For Emmalee Cinotti, owning Braidbabes was a full circle moment.
She met the startup's co-founder and then-CEO, Emmily Bowman, several years ago at a Buffalo Boss Babes event in East Aurora. Both entrepreneurs were early in their business journeys and became “instant friends.”
Cinotti has been a frequent Braidbabes user since the startup began, including booking the business for her company’s first Christmas party. Her business Emmalee’s Memories is a princess party entertainment company for kids.
Fast forward a handful of years later and Cinotti early this year bought all the assets of Braidbabes from Bowman and is operating the business out of her multi-use building at 21 Elm St., the same place she first met Bowman.
“I was always looking for ways to expand my portfolio,” Cinotti said. “(Braidbabes) has a tremendous following, so that was huge when you’re taking on a new company. … It's pretty cool to see the effect the brand has had in Western New York and expanding outside of that."
Since it launched in 2019, Braidbabes, an on-demand mobile braiding service startup, has grown to Nashville and Scottsdale, Arizona. As of early 2023, the business had done $1.7 million in total revenue, booked about 12,000 appointments and had well-known local investors like Launch NY and the Buffalo Angels in the business' history.
Cinotti said Bowman was looking for a change of pace and was moving out of the Buffalo area when she asked Cinotti late last year if she was interested in buying the business. Bowman did not return Business First’s requests for comment.
By acquiring the startup’s assets, Cinotti did not take on Braidbabes’ liabilities. Bowman dissolved her entity, and Cinotti continues to operate under the company name, Braidbabes. Terms of the deal were not released.
With Cinotti already owning a mobile event company, Braidbabes’ services and business model made sense.
“For me personally, it’s like expanding on that specialty that I already had,” she said.
Cinotti, a Buffalo native and graduate of Iroquois High School, got her undergraduate degree in accounting and an accounting MBA from Canisius University. She was a Le Roy police officer for a few years during the pandemic, and she and her husband Tony own United Technology Services and own and operate 21 Elm St. as a collaborative office building for female business owners.
When it comes to Braidbabes, she’s retaining all three locations – Buffalo, Nashville and Scottsdale, Arizona – and all the business’ about 30 braiders. To users, the company will continue to operate very similarly to how it has run in the past.
But one thing will change: While Bowman wanted to make Braidbabes a national company, Cinotti’s focus is closer to home, and she’s not going the typical startup/venture capital route.
“My goal is to expand the market here,” she said. “I’m not closing off the option of potentially expanding into new markets, but I think that the focus for the time being… is within the community where it started.”
She also said her No. 1 priority is the experience people have when they book the business. That comes from customers’ and braiders’ feedback.
The new owner went through the multi-day braider bootcamp, partially so she could see the process first-hand.
“What can we do different to make the training process a little bit better?” she said. “There was a lot I took from that that we started implementing from onboarding braiders."
