“Beauty will change the world “
Rica Elysee is the founder and CEO of BeautyLynk, a tech company focused on transforming the beauty industry with technology. Before to devoting her work full time to BeautyLynk, Rica served as a Nonprofit Fundraising Executive for local to national organizations focused on empowerment and education. This upcoming year, Rica is releasing her first book Dressing My Boobs: A Journey in Entrepreneurship. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Rica is a sought out speaker and coach that has been featured in Forbes, CNBC and Black Enterprise.
What inspired the vision of “Beauty Lynk”?
Two years ago, a family member with disabilities needed assistance with her hair services after a cancelled appointment. I reached out to beauty professionals in the area and I was lucky to find someone who was available to come to our home. It was not until the beauty professional asked me if he could work from our home that I realized this platform could actually come into fruition. With time, my vision of wanting to make the world a more beautiful place grew
How did you navigate your career change from corporate America to Entrepreneurship?
It was an interesting transition for me jumping from being supervised and instructed to being self motivated. Each day that passed, I had to create my own rules to manage my time. After a year, I have mastered time management and built a successful team. Now I have a routine that has led to some great success for the company.
“You control your destiny so make sure that you have access to knowledge and connect to people; that is the best way to build your platform”.
What is your favorite about your job? And the most challenging?
Being a Founder and a CEO , one of my favorite things to do is learn. It gives me the tools to run a better business and support my team. The most challenging part of my job is being able to distinguish when I am managing to empower or dictating tasks that need to be done. It is one of the things that I am learning on the job.
The black beauty industry is unfortunately not run by women of color, how did you go about finding mentors in the industry?
The beauty industry is a fragmented industry with great opportunities to connect with like minded people. In building BeautyLynk, I focused on speaking to people that built out tech products, licensed professionals and customers that fit our profile. These relationships led to mentors that have significant experience in business and tech.
“It was an interesting transition for me jumping from being supervised and instructed to being self motivated. Each day that passed, I had to create my own rules to manage my time. After a year the rules to manage my time built my team. Now I have a routine that has led to some great success for the company”.
What Career advice can you give to aspiring professionals in the beauty industry? Whether it’s the corporate or entrepreneurial route?
You control your destiny so make sure that you have access to knowledge and connect to people; that is the best way to build your platform.
Follow her on: https://medium.com/@ricaelysee 🙂
La Femme Exec 