Sharmadean Reid is a creator, writer and consultant who has launched an innovation-led nail salon, a beauty-tech start-up and a media company in her 20-year career. The native of Wolverhampton, England, who is of Jamaican descent, used her consumer- based mindset to help create a movement that would build a foundation for the next generation of entrepreneurs. We caught up with Reid to discuss how she builds community through her businesses, what’s next for her career regarding funding and her long-term goals.
ESSENCE: What was your first job, and what skills did you learn there that have guided your career?
Sharmadean Reid: My first job was as a chambermaid—like a hotel maid, but for a bed and breakfast—and a waitress. I learned so much about hospitality, service and food. I started to understand how to speak to people in authority about what they want to hear, and to anticipate their needs. It gave me the confidence, later down the line, to raise investment for my business.
ESSENCE: What were those beginning moments that inspired you to start your salon, WAH Nails?
Reid: I’m always the first customer of the businesses I want to build. I don’t even think of them as businesses—I think of them as founding things I want to exist in the world. It was one of the first millennial-girl businesses, because I wanted to have a shop for people like me. I never really anticipated it being a business. I just wanted a place where my friends and I could go and get our nails done exactly how we wanted.
ESSENCE: How did you know you wanted to go beyond having a salon, to the Stack World corporation we now know you for?
Reid: I’ve always been into technology. So when it came to software, we were using outdated software to do what was a growing trend on social media. I saw the gap when it came to beauty, and it was 100 percent visual. I was like, How do I marry the best of booking customers with the best of social media, and create an innovative visual booking system? I said I would create two tech products in that salon to prove I could build technology. I just did everything I said I was going to do. Then I raised funding for Beautystack—and just got to work building a tech start-up.
ESSENCE: What are the key things you learned about yourself through that process?
Reid: When I look back at myself during that time, I see a young woman willing to do whatever it takes. I believed that beauty professionals could increase their income—and that the products to help them do that should be built by people who look like the people using them.
ESSENCE: What does the next chapter look like when it comes to long-term goals for your company?
Reid: It’s—one, to explore my creative self, and to develop something that has a big impact on the next generation of founders. The second thing is to think about how I’m going to create generational wealth. The median generational wealth in the U.K. for Black people right now is zero [according to Bloomberg and other news sources]—and in my family, I want to start the matrilineal generational wealth line with me.
Along with her own manifesto for business-minded women, Reid also suggests picking up these titles.
