In this episode, Alan talks with Marissa Martin, Nashville-based colorist and co-founder of House of Tone, a boutique salon in the Wedgwood-Houston neighborhood. After three years of college, Marissa followed her instincts into cosmetology, building a loyal clientele and a decade-long career that included high-profile clients and a front-row seat to how salons scale, and bloat.

In 2025, Marissa and her partner Gabby opened House of Tone in a clever live–work space rather than taking on a seven-figure buildout. They invested ~$50K of their own cash, paid it back in about two months, and have been profitable since. They've done this all while preserving a Monday–Thursday schedule and a clear boundary on work-life balance.

We cover:

• Why Marissa walked away from a $1M buildout to open in a live–work space
• How House of Tone recouped its $50K startup cost in just two months
• What she learned from Summit-style salons versus creative freedom
• The role of Instagram, sidewalk signs, and community in building clientele
• Monetizing constraints: four chairs, Mon–Thu founder schedules, and using Fri/Sat for classes/events/rentals
• Why they rejected investors, used light bank exposure, and kept full control
• How she balances growth with lifestyle and work-life priorities

If you're interested in building a brick and mortar beauty store, this episode will help you evaluate salon models, deciding between “showpiece” buildouts and scrappy profit-first openings, and how to protect your lifestyle while you grow.

Resources & Links
House of Tone (IG): https://www.instagram.com/officialhouseoftone
Marissa Martin (IG): https://www.instagram.com/marissamartinhair

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

In this episode, Alan talks with Yoseph Raja, co-founder of Thin Cookies, a fast-growing cookie brand with locations in Long Island and Manhattan’s West Village. Trained as a pharmacist, Yoseph never expected to be in the food business, but during COVID he and his wife began baking at home, experimenting with a softer, chewier version of Tate’s. What started as Instagram pickup orders quickly grew into wholesale accounts, and eventually their first retail storefront.

When they opened in Hicksville, the response exceeded expectations, selling thousands of cookies each week and building a loyal local following. But it was their second location, a bold move onto Bleecker Street in the West Village, that put Thin Cookies on the map. With lines out the door, a provocative “Better Than Crumbl” sign, and even Marcus Lemonis stopping by, Yoseph and his wife have proven their thin cookies can compete in the one of the most crowded dessert markets in the country.

We cover:

• How Thin Cookies scaled from a home kitchen to 25+ wholesale accounts
• Why Yoseph walked away from rapid wholesale growth to focus on retail quality
• Bootstrapping a 2,000 sq ft commissary kitchen and a $200k Manhattan buildout
• The bold marketing bet that differentiated Thin Cookies from national chains
• Balancing growth, quality, and family while building a food brand from scratch
• Lessons from working with his wife as co-founder and navigating early challenges
• What’s next for Thin Cookies, from additional NYC locations to potential expansion

Whether you’re thinking about starting a food brand, weighing wholesale vs. retail, or curious how to stand out in a crowded market, this episode is packed with insights on brand building, bootstrapping, and growth strategy.

Resources & Links
Thin Cookies: https://www.instagram.com/thincookies
Follow Yoseph: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosephraja/

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

In this episode of Opening Soon, Alan sits down with Nicole, the founder of Glo Up, a thriving beauty brand and spray tan studio based in Chicago.

Nicole shares her journey from working in hospitality and nightclubs to discovering spray tanning while living in Boston, and eventually building Glo Up from her basement in 2019 into a full-scale brand with a storefront, product line, and loyal client base.

We cover:

• How Nicole turned a $417 first month into $70,000 monthly revenue business.
• The role of mentorship, working with a chemist to create high-quality tanning formulas.
• Surviving and adapting during COVID by launching a product line and leveraging organic influencer marketing.
• The challenges of growing a brick-and-mortar business, from hiring and training staff to navigating competition and copycats.
• Nicole’s vision for Glo Up’s future, including expansion, franchising, and scaling the product side of the brand.
• Navigating a divorce and how running her a business helped her
• Her personal reflections on entrepreneurship, resilience, and building independence through business ownership.

Nicole’s story is one of grit, reinvention, and belief in yourself even when others doubt you, a must-listen for anyone interested in building their own brand from the ground up.

Where to find Nicole & Glow Up:

• Website: https://www.gloupco.com/
• Instagram: @gloupchicago
• Email: nicole@gloupchicago.com

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

In this episode, Alan talks with Edouard Benitah, co-founder of Pari Pari, a hand roll bar in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. Originally from Paris, Edouard came to the U.S. in 2015, working his way up through the restaurant industry in New York and Los Angeles. He fell in love with the streamlined, high-impact concept of a dedicated hand roll bar after experiencing Kazunori in LA: minimal staff, efficient operations, and a focus on quality.

When he moved to Miami during the pandemic, he was surprised there were no hand roll bars in the city. Alongside co-founders Hugo and Ben, and Michelin-starred chef Yasu Tanaka, he began building the concept from scratch. The journey has been three years in the making, with over 54 inspections, complex permitting, and nearly $1M raised, but the payoff is a proof-of-concept flagship designed to scale to multiple Miami locations.

We cover:

• Why Miami was the perfect launch city despite massive permitting challenges
• How partnering with a Michelin-starred chef elevated the concept
• The three co-founders’ clearly defined roles: development, branding, operations
• Creating a brand experience that blends Japanese culinary tradition with French design
• How to time your PR and Instagram launch for maximum impact
• Lessons from working in New York, LA, and Miami’s different dining cultures
• Scaling plans and what it takes to protect brand integrity across multiple locations

Whether you’re opening your first hospitality concept or scaling a brand in a competitive market, this episode is packed with insights on branding, operations, and the patience required to survive the buildout phase.

Resources & Links
Pari Pari: https://www.instagram.com/paripari_miami/
Follow Edouard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edouard-benitah-502296a8/

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

What if you could launch a profitable coworking space for $65,000, with no staff, and scale that model to thousands of locations?

That’s exactly what Robert Kellman is doing with Enclave, a suburban coworking company he founded just before the pandemic. Today, Enclave operates 20+ profitable locations across the U.S. and has raised $6 million in venture funding to fuel a bold plan: build 5,000 no-staff coworking spaces where people actually live.

In this episode of Opening Soon, Robert shares his journey from working in politics and Uber to identifying an overlooked market opportunity hiding in plain sight, affluent suburbs full of remote workers with nowhere to go but a noisy Starbucks. We dive into how he tested the idea, built the first location, survived COVID, and ultimately raised capital to scale a surprisingly lean operation.

We cover:

• How Enclave runs 20+ coworking locations with zero on-site staff
• Why suburban coworking is still massively underbuilt
• The tech and automation powering Enclave’s no-staff model
• Lessons from scaling Uber and running political campaigns
• Raising a $2.2M pre-seed led by Newstack and expanding nationally
• Mistakes made (and what Robert would do differently next time)
• What it takes to open 150+ locations by 2027

Whether you’re building a brick-and-mortar business or thinking about how to scale operationally without breaking the bank, this episode is packed with tactical insights, hard-won lessons, and one very compelling vision of the future of work.

Resources & Links
Enclave: https://enclavecoworking.com
Follow Robert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-kellman-280a18a/

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

Before Sheridan St. Claire opened her boutique Pilates studio in St. George, Utah, she was a former gymnast with two bad shoulders, a sore back, and no clear path forward. That changed when she discovered Pilates—not as a workout trend, but as a way to heal. Her journey took her from Utah to Florence, Italy (where she noticed how Europeans stayed healthy without ever stepping into a gym), and then to the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, where she found a movement community that inspired her to create her own back home.

In this episode, Sheridan talks about opening her studio in the middle of COVID, choosing a minimalist and intentional approach to class sizes, launching her own Pilates app, and how she’s built a loyal following through events and word-of-mouth. This one is packed with honest insights for anyone building a brick-and-mortar fitness studio brand.

Highlights:

• How Pilates helped her avoid double shoulder surgery at age 19
• What she learned from living in Florence, Italy about movement, health, and slowing down
• The moment in Hawaii that made her realize she needed to build her own studio back home
• Opening Symmetry Pilates right as COVID hit in 2020
• Why she caps classes at 8 reformers, even though she could squeeze in more
• Growing entirely by word of mouth and local events
• Launching the Symmetry On Demand app and juggling five Instagram accounts
• What she’d do differently if she were starting from scratch

Episode Links:

• Symmetry Pilates Website
• Symmetry Pilates Instagram
• Sheridan’s Instagram
• Download the Symmetry Pilates App

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

Jordan Feise spent over a decade working in B2B SaaS marketing at companies like Gong and early-stage startups. But after years of struggling to find consistent, high-quality brow care, she saw an opportunity to build something different. That idea became Two of a Kind — a brand-forward, service-first beauty studio in Los Angeles that's now profitable, growing, and known for its ultra-personalized approach.

In this episode, we talk about how Jordan went from side hustling pop-ups out of a branded Sprinter van to building a 950 sq ft studio with a team of 12. She shares her hiring playbook, how she nailed customer retention, and why she’s focused on “perfecting the recipe” before opening more locations.

Topics covered:
→ How Jordan pivoted from SaaS to beauty
→ Starting with pop-ups and scaling while still working full-time
→ Hiring and training the Two of a Kind way
→ Why her brand aesthetic is intentional and inclusive
→ What it means to build a service business with real process
→ The truth about press, PR, and organic growth
→ Profitability by month 3 — and what’s next

Episode-Specific Links:
→ Two of a Kind – https://www.twoofakindbrows.com
→ Jordan Feise – https://www.instagram.com/jordannfeise/
→ Two of a Kind Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/twoofakindbrows
→ Behind the Brow Substack – https://substack.com/@behindthebrow?

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/

After eight years in tech and a detour into custom resort wear with her brand Malibu Darby, Darbe Canady followed her instincts, and her wardrobe, into the world of vintage fashion. Today, she runs Sunset Club Vintage, a highly curated, appointment-only shop in San Diego known for its timeless designer pieces and stunning aesthetic.

In this episode, we talk about the highs and lows of manufacturing, how she bootstrapped her way from pop-ups to a brick-and-mortar store, and why trusting your gut might be the best business decision you ever make.

🔍 Topics Covered:

→ What Darbe learned from launching her first brand, Malibu Darby
→ Why vintage is lower-risk and higher-margin than custom apparel
→ The gut feeling that led her to Sunset Club Vintage
→ How she built traction through pop-ups and word of mouth
→ Why investing in a beautiful space can drive organic growth
→ Tips for sourcing and curating vintage inventory
→ How she balances design, operations, and storytelling
→ Advice for aspiring vintage founders

🔗 Episode Links:

→ Sunset Club Vintage: https://www.sunsetclubvintage.com
→ Darbe on Instagram: @malibudarbe
→ Sunset Club Vintage on IG: @sunsetclubvintage

Opening Soon Links & Resources
→ Signs and furniture for retail stores: https://signsandmirrors.com
→ NYC and Houston’s first self-portrait studio: https://fotolab.studio
→ Follow us on Instagram: @openingsoonpodcast
→ More episodes and guest info: https://www.openingsoonpodcast.com
→ Your Host Alan Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-li-711a8629/