Recently, Beauty By Me co-founder Charles Brandon arrived at work with the company's head of software Walter Wallace. The local startup has a 4,000-square-foot space at the Schilling Farms Business Center in Collierville. But, because Brandon didn’t want to pay a signage fee, the office doesn’t have a sign.
And this caused Wallace to crack a joke.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. “Just call ourselves Blank Beauty?”
Despite the sarcasm, Brandon considered the idea. The startup’s flagship device is like a Keurig, only it dispenses custom-colored nail polish. You can take a photo of your purse, shoes, or any object you have in mind and send it to the device, which creates a nail polish of that color within minutes.
Because it looks to have customers “fill in the blank,” Brandon said, having the word “blank” in the name made sense.
So, Beauty By Me officially changed its name to Blank Beauty on April 17. And that’s not the only recent development coming from the organization, which has almost $2 million in funding and 16 employees, most of whom hail from the Memphis area.
Major partnerships
Initially, the company’s plan was to launch with a B2B rollout, offering salons professional versions of its device. These were previously expected to hit the market before the end of January; and they would be followed, eventually, by consumer models of the product used in homes. While both are still part of the plan — Brandon said they’re ready for a coast-to-coast launch in nail salons — the timing has changed, and Beauty By Me could go down another path first.
Brandon and co. have realized their device can easily be repurposed to create not just custom nail polish, but other custom cosmetic offerings, like foundation, skin care, liquid makeup, and lip products — which provides them with a conundrum.
Focusing only on nail polish means they could miss out on an array of other potential business opportunities. At the same time, however, they can’t launch with nail, foundation, skin care, liquid makeup, and lip products all at once.
So, Blank Beauty is planning to create a larger, more expensive retail version of its device, similar to a kiosk found in the stores of large retail chains. The plan is to partner with large cosmetics companies — allowing them to launch multiple product categories quickly — which would then have the devices placed in the stores. The cosmetics companies would provide Blank Beauty with their product formulas, minus the coloring.
“All I have to say to these vendors is, ‘Hey guys, don’t add in color,’” Brandon explained. “’Just give us this blank product.’"
Customers could then go to the device in the store, customize the color, and leave with their nail polish or other beauty product. They could select a color with their smartphone camera, or choose one saved to the device. As Brandon explained, it would be like walking into a Home Depot to get a paint color matched. And though he didn’t provide specific names, Brandon asserted that they’ve spoken with multiple Fortune 500 companies.
“We can reduce their square footage, give them more sustainable, just-in-time manufacturing, and we can also give the customer something they love,” he said.
What types of products such machines offer could vary. Some, Brandon explained, might focus on nail polish, while others could be focused on skin care and foundation products. The devices could find their way into retailers sooner than you might think, too.
“To make a nail salon device — which we have — you have to make it affordable, and small, and it has to have specialty in nails,” Brandon said. “To make a retail one, it can be expensive, and larger; it’s honestly an easier engineering challenge. … I think we can have a version of the retail device in stores by the end of the year, if we have the right partners lined up and they’re willing to accelerate our efforts.”
Shipped to you
While Blank Beauty looks to partner with a major cosmetics company, it’s launched an online offering for consumers, who can order a custom nail polish online — click here to try it out — and have it shipped to their home. Brandon acknowledges that the website is currently “clunky,” but said they’ve partnered with a London-based marketing company that will soon have it looking like it “crawled out of Apple HQ.”
The startup has also found significant advantages to being headquartered in the Memphis area, with its products arriving quickly, and the cost of living low.
“We have a 4,000-square-foot office, filled with 3D printers, a lab, and a software development corner. You can’t have that in the Bay Area [at the same price],” Brandon said. “Investors are surprised by how much we can stretch a dollar because the cost of living is so cheap. … We’re running lean, but we’re running fast."
