Nicole Delahanty's journey with Face Foundrie began when she went into the corporate location as a client. She fell in love with it, she couldn't believe the results she had with her skin after the visit. She also loved the ease of booking and what they could do in under and hour. She even used Face Foundrie as a team bonding experience at her job.
Delahanty was looking for her next act, something that was a blend of finance, business and wellness. She decided to become a franchise owner of Face Foundrie. While she didn't have a lot of skin care experience, she did have a lot of experience in building teams, building cultures and running businesses.
Face Foundrie Founder and CEO Michele Henry developed the business as a results-oriented facial bar for people to receive quality skincare treatments and advice in less than an hour at an affordable price point. The goal is for the clients to receive the services, education and advice they desire and see real results in their skin.
Delahanty was the first franchisee to open in the Chicago market, with the Bucktown location at 1721 N. Damen Ave, in August 2021. She said it was a challenging time to open a face business, as COVID-19 was happening and people were wearing face masks. She said that the business was able to become successful, speaks to the framework and the business model of Face Foundrie. She said the company is intentional in everything it does and that shows in the way it treats its customers.
Delahanty is the franchise owner of six Face Foundrie locations in the Chicagoland area: Bucktown, West Loop, Lincoln Park, Naperville, Highland Park and Lakeview. She said from a business perspective, the spa market in Chicago is huge, but fragmented. She said it made for a very unique opportunity to open Face Foundrie, at a time when most spas were closing, she was opening the first location.
"I truly believed that if we marketed and got our name out there, if we did our thing in the most difficult time, we would have a first mover effect when the world turned," she said. She added that while it was a massive risk, it worked. "When the world turned, when people started coming out, they absolutely needed connection to people. They wanted their faces to be touched."
Delahanty said the tagline, "I really like your face, I want to touch your face," really resonated with people at the time. People wanted to be seen, they really wanted to connect and they really needed help with their skin, after wearing masks for a year. She said the Bucktown store is the flagship and the biggest store in the country when it comes to memberships. She said her Face Foundrie locations purposely create a calm atmosphere, the music they play, the smell in the space. It's menu is curated to be results driven, pulling from the best modalities. Getting people in and out in under and hour makes it so that clients can fit the treatments into their schedule, which is geared toward efficiency.
Delahanty said that scaling the business has created a bigger, deeper management team that includes stores managers who support the estheticians as well as general managers who backfill and do more enhanced training. She said that scaling has allowed them to retain their staff. She said being able to retain staff results in a better client experience because people see consistency in the staff. She said she saw the results of scaling with the opening of the third location.
The Face Foundrie Lakeview location opened in May. In the next few months, two locations will be opening. One is in LaGrange and the other is in River North, 737 N. Wells. Both are expected to open at the end of the summer. Delahanty said she plans to open 15 locations throughout the Chicagoland area. She said the markets where the locations open have a certain density and demographics which hit the sweet spot of 25-55 year old, with 90% female. She said her decision of where to go next is a function of where does the location pop -- the right space and the right square footage.
To celebrate Bucktown's anniversary in August and the opening of the two new locations, they will open up founding memberships for a short period of time. The founding memberships enable people to buy memberships at a lower price point, which is locked in for life. Events will also take place around the city to celebrate the anniversary and openings.
