From SaaS to Salons: How Jordan Feise Built Two of a Kind Brows

Alan Li (00:01)
Welcome to opening soon, a podcast where we interview retail founders about how they started and run their brick and mortar businesses. I'm your host, Alan Li, I run Signs and Mirrors where we make beautiful signs and furniture for retail stores. I also help run FotoLab a self-portrait studio with locations in New York city and Houston.

Alan Li (00:20)
Today's guest, Jordan Feise is the founder of Two of a Kind an eyebrow studio based in Santa Monica, California. Previously, Jordan spent nearly a decade in high growth technology startups before renting a Sprinter van to kickstart her entrepreneurial journey. We dive into how Jordan bootstrapped her business with $20,000, reached profitability in three months, and her three-part hiring strategy, which has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard.

Alan Li (00:45)
Jordan, thanks so much for joining us on the Opening Soon Podcast. We're really excited to have you here today.

Jordan Feise (00:49)
Thanks for having me.

Alan Li (00:50)
So before we dive into two of a kind, I noticed that you worked at some of the hottest Silicon Valley startups over the last decade or so. Talk to me about those experiences and what you learned and what made you decide to pivot to doing two of a kind.

Jordan Feise (00:54)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, it's a big pivot for sure. Yeah, I spent 10 years in tech, specifically B2B SaaS, always on marketing teams. And I mean, the cool thing was I got exposure to a lot of different sized companies. So I worked at Gong when it was a unicorn getting its $8 billion valuation. I also worked at really scrappy series A, series B companies that had like zero marketing budget and we were just having to figure it out. So I got to see companies.

at different stages of growth, which was really, really cool. And I think I learned a lot just about, yeah, how to grow a business at different stages. And so those learnings are transferable.

Alan Li (01:43)
huh. Did you have a certain stage that you preferred, whether it be, you know, the hundreds of millions that Gong raised or like the more scrappy series A startup?

Jordan Feise (01:50)
Yeah, I mean, I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for the zero to one phase and just like, you know, making something from nothing. But I think, I mean, the leader stages are interesting too. I mean, they always say, you know, the people who take you from zero to one aren't the ones who are going to take you to the next level. yeah, so far I'm really liking the early stages.

Alan Li (02:11)
Okay, so you're doing a lot of marketing, you're doing branding there. How does Two of a Kind fit in and when did you decide to take that leap?

Jordan Feise (02:18)
Yeah, so I had the idea when I was living in New York, actually. It was really, it's like classic founder trope of, know, I saw something that I wanted in the market and then decided to create it. So when I lived in Arizona, actually went to school in Arizona, I had an amazing brow artist and I don't even know how I like ended up getting my brows done for the first time, but I felt like it totally changed my face. And I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Like, you know, that like light bulb moment. I was like, wow, this is like, I love

this and then after school I proceeded to move to San Francisco, New York and LA and I found it was really difficult to find a brow artist that I liked and trusted and what I found is the market was really segmented into low-end cookie cutter services that are probably like $30 to get your brows done or you had this like celebrity catered service that was maybe $300 to get your brows done.

Alan Li (03:12)
300 for brows Wow.

Jordan Feise (03:13)
300. Yeah.

So, and I just felt like neither one was really built for me. Like, I felt like I cared about aesthetics. I wanted a consistent service, and a reasonable price point, you maybe something premium, but not luxury. And yeah, essentially set out to build that. And there was many trials and tribulations along that path, but that vision still holds true today.

Alan Li (03:36)
Gotcha. And I think when you first started out, you did a couple pop-ups, is that correct? Is that how you decided to test the idea of talk me through that thought process?

Jordan Feise (03:45)
Yeah, just a couple. Yeah, so our whole business was a pop-up for the first nine months. I bought a branded Sprinter van and we ran that around LA and we scaled it doing four pop-ups a week. So we were like fully in the pop-up business for months. Yeah.

Alan Li (04:00)
Wow.

And this, you were doing this full time or were you working a job at this point too? You were working full time and doing four pop-ups per week. my gosh.

Jordan Feise (04:07)
was still working full time. Yeah.

Yeah, it was, I was working still in tech for the first two years of the business. just quit my corporate job in January of this year when we opened the storefront. So the first two and a half years was juggling both.

Alan Li (04:25)
So this is 2023 to 2025. You started doing the pop-ups while working full-time, and you're doing four events per week.

Jordan Feise (04:33)
Yeah, that's what it scaled to. It started off as one and then it's two and then it's three, but yeah, that's where we ended up.

Alan Li (04:38)
What did you learn from the pop-ups?

Jordan Feise (04:41)
my gosh, so much. One, think it was, it was an amazing way for us to get our brand out there and just grow and get some clientele, right? Brand new brand. Nobody knew us zero clients. How do we start to get our name out there and gain trust? We're so much in the business of trust, right? People are trusting us with their face. and I think working with these other brands, we kind of got a little bit of the halo effect, right? Because we're in the store that you like, this, this brow studio, maybe I'll give them a try.

Alan Li (04:58)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Feise (05:08)
And we were really consistent. a lot of some would be one-off pop-ups like more of an event thing. Some we were there every single week. So we were really trying to build that like loyal clientele like we'll be here every Monday. You know where to find us. We'll see you next month kind of thing. ⁓

Alan Li (05:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jordan Feise (05:25)
So I think it was really great for us to get out there. There's pros and cons. The pros are great exposure. People see you walking by. You can co-promote all the things. Drawbacks are very logistically intensive. You have to set up and break down to make $1. So that wears on you after a while.

Alan Li (05:44)
Yeah. And was this just you or did you, were you working with someone else to do these pop-ups? One Brow artist

Jordan Feise (05:48)
I had one brow artist on the team. Yeah,

it was just just her and I at the time.

Alan Li (05:53)
Okay, and then for all the locations that you were doing pop-ups with outside of the events, were you just reaching out to this coffee shop or this company and being like, hey, I'd love to come provide my services at your space or how did you go about?

Jordan Feise (06:06)
Yeah, yeah. Finding the partners was interesting. What I ended up finding is there are some brick and mortar businesses that are very open to collaborating and having people in, and there are some that are not. And you could just kind of go figure out who those are. I think sometimes a lot of the bigger companies have, you know, over 50 locations, big corporate brands. They're a little bit tougher to get in with. They need to run it up the ladder. They need approvals. So a lot of the local businesses were a lot easier. But we had

Alan Li (06:16)
Mm.

Yeah.

Jordan Feise (06:33)
like agreements that kind of varied. Like some were just like bring foot traffic in. We just want people in the store. Some got a rev share, so we agreed on a percentage of sales. Some was like a rental fee. So there's like a day fee for us to pop up there, like a flat fee. And so each one was like very unique. But again, a lot of leg work to just get, you know, one pop up to happen. So yeah.

Alan Li (06:41)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about the logistical challenges. I think I read somewhere that the first one was maybe not even going to happen at some point.

Jordan Feise (07:06)
Yeah, it's so funny. Funny because we were able to do it, but we're like setting up the night before, you know, like getting everything perfect in the van, making everything's great. And we go outside and there's no van. And of course,

Jordan parked it in front of a fire hydrant and it got towed. And so I spent like whole night before just at the tow yard and we ended up getting it like 9 p.m. the night before and we're able to have our first pop-up, but it almost didn't happen because it literally had everything in it and we were fully booked the next day. So yeah, that was, that was fun.

Alan Li (07:22)
no. ⁓

Oh man, that's wild. But it seems like if you're doing up to four towards the end of the pop-up series that there was sort of demand and you were able to meet with different customers and understand what they were looking for. How did you go from the pop-up to then finding and opening your own space? Like what was the thought process behind making that leap?

Jordan Feise (07:58)
Yeah, so we actually did a little in-between step, which was we ended up running a loft space in a hair salon for a year, which was, think, a good kind of like stepping stone in between like doing pop-ups and a five-year lease. So those kind of spaces are very difficult to find because they're typically not advertised.

Alan Li (08:05)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (08:19)
Realtors aren't representing them, but we were able to get like a 250 square foot space in a hair salon. So was all beauty services in Venice. And that was really our first home. And so it got us off the streets, so to speak, and just allowed clients to be able to come to us. And at that point we hired another brow artist. We were open six days a week and we maxed out utilization on that space within four months. And then at that point I was like, okay, we're ready for.

storefront.

Alan Li (08:46)
wow, and this is 250 square feet in another salon and you're still working full-time tech job and then you hired effectively two brow artists now to help manage your clients.

Jordan Feise (08:56)
Exactly, they would take all the appointments and they would each be there three days a week and yeah, we were we were booked up at that point

Alan Li (09:03)
how did you get to your actual space that you have now? Like what was the sourcing process? How big is it? I know I think you're in Santa Monica and Venice, so how crazy is rent around there?

Jordan Feise (09:13)
Yeah, it's definitely an interesting market. think what's maybe noteworthy about our story, well, we ended up in a space that's 950 square feet. So on the small-er side, and I would say that's intentional, I don't really have hopes of having like, you know, a mega space or, you know what I mean? Like the flagship storefront that's like bigger than that. Like me, that is the concept. And obviously we hope to repeat that and have many two of a kinds, but that's kind of our sweet spot and the perfect spot for

Alan Li (09:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Feise (09:43)
It allows us to have four brow chairs, a front desk, retail space, still have a break room and bathroom, you know, all of the things.

But I think we definitely want to keep a very calm, relaxing vibe. And I don't think having 10 brow chairs would allow us to do that. So that's our sweet spot from the business perspective. Also, there's sometimes less competition for those sized spaces. There's also less of them, so that can be an issue. But typically, there's less competition. There's less businesses that can actually fit into that space. So that can go in our favor.

Alan Li (10:15)
Yeah, I remember stopping by last year and the space is beautiful and I know you were also still designing it. So how did you pick out the furniture pieces? How did you do the design ⁓ and get that aesthetic that you're looking for?

Jordan Feise (10:19)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, so interesting story there.

we opened in January and I would say the space is objectively beautiful. Like you said, you're like, it's gorgeous. But I think we didn't quite land where we wanted to from a brand perspective. So we actually are working on kind of a V2 design project that should be finished in August. So you'll have to come back and see it once it's finalized. But yeah, I think it's, I mean, we're fully operational. think the clients like it, but

I

think what...

We decided it was really important for us to get this one right and have this be like the big representation of the brand and be the blueprint for everything else we do want to do. think in so many spaces of the business right now, I just keep saying we're in this phase of like perfecting the recipe from how we hire, how we train, what the client experiences, what it looks like, what is our marketing like? Like we're just, you know, perfecting the recipe before we then look to location two, three, four.

We really want to make sure we have everything dialed in.

Alan Li (11:30)
definitely. And is that how you found our signs too?

Jordan Feise (11:33)
Yeah, that's, yeah, I think I must have found you guys maybe a month or two before we open and you guys have done work with so many cool brands and I feel like it was just, yeah, such an aesthetic decision. It was like, okay, this is exactly what we need.

Alan Li (11:46)
cool. So talk to me about two of a kind. How did you come up with the name? How do you differentiate between other brows studios in LA?

Jordan Feise (11:55)
Yeah, so two of a kind, it's a play off of the saying, should be sisters, not twins. So that's, yeah, just saying like they shouldn't be like identical, but they should, you match. But I feel like it really speaks to like our very natural aesthetic that we're focused on. Yeah, I think with two of a kind, how we differentiate.

You know, I kind of explained earlier the gap that I saw in the market. And so I think two of the kind is one personalized brow services, because whether I went to the $30 brow or the $300 brow, I feel like I wasn't getting a consultation. was like, can we talk about what we did last time? didn't, I wanted some adjustments and they would just start going for it. And I'd be like, this is my face. It'd be like, if you sat down for a haircut and they didn't ask you what you wanted, it'd just be like, wait a second. Can we like have a two minute conversation here real quick? So.

Alan Li (12:33)
Mm-hmm.

really?

Jordan Feise (12:44)
Yeah, that was something that I felt like was very much missing. So we really pride ourselves on taking a very like personalized customized approach. We do consultations at every appointment. We even have order forms, which is really our way of trying to put language to your brow order, so to speak, because a lot of people, they have a vision in their mind of what they want and what the quote perfect brow is for them, but they don't know how to articulate it. And what the perfect brow is for each person is also different. And so we're trying to kind of extract that.

Alan Li (13:11)
Yeah.

Jordan Feise (13:13)
and help get people language around that. So we do custom order forms for every client around the height, the color, the shape, the length, like really trying to distill down like here are all the elements of a brow and these are kind of like the options. Obviously we can't make hair appear from nowhere but it's like okay if we're going on a growth journey then like let's call that out. So very very customized approach I think compared to other studios. The next thing is I would say our pricing.

It is premium, but very approachable. I never want people to be priced out of.

proper brow care. And I say proper brow care because I think that's, you know, can be different from getting your brows done in the nail salon. But really somebody that's like taking that time to shape and, you know, take your other facial features into consideration and listen to you and all of those things. So yeah, I would say we're approachable and just welcoming, friendly, inclusive, all of the things. And then I think our branding is our other big differentiator. A lot of brow studios don't

invest as heavily in branding and

Alan Li (14:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Feise (14:16)
I think for us, this was, again, something I felt like was missing in the market from an interior's perspective to a website perspective. for us, from the first time you see a two of a kind ad to when you go and book online on our custom booking flow to when you actually come into the space to the printables you're going to get to take home, my goal is that all of those moments are standing out and putting us in a category of our own.

Alan Li (14:41)
Yeah. And you only focus on brows and you don't do other services, right? No nails. No, no, else.

Jordan Feise (14:48)
Correct, yeah, today we are just focused on brows. There have been discussions about launching other services, but it will stay very, very close to the brow. We've been thinking about lashes, but so we won't do nails, we won't do facials, we won't do massages, but yeah, still keeping it with the two.

Alan Li (15:05)
Gotcha.

Yeah, no, I think having a really good focus and being known in the market for doing one thing really well is a great way to stand out. it's always like, well, there's other add-ons that we could potentially do, but it's good to be thoughtful about it.

Jordan Feise (15:13)
Yeah.

Exactly. And I think anything else we ever do will just be an add-on, right? Like, brows will always be our first focus.

Alan Li (15:29)
Gotcha. And I noticed that you all have been featured in a few magazines and have been rated as one of the go-to spots in LA for getting your brows done. How did you get that sort of press?

Jordan Feise (15:41)
Yeah, I think honestly that most of the press we've had today has been organic, just kind of through, you know, either friends or people coming in and seeing the space. We did bring on a PR team earlier this year for the expected launch, but interesting story here, we ended up opening two weeks after the LA fires. So our...

Alan Li (15:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Feise (16:06)
whole marketing strategy changed a lot, right? Like nobody wanted to hear about the hot new Brow Studio. So all of the press we were planning on doing, all of the out of home campaign influencer campaign, we just put a pause on everything. And now we're actually planning to do that probably once the V2 of the design is done is like pick some of those campaigns back up and finally let them see the light of day. But yeah, we had to really pivot there and

Alan Li (16:09)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Jordan Feise (16:31)
Yeah, we just, ended up offering free services for anyone impacted by the fires. did over a hundred free services ⁓ for those who were impacted. And I mean, it's the least that we could do to show up for our community during that time. And I was just happy. think the fact that people wanted to get their brows done was, yeah, I think just people wanted like any sense of normalcy, you know? And that felt like, okay, I can just sit back and relax and have a moment to myself.

Alan Li (16:37)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And V2 is with the rebrand, you're planning to go more to the other outlets and do more press. And that's expected in the next few months, you said?

Jordan Feise (17:07)
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a total rebrand, maybe like slight brand evolution, but then the interior design is definitely gonna look a lot different.

Alan Li (17:15)
I also saw that you were doing pop-ups with like Goop and some other really cool brands as well. And were you doing that while you had the store or was that before you opened your physical store?

Jordan Feise (17:26)
Yeah, now it's been both. So the Goop pop-up actually happened last month. We popped up at the Goop Brentwood store at Country Mart, and that was amazing. Definitely one of the brands that I had always dreamed of collaborating with. We also collabed with Reformation, which was another one that was on my dream board. We've done Jenny Kane, Playfit. There's been so many.

Yeah, bigger names. Actually now I think we'll probably hire a pop-up manager to kind of like run those events so we can continue doing those because it is such a great brand moment, but right now it needs to be kind of on top of what we're doing in the studio, not instead of.

Alan Li (18:05)
And how big is your team now in terms of brow artists and corporate?

Jordan Feise (18:08)
Yeah, so we have five brow artists, we have four front desk, we have two marketers and myself. So I think we're a team of 12 now.

Alan Li (18:18)
And for your marketing, I noticed that your socials are really curated and they display the services really nicely. you mostly do that yourself or is that your marketing team that helps or is it a combination of both?

Jordan Feise (18:32)
Yeah, I would say I'm very involved because my background is in marketing and I love that, but we do have a social media manager. We actually had a new one just start, I think last month and he's been phenomenal, just so talented, has such a good eye. So we definitely collab and I probably sent him way too many crazy ideas of like, let's try this, let's try that. But ultimately he is in charge of, you know, executing and getting post up and getting things out the door.

Alan Li (18:58)
And how's it going so far? Are you guys profitable? I know it's only been five months, but how's the business going?

Jordan Feise (19:05)
Yeah, the P word. I feel like that's on everyone's mind these days. Yeah, so we were very fortunate even with the situation with the LA fires and everything, we were able to be profitable in our third month open in the studio. things have been going great. Thank you. Thank you. Our utilization rate is around like 85%, which if you consider cancelations and people moving things around, you can't get

Alan Li (19:20)
⁓ Congrats.

Wow.

Jordan Feise (19:34)
much much more.

Alan Li (19:36)
Monday through Saturday, is that right?

Jordan Feise (19:38)
Six days a week right now. Yeah, we actually just switched from being closed on Mondays to being closed on Sundays, but we hope to be open seven days a week soon.

Alan Li (19:46)
85 % utilization. That's great.

Jordan Feise (19:48)
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the name of the game for us. So we're definitely willing to invest in marketing to make that happen. It doesn't happen without ⁓ heavy investment. But yeah, that's where we're at today.

Alan Li (19:57)
Yeah.

And for marketing, what are the most effective channels for you? Is it the pop-ups? Is it the social media or something else

Jordan Feise (20:08)
Yeah, think it's in terms of just driving conversions, we do rely a lot on ads and we've been able to get, you know, a CAC that's like...

15 % of our average ticket size. And so that allows us to be profitable on the first appointment. And then obviously for us, is a retention game from there, which we're very fortunate to also have great client retention. So yeah, that's kind of where we're at today. The organic social obviously plays into that too. Anything we end up doing from an ad perspective, we actually post organically first so that it kind of has that traction.

Alan Li (20:40)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (20:41)
that, put the dollars behind it to drive conversions.

Alan Li (20:45)
How much of your personal brand, Jordan, does that play in supporting your business to the kind?

Jordan Feise (20:50)
Mm-hmm. I feel like I'm just Getting started launching my personal brand I my team has been begging me to like we had actually team photo shoot this week and I finally like on front of the camera and they had been Yeah, asking begging me to do this for months. And so

I don't know. It's interesting to me because this is the whole kind of like creator founder conversation, right? Where it feels like every founder today, I felt a lot of pressure to like be building in public. And it's not that I don't want to, it's just that that's another job entirely. And I'm so focused on driving core metrics for my business and making sure my team is taken care of. That that has always taken precedent for me, but I think we're at a place in the business where

Alan Li (21:24)
Yeah.

Jordan Feise (21:35)
There are people I can now delegate things to, and so I can focus on building a little brand for myself. So I'm actually planning on launching a substack, kind of just about the trials and tribulations of two of a kind and what I've learned and kind of sharing more behind the scenes look of what it means to build a beauty brand today.

Alan Li (21:54)
I would be so excited to read that. And tell me about how you were spending your time in the beginning when you first opened or even before you first opened to where you're spending your time now that you've been able to delegate a little bit.

Jordan Feise (21:55)
Thanks. Yeah, coming soon.

Yeah, God, it's a good question. I mean, when I was working about jobs, was like nights and weekends is when I was working on to kind of now, even though I have my days open, it's funny, I still find myself gravitating to those times to want to get work done. I mean, it's been so focused on hiring these past couple months because we went, I mean,

Alan Li (22:26)
Mm.

Jordan Feise (22:29)
Six months ago, I had a team of two and now I have a team of 12, right? And so we've gone through a lot of hiring in multiple rounds and it's not only the hiring, but know, the finding the right people, but then also training.

them and building out like our training program is so, so, so critical for what we do as well. We are really looking for brow artists that had like three to five years experience, but how are we teaching them the two of a kind way? And what is the two of a kind way and how does that stand out from a process perspective? And I think getting those processes right early is just going to be so beneficial for us down the road and really just like dialing in all of our, our playbooks.

Alan Li (22:54)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (23:10)
And then it's a lot on, you know, retention too. How can we keep the most talented people? Like we offer healthcare to anyone who works more than 30 hours with us, right? So really focused on like, how can this a good work-life balance and just a good overall gig for everyone.

Alan Li (23:29)
Yeah.

Do you have advice on hiring? Because I know that it can be a big challenge for small businesses. Like what has been the most effective way to screen candidates or to interview candidates to determine if they're a good fit for two of a kind?

Jordan Feise (23:34)
you

Yeah, I always do. I have like my three-step hiring process. So the first one for me is always once I have either seen a resume or, you know, seen some initial screening, I always do a 15-minute interview because I know within the first five minutes if it's a go. Oh, yeah. So for me, I don't like doing the longer, like if I could do it shorter, I would, but I feel like 15

Alan Li (24:04)
really?

Like a five

minute block for an interview.

Jordan Feise (24:13)
Yeah, exactly. Okay, and you're No.

Yeah, because for so much, it's the energy, it's the, you you can just tell if the person is a culture fit, think, pretty quickly, there's like the skills fit side of it, and then there's the culture fit. And so that is like my quick kind of like...

Alan Li (24:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Feise (24:30)
vibe check of like, okay, could you see this person working at Two of a Kind Can you see them representing the brand? Do they align with the ethos? Do they understand what we're trying to build? And then I do an in-person interview. So always like to see people in person and just hang out with them. And that's probably like an hour long, just like coffee matcha and my, I'm a big matcha gal, so a coffee matcha hang and...

chat with them about their experience and everything like that. And then for Brow Artists the final interview is doing a trial essentially. So watching them actually do services. So they bring in a model and we sit back and watch how they provide services today. So that's kind of been our go-to model for now.

Alan Li (25:14)
I like the ⁓ vibe check in the beginning and I do feel like you can get a pretty good sense fairly early on. Probably because you've done so many interviews already with other people, you can get that sense really quickly.

Jordan Feise (25:26)
Yeah, and actually I'll share a couple fun stats. So we recently hired for a front desk. We had a front desk roll open, we had a social media roll open, and a Brow Artist roll open for the front desk and social media. We had over 400 applicants for those roles. And yeah, for the social media one, I was hiring one person. So I think it was like, yeah, like a 0.3 % chance or something that.

Alan Li (25:41)
Wow.

my

gosh.

Jordan Feise (25:48)
somebody

got the role. And then I started looking up, like, what's Harvard's acceptance rate? And it's like 3%. And I'm like, it's 10 times harder to get this job than get into Harvard. Probably not true, but statistically, maybe. So yeah, we had a good problem, a very good problem of just having so many candidates to get through for some of these roles that what I ended up doing for those is asking people to send in a video of just like, why do you think you're a good fit for this role?

Alan Li (26:12)
Mmm.

Jordan Feise (26:15)
Those helped with faster screening as well. And then from there, then I did the 15 minute calls because I was like, okay, 100. But even for like a browardist, I'll probably interview, I don't know, 30 to 40 candidates. I'm a big like, let's talk to everyone early and then distill quickly, you know?

Alan Li (26:23)
you

Yeah.

And are you posting these job roles on like LinkedIn or Indeed, how are you sourcing everyone?

Jordan Feise (26:42)
Yeah, so for the social media role, we post that on LinkedIn. For the Esthetician or the Brow Artist roles and Front Desk roles, I post those on Indeed. I've just found that that's where those job seekers go. I do the inverse of those. I end up with zero candidates. So yeah, depending if it's more of like an HQ type role, I'll go to LinkedIn. If it's more of like in studio role, I'm going to Indeed.

Alan Li (26:58)
Makes sense.

Gotcha. I'm curious, given your time over 10 years in tech, what skills did you learn there that have been effective with running your own small business and a physical business because you were in B2B SaaS?

Jordan Feise (27:17)
Yeah.

I right? Couldn't be more intangible. I had no products. There's nothing you could touch. And now I'm completely the opposite. Everything's in person. There's no digital aspect.

Alan Li (27:26)
Uh-huh.

Jordan Feise (27:33)
I think the biggest thing I learned from tech was just trying to how to build processes. I feel like that's a lot of what I did, whether it's on the marketing side and like, how do we run a big campaign? What does a small campaign look like? What does a medium campaign look like? What does a huge launch look like? All of those different things and creating like systems and processes around those. think I get really into that. And I think I've been able to take...

Alan Li (27:52)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (27:55)
those learnings and kind of apply those to two of a kind. So even though we're small, like everything has a process and a protocol for like how we do it and the way we do it.

Alan Li (28:06)
Gotcha. And for people who are interested in getting their brows done maybe for the first time or who haven't had as customized of an experience, what do you recommend that they do?

Jordan Feise (28:10)
you

Yeah, I think I always like to start with the wax. That's our signature service. So it's just signature shaping service with wax, tweezing and trimming. I think that's a great place to start, but we have so many clients who come in who they're like, I've never done my brows before. Let's do a lamination and tint. And in my mind, that's like, that's the works. You know what I mean? Like maybe you build up to that and people are like, let's dive in. I'm like, let's do it. So I think it really depends.

Alan Li (28:34)
interesting.

Jordan Feise (28:41)
what results you're looking for. We also do do a lot of men's brows, which I'm also very passionate about. Like men need to be getting their brows done too. And they, some of them realize that we have plenty of male clients, but a lot of them don't. And I think we...

Alan Li (28:52)
Mm-hmm.

think I've gotten

my brows done twice, two or three times. Yeah.

Jordan Feise (28:59)
Okay, nice.

That's great. Love to hear it. I think, yeah, with all a lot of the other brow concepts are pink, girly, swirly, boss brow, babe.

vibes and I think we very intentionally did not want to be that for many reasons. One, that doesn't appeal to me. don't think that appeals to women today. But two, I want to be inclusive with having a space that men feel like they can step into too and they're not like stepping into this like hyper feminine space where they're not welcome. Like anyone of any gender should feel welcome in our space.

Alan Li (29:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I thought your space felt very welcoming as a male. So kudos. And I'm excited to see the sort of relaunch as well. Jordan, how did you fund all of this? Opening a space in Santa Monica, I'm sure is not cheap. You have 12, 13 employees. I know you're profitable now, but in the beginning, I'm sure there was quite a bit of an upfront investment. How did that work?

Jordan Feise (29:34)
Good.

you

Yeah, so we are completely self-funded to date, which I am very proud of. I made an initial investment in the beginning when we were doing pop-ups. I think it was like 20K, you know, just to get the business off the ground. But then we...

Alan Li (30:05)
Is that like the Sprinter

van and the equipment and?

Jordan Feise (30:08)
There was a lot of marketing actually, because we did a full photo shoot, because I wanted the brand to be a different journey from day one, because that was something that I felt like was missing. So we did a full photo shoot, hired an agency, did the whole branding, built out the website, hired a brow artist, and then had to buy a Sprinter van. So there was the supplies and stuff cost in there as well. I would say for the first,

Alan Li (30:15)
⁓

Jordan Feise (30:29)
year, it was very much a rolling like, okay, now we need more. And now we need more. And I'm just like, you know, transferring from my bank account. but I will say that that initial investment was enough to be like, okay, we're doing this because I probably thought about this idea and like had it towing around in my head for like five years before that. And it was always inching it forward. But I think once I actually committed the capital, then we were able to do things that brought the business to life.

Alan Li (30:42)
Mm.

Jordan Feise (30:54)
And then.

Alan Li (30:56)
Do you feel like that

was like a forcing function? It's like, okay, I just spent $20,000 on a photo shoot and the marketing, like I need to make it work now.

Jordan Feise (31:03)
Yeah, was a good forcing function to just be like, you have to open now. You need to make a dollar back. But I think it also...

We needed it in order to build a business that could open. You know what I mean? So I think it was just necessary. any, you know, any friends or anyone that's starting a business, I'm always like, just make the initial investment and start building. Like you just have to commit to it. But then yeah.

Alan Li (31:15)
Hmm.

And I know you said it

took five years before you actually made that investment. What was that tipping point for you? Was it it's now or never or what made that kick off?

Jordan Feise (31:38)
Yeah, I think I'm gonna write one of my sub stacks about this because the truth is, and I don't know if we can swear, but I got tired of my own shit. Like I had just been saying like, I have this idea, I have this concept and like, I wasn't telling too many people about it, but maybe like the super close people to me knew that this was, you know, a glimmer in my mind. And I mean, when you're...

Alan Li (31:47)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Jordan Feise (31:59)
working full time and living your life, there's always something that it's really hard to prioritize, you know, like actually launching a business. So it was funny, I was traveling for like a month, did was in Europe, I got back, I was just like, feeling very misaligned with my life was in the wrong relationship. I had been drinking to it. So I actually I stopped drinking when I got back from that trip, I got out of that relationship and

Alan Li (32:15)
Mm.

Jordan Feise (32:24)
I was like, I'm launching this business by the end of the year. Like, I'm done. This is what I'm focused on. And then that's when I actually shifted my time to be like, okay, nights and weekends, I'm working on this. And then that's when it actually finally got off the ground. But it takes the financial and time resources for you to actually, you know, execute.

Alan Li (32:27)
Wow.

Yeah, it's interesting because I've spoken with a lot of other founders and it does seem that it coincides a lot of times when a relationship ends. It's like I'm starting a new, I'm starting fresh. This is like the new me. This is what I want to be. And oftentimes it coincides with starting your own business. So it's cool to hear that.

Jordan Feise (32:54)
interesting. Yeah.

Yeah,

those are always like such big transformational times for growth. I mean, I have a couple of friends actually going through breakups now and I'm like, you don't grow during the easy times. You you grow during the tough times. Unfortunately, if we could grow during the easy times, that would be amazing. But I just don't, I don't think that's how it works. So like, yes, it's going to be tough, but you're going to look back on this and be like, I'm so glad I went through that because now I am where I am today.

Alan Li (33:16)
Yes.

Yeah.

Where are you hoping to take Two of a Kind over the next year and the next five years?

Jordan Feise (33:36)
Yeah, my vision is definitely multi locations. I mean, I always look to Drybar as, know, like we're trying to be the Drybar for brows. And obviously they scaled through own locations, franchises, they ended up getting into products. So I see all of those as possibilities. I mean, I think our vision is really to, you know, democratize proper brow care and make it more accessible for people. And I think once we have

you know, a single storefront concept that works and is profitable and we know how to train and hire and retain and all of those things, then there's no reason why, you know, we can't open multiple. I mean, I look at the brow market benefit brow bar has 3,200 locations worldwide. And if you look at like the other, like European wax center has 36 locations, just in LA. So there is a lot of room for growth.

Alan Li (34:27)
Yeah.

Jordan Feise (34:27)
in my opinion. So yeah, to starting to build build that out.

Alan Li (34:32)
For people who are interested maybe in brows, but maybe in the beauty space and are interested in starting a brick and mortar concept, what advice would you have for them as they think about their journey?

Jordan Feise (34:42)
for someone specifically starting in brows.

Alan Li (34:44)
brows or in the beauty space, just opening like a physical location.

Jordan Feise (34:47)
Mmm, I think like

I would just say maybe trust your gut.

you have to know the vision, like be very... I think the good thing about me waiting five years to launch was I had a very, very crystallized version of the vision. Like this wasn't something that I thought of on Tuesday and launched on a Wednesday. Like I had been thinking about the ins and outs of this business for years and...

Alan Li (34:55)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Jordan Feise (35:12)
That can be a pro or a con but I think what it allowed me to do is have a very strong vision around what I wanted to build and what I didn't want to build. So I'd say make sure you have your vision, but then trust your gut. Cause I think there's been times in my journey where you are able to finally like bring in the experts and bring in those people. And most of the time you want to be able to, I think, rely on them and trust them, but sometimes things don't feel aligned. And I think.

Alan Li (35:37)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (35:38)
knowing when that's happening and being able to call it out and catch it early is something I'm working on because I've gotten caught in that a little bit where like this feels wrong. I don't think this is going in the right direction but they know better than I do. They've done this before, you know, and you can like start to rationalize it but at the end of the day as the founder like you are the one holding the vision and should be defending the vision in the way, right, and making sure that

Alan Li (35:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. When you say they,

you mean like other agencies or employees or partners or what do you mean specifically?

Jordan Feise (36:09)
Yeah, I mean, it could be any of the above. specifically, like my mind goes to like some of the creative elements. ⁓ Yeah, it's the design, the interior design for us that I felt like, yeah, I had that gut feeling that this isn't quite where we want it, but overrode kind of that like inner knowing because somebody else knows better than I do.

Alan Li (36:17)
Hmm.

Yeah. Well, I'm really excited to see the new space when it pops up. So final question from me, looking back on your journey over the last, not just two years, but over the last five years as you've thought about this, if there's anything you could have done differently knowing what you know now, what would you do?

Jordan Feise (36:47)
that's a good question.

I think, I mean, there's a lot I wouldn't do differently because I think when I first had this idea, the thought was like, my first thought was like, I need to go raise money. You know, like we need, I need to go, you know, raise around and get some angel investors and like, that's how we're going to get started. And I didn't go that route. And there was a time last year where, again, I thought I need to go raise money before I opened my first storefront. And then I figured out a way to not do it that way. And so I think we've been on this more.

Alan Li (36:57)
Mmm.

Jordan Feise (37:15)
I mean, I don't want say slow and steady, but just, you know, kind of like step by step rather than focused on like we need to go from zero to 100 tomorrow. I think that's also an okay way to grow a business and probably a more sustainable and stable way to grow a business. So I would, yeah, maybe just say like focus, focus on that. And I mean, I think so much of business is just about

Alan Li (37:22)
Yeah.

Jordan Feise (37:40)
staying in the game and like it's about perseverance and like just figuring out how not to die, right? Like it's the last person standing wins, right? So how can you keep growing and not die? Like that's half the game.

Alan Li (37:43)
Totally agree.

Yeah, I mean, venture is probably definitely top of mind because you were working at, know, startups that raised hundreds of millions and millions of dollars. So that was, that was probably a very viable path that you were considering, but.

Jordan Feise (38:05)
I think it's the model I saw for how to grow a business, But it's not the only way.

Alan Li (38:07)
Yeah.

Yes, I think having also spent some time in VC and venture-backed companies, at the end of the day, you still need to build a great business, whether it's venture-funded, whether it's bootstrapped. And I think a lot of people can be disillusioned by raising venture is the success metric, whereas no, actually still need to do the hard work.

Jordan Feise (38:25)
and

Yeah, I feel like raising rounds should not be celebrated. That's just, that's the starting line. It's great that you got people to believe in a vision, but it's definitely, I would tend to agree with you. It's overhyped and the proof is in the pudding.

Alan Li (38:45)
Yeah. And I know you said you were thinking about opening new locations, whether it be through a franchising or corporate-owned route. Would venture be a potential option as you expand to, say, a few corporate-owned locations and you do want to go more aggressively for a nationwide expansion?

Jordan Feise (39:01)
I would say never say never. Right now I think the next couple locations will be able to continue to sell fund. I mean, yeah, a lot of the times the way I think about it, it's like, do we want to have like a boutique brow business where we have, I don't know, 10 to 20 locations and they're running all profitably and we own them all and that's that.

Alan Li (39:19)
Mm-hmm.

mean, that's a great

business.

Jordan Feise (39:24)
I'd be happy with that outcome. Or do we want, you know, a hundred and a product line and franchise, like, you know what I mean?

That is also, I see a potential path towards that, but it's a very different business. My life would look very different. Like the percentage I would own of the company would look very different. My employees' lives look very different. So I feel like I'm at this phase where I'm just taking it one step at a time and seeing what feels right for the business that we want to build and what will also serve our clients best.

Alan Li (39:53)
Yeah. I'm curious what motivates you, because I can tell you're really ambitious and you want to provide something really cool to the world. Where did you get this from?

Jordan Feise (40:04)
my gosh, that's such a good question. I don't know, I guess I just think like we can do anything in this life. Like I truly believe we are all infinitely capable. Like that's a core belief that I have, but I think we can't do everything. There's just not enough time probably. So it's just what do you want to do with the time you have on this earth? And I think I was attracted to marketing and business at like a very young age. was like...

Alan Li (40:19)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (40:28)
president of the business club in my high school. And it was really the only thing in school that ever clicked for me. Like I was always a fine student, but nothing really, no subject really drew me in other than business. And I just always loved it. And...

I don't know, think there's also this time in my early 20s where I looked around at the world and I'm like, every single thing you see, it was just started as an idea in someone's mind. Like this chair, this building, this business, that business, like this water bottle, like whatever it is, like someone thought of that and then brought it to life. And like, why can't I bring things to life? Like I want to try to bring things to life. And so yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's the game that I've chosen to play right now.

Alan Li (40:47)
Hmm.

Jordan Feise (41:04)
and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Alan Li (41:06)
I love that. Jordan, if people are interested in getting in touch or reaching out, what's the best way they can contact you?

Jordan Feise (41:12)
Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram at Jordan and Fees or Two of a Kind Brows as well, or follow my sub stack. We're gonna call it Behind the Brow.

Alan Li (41:21)
I love it. We'll include links to all those in the show notes. But Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm back in LA quite frequently, so I'm really excited to see you again in person and come by the space.

Jordan Feise (41:31)
Yes, can't wait to have you in. Thanks for having me.

Alan Li (41:33)
Thanks.

Alan Li (41:34)
Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to visit openingsoonpodcast.com for all of our episodes online. If you run a retail store and need updated furniture or signage, please feel free to visit www.signsandmirrors.com. Lastly, if you have any feedback or would to be a guest on the show, email me at alan, A-L-A-N, at signsandmirrors.com. I promise I'll respond. Thanks for listening.