has found her abyss. With 400 employees, it is on track this year to have 65 stores and an annual rate of $100 million in revenue. All of this made Schneider one of 20 finalists on our Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 list of innovative leaders.
So you started Rowan in 2017 as a concierge drilling service in New York, where nurses would go to people's homes and do the honors. How did the nurse job come about?
I used to work at a hedge fund, looking at retailers like the drilling companies that were doing well in malls. Around that time my daughter was born and I thought, I won't take it where I went as a 12-year-old. My parents were both doctors. My sister is a gynecologist. All my aunts are nurses. And they said, “Oh, we pierce patients' ears all the time.” At that moment a light bulb went off and I realized that this is a medical procedure – and it's no wonder that a woman's health care issue has yet to be properly addressed. So I really started doing the research, and the negative rate was about 30%, if you can believe it, which means an earring stuck in the back or an infection or a poor fit. And now we can lower that rate to less than 1%.
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Fast forward to late 2022 when Rowan had kiosks in about 300 Target stores. What happened next?
Target gave us tremendous credibility where a nurse could be willing to miss a shift to join Rowan and fill her hospital job, which would otherwise have been much more difficult at the time . But our customers didn't realize they were getting a Rowan piercing, they thought they were getting a targeted piercing from a nurse. And so for me, building a brand, it didn't work. I wouldn't be able to develop one profitable business doing it. And so we left.
Was it a difficult decision?
Very very difficult. Many sleepless nights. Like I said, it's really hard to build a brand experience in someone else's four walls. And that wasn't a shortcoming of Target. That was just the reality of the situation. It could be anywhere. Target was a great partner. They've done well by bringing in well-known and well-known fashion designers or even Starbucks, but in the case of a new company just starting out, it's challenging. So while a target growth opportunity looks really interesting to investors and on an Excel spreadsheet, it can often be very misleading when you're talking to the human beings involved like your customers and employees. After doing this, I realized that focusing on building Rowan's own studies made more sense.
So, starting in 2023, how did you grow your brand to 65 stores this year and an annual rate of $100 million?
We already had several Rowan studios that were performing well. And we were easily able to open in cities where we had a Target presence and already had trained nurses who wanted to work with Rowan. At this rate, we are growing almost 100% per year. It's just been very roller-coaster.
Rowan sells earrings and other products as well. Are there any new innovations in the last year?
That's what I'm excited about. So many girls play sports and get their ears pierced and get on a soccer field and have a big problem. So last year we introduced our sports studs – soft earrings that you can put on and play hard wearing. Having spent a lot of time in the fields myself, I know it's a real pain point and when it happens, it's pretty traumatic.
Now that people know they're getting drilled at Rowan, how can you bring in more customers? What's your secret sauce?
When you return to third grade with pierced ears, everyone notices and asks, “Where did you go?” So we make sure that every customer who leaves feels like they had a five-star experience. And it pays off in word of mouth marketing.