When Anastasia Soare started her brand Anastasia Beverly Hills from one room salon back in the 1990s, eyebrows were pencil-thin and an afterthought. 25 years (and one legendary appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show) later, she’s become synonymous with eyebrows, created a multi-billion dollar brand and revolutionized the beauty industry. Today, we spoke to Anastasia about how she’s still an industry pioneer after all these years, and why she had an unshakeable belief that she’d be successful.
In this episode, Anastasia shares:
How her upbringing in Romania influenced her as a businesswoman
The story of how she convinced a landlord to give her space in Beverly Hills
How Oprah changed her life
What it’s like to work with her daughter to grow her brand
On Growing the Brand
Anastasia: So my husband didn't work, okay. One Sunday, I opened the LA Times and I said, “I'm going to rent a room in Beverly Hills in a salon.” And he looked at me like, “Are you crazy?” I want to open my own business. And he said, “You know, they are American people here. They were born here, they went to school here, and they don't own their business. And you just came a year and a half ago and you want to open your own business.” And I looked at him and I said, “You know what? Do you know what we sacrificed that much? We left our family, our home, and everything… I'm not gonna sit here. I have to do something that my dream is so crazy that I will be afraid to, but I have to do it. Otherwise, we go back to Romania.” So I rented the room and from ‘92 to ‘96, I promoted my brand. I was doing more and more eyebrows and almost became the best kept secret in Hollywood. In ‘96, I decided to expand. So I rented a space in Beverly Hills. It took me like two hours to convince the landlord because he couldn't believe that I could pay rent in Beverly Hills doing eyebrows. But I will not give up. I never gave up.
On Her Connection with Her Customers
Anastasia: The best advice I could give is that you just need to learn everything about your customer. What they want, what they want, and they don't even know they want, and you could offer them, but it needs to be genuine. If you think that you do this and you will fool your customer, you are totally wrong. The customer is very intelligent. And you have to do it with love…. My first priority was to be the best in what I did. Create the best product, shape the best eyebrows, master my craft. My client trusted me, believed in me.
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