Glitzi
Beauty & wellness services conveniently delivered directly to your doorstep.
Startup Snapshot
Startup name: Glitzi
Industry: BeautyTech
Business Model: Marketplace
Founder: Ana Ramos, Luis Vazquez & Lionel Campos
Operates in: Mexico City, Monterrey & Queretaro
HQ Location: Mexico City
Team Size: 30
Founded: 2020
Stage: Series A
Investors: Y Combinator, Good Water Capital
Accelerators: Y Combinator (YC S21)
Website: www.glitzi.com.mx
What does Glitzi do?
Glitzi is a platform that connects people with beauty and wellness professionals to provide quality services in the comfort of their own homes. Their mission is to offer convenience and standardization in the beauty and spa industry.
It’s as easy as downloading Glitzi or visiting their website to schedule various services, including haircuts, massages, pedicures, and manicures conveniently delivered to your doorstep.
What's your backstory?
The inspiration for Glitzi originated from Ana's personal experiences, but its development was a collaborative effort. As she, Luis, and Lionel worked on their platform, they realized that it could also benefit beauty professionals by providing them with a comprehensive infrastructure, including a virtual calendar, appointment scheduling, credit access, training, and access to beauty and wellness products they may require for home services, to professionalize their beauty or wellness business.
99% of salons in Mexico have fewer than 10 employees and the vast majority of beauty and wellness specialists learn their craft from their parents.
Ana, a Mexican woman of Latina origin, frequently visited salons and spas throughout her life. However, she often found herself dissatisfied with the service she received despite paying a premium price. It wasn't until she started working in the beauty and wellness industry after completing college that she realized the lack of standardization and quality control in the Latin American market. In Mexico, there is no requirement for licenses or certification to open a salon or become a beauty professional, leading to a quality issue.
After completing her MBA in England and gaining experience in venture capital and startups, Ana recognized a significant opportunity in the beauty and wellness market. Despite the poor experience, Latinos spend a considerable amount on beauty services pushing. Ana saw a gap in the market that existing startups were not addressing, and she left the VC world to cofound Glitzi with Luis, a talented engineer, and Leo, the head of product. Together, they formed a strong team that quickly gained traction and customers. Ana handles the strategic commercial aspects, Leo focuses on product development, and Luis oversees the technical side of the platform.
The beauty & spa services market in Latin America is worth $67 billion USD before factoring in beauty and wellness products.
How did you acquire your first customers?
When finding professionals to join their network, Ana relied on recommendations from her friends. She would ask them to suggest professionals who had delivered great results to them and would then get in touch with them to arrange a trial.
Ana was still based in Berlin then, so her friends would conduct the trials while she participated remotely. This is how they onboarded their first batch of professionals, some of whom were incredibly talented and produced amazing work. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing as they also encountered some very underprepared professionals who delivered comical results, resulting in some of her friends becoming popular WhatsApp stickers.
On the consumer side, they leveraged Google Ads to advertise home beauty services to land their first customers and gauge demand for new services. This slowly pushed Glitzi into the wellness space as they realized the demand existed and was underserved.
What's your motivation?
There are two notable aspects to Glitzi's success. Firstly, it was born from Ana's sharp perception of a great opportunity and her unwavering determination to tackle a critical issue. Seeing an idea come to fruition and have a tangible impact on the world is a deeply satisfying experience.
The average Glitzer bumps their income from USD 3k to USD 12k per year.
However, what truly drives the Glitzi team is the unintended transformation that the platform has brought about. By building Glitzi, they are actively changing the lives of professionals for the better - a motivating factor for their daily efforts. Through Glitzi, these professionals can earn 3-4 times more than they would in a traditional salon setting while enjoying greater flexibility. This is especially beneficial for mothers who previously had to choose between their family and career, often leading to financial inactivity. With Glitzi, they can continue working without making such sacrifices. In fact, over 700 families rely on Glitzi team members as their primary source of income, highlighting the platform's profound impact on people's lives.
When did you realize you had achieved PMF?
Glitzi has successfully attained Product-Market Fit (PMF) and is focused on achieving channel-market fit for scalability. Our retention rate is impressively high. To validate our PMF, Y Combinator (YC) employs two methods:
Cohort stabilization: Depending on the industry and model, if your cohorts stabilize and surpass the benchmark (for instance, 20% in consumer-based models like Glitzi), it's considered excellent PMF. Glitzi's PMF is above 20%.
Shawn Ellis' Hacking Growth: If over 40% of your clients would be disappointed if you ceased to exist, then PMF is likely. Glitzi conducts exit surveys, and the results consistently show scores above 40%, sometimes even reaching 60%.
The challenge ahead is scaling, growing without overspending, reducing CAC, and boosting retention. Our goal is to achieve profitability by October.
What's next for Glitzi?
The first step, or the next, is establishing a national presence. Glitzi currently operates in 3 cities and plans to expand to 6 cities by the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
Finish building the platform for professionals, adding other tools to the ecosystem, such as savings accounts, payments, and partnerships for training. The goal is to achieve the vision of an ecosystem for beauty and spa professionals. Ultimately, this will provide access to the millions of professionals in Mexico.
By the end of 2024, the idea is to expand to other cities in Latin America through opening new locations and acquisitions.
Tips for other founders:
The most important thing is the most basic, which Y Combinator (YC) greatly emphasizes, but it's a mindset shift. Money is a commodity. Raising money is not the goal because there is and will always be money for good products and businesses. The most important thing is to create something that solves a problem and that people want.
In this super-challenging fundraising market, investors and founders often forget that money means nothing without a good company. Money is available; what's often missing is a good company. As founders, we have the power, not them.
It's essential to have a support system. Entrepreneurship is very tough. There are highs and lows. On LinkedIn, it may seem like a jet-setting life, but it's very challenging. Often, we make many sacrifices, and you need a strong support system to keep going despite the obstacles, setbacks, and ups and downs.
Special offer for our readers🚀
15% off your first service with discount code: Founders15
*Restrictions may apply.
Founders Wisdom
If you wait for your product to be perfect to release it into the world. You will often never get there.
Kathryn Minshew, The Muse co-founder
Founders Launchpad Jobs:
Jobs in Mexico
Jobs in Argentina
SDR and SDRs Manager at Kaax
Fully Remote Jobs
Tools of the Week
Balsamiq Wireframes is an easy-to-use platform for creating UI wireframes that focuses on content and structure, rather than details.
Stripe allows sellers to accept payments, including credit and debit cards and supports over 135 currencies. It's great for online businesses.
Freepik offers free vectors, stock photos, and illustrations. Startups can benefit from its vast collection of visuals. Users can easily find the most downloaded images through the "Popular Photos" section.
Special thanks to our sponsor:
Axented helps businesses design, build, and scale their products and teams worldwide.
With over 10 years of experience and a diverse portfolio of more than 300 projects delivered in over 15 countries, Axented has established itself as a trusted partner in the tech industry.
Renowned for its expertise and commitment to excellence, Axented provides innovative solutions to help businesses thrive in a digital world.
