A laser treatment left me burned. Now I run a six-figure clinic.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Simone Steele, founder of Queen Aesthetics Wellness and Beauty Clinic and inclusive sunscreen company Simply Shady. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I decided to start my own business after getting burned — literally.

I was a board-certified physician’s assistant at a plastic surgery office in Houston, and I went to another clinic looking for laser treatment for my own skin concerns. What could’ve been a confidence-boosting procedure in the right hands left me with burns and pigmentation problems for years. I don’t want anybody else to feel like I did.

After that experience, I decided to create my own business in Houston called Queen Aesthetics Wellness and Beauty Clinic. The concept would be more of a haven, where I could take the time to sit down and talk to my clients the way I wanted to, and where I could make sure the practitioners felt confident treating all skin types. It would be a place where I could generally make women feel better about themselves.

I started with grit and on-the-ground growth

I started my business in 2019 by doing in-home Botox and filler parties. I wasn’t able to get traditional financing at first, so this allowed me to launch without needing the money to rent a space and helped me test pricing and build customer relationships.

From the start, my biggest growth strategy was making sure we delivered great customer service at parties, so people would go out of their way to see me when we opened a brick-and-mortar in 2021.

Focusing on customer service also increased our word-of-mouth marketingwhich is important because people don’t always trust online reviews. Building a personal connection with people has been the biggest driver for the business, helping us grow into a six-figure clinic with a 62% rebooking rate.

Our customer service includes a personal follow-up call within the following week, not just texts and emails. I used to make every call, but as we’ve grown, that hasn’t been sustainable. Now, I have an assistant make those same follow-up calls.

We also offer memberships that give customers benefits such as a free facial. These monthly offerings offer us steady revenue, even during an uncertain economic climate.

I used one business to start another

Eventually, I noticed a gap in the market. We always tell our clients to protect their skin, but they told us they were unhappy with the sunscreen options available to them, especially for people of color, who often have to deal with a white cast from sunscreen.

I have a degree in biochemistry, so I started testing some formulations at home to create inclusive, mineral sun care that corrects and protects. I ended up working with a cosmetic chemist to finalize my idea and, in 2024, launched Simply Shady.

Queen Aesthetics was the foundation for Simply Shady because, without it, I wouldn’t have had the beta testers I needed: About 200 of our customers tested the products over 45 days and gave feedback.

My customer base allowed me to have a successful product launch and consistent sales from people already coming into the office. We sold over 1,000 units and generated more than $50,000 in revenue within the first year without any outside capital.

Now, we can pair marketing for both businesses. Many of our estheticians recommend the product during treatment. And we have a small store attached to our clinic, which gives us a two-for-one use of our space. A client can walk into our office, see that we added a new product, and we can take them over to the store to try it and do some shade matching. When we attend community events, we can spread the word about the sunscreen, but also offer a paired service, like a facial.

One day, I want Simply Shady to be like Supergoop, where everyone knows us for sunscreen. Right now, I’m still working on the back-end tasks, making sure the formula is really good, and figuring out how to translate our in-person brand experience to e-commerce to get a good conversion.

Sometimes, I feel like I should be further along, but I know I need to make sure the base framework is good to propel the business to the next level.