Aimee Connolly's successful makeup brand Sculpted has gone from strength to strength since she developed an initial idea into a fully-fledged business.
Founded in 2016, the Irish company has built a loyal customer base with its products and expert tutorials.
Aimee, the founder of Sculpted and face of the brand, has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2021 EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
She spoke with Newstalk's Technology Correspondent Jess Kelly on this week's Tech Talk about building her business and the power of online.
Aimee worked part-time in the makeup industry for six years, while at the same time earning a Commerce degree and completing her skills studies, before going full-time.
"I had spent four years in day to day lectures thinking about business developing that mindset so for me, it was a natural progression to try and mix business and makeup," she said.
"I had such a huge passion for makeup at that stage but I wanted to go to the next level, so the natural progression was developing a brand instead of doing the job I was doing."
On what pushed her to make the leap, Aimee said she was a "naive 22-year-old" who just thought "it'll be grand".
"I didn't look back, nor did I think too far ahead and psych myself out," she explained.
"If I was to know all that was ahead of me or if I was to think about ut now, you're far more aware of people around you, whereas I was fresh out of college, I was going to back myself and go for it, I had worked part-time to fund myself and invest and it was going to be fine.
"Whereas now, the world has developed so much both in the beauty industry, from an online perspective, that I would be way overthinking what someone else is doing or how I'm going to fit in that I probably wouldn't have gone for it the same way I did.
She added that anyone in the beauty space would be lying if they said social media didn't play a huge role in their business.
"It's like direct one-to-one, I don't know how our business would survive if we didn't have it," Aimee said.
"Even prior to Sculpted and founding the brand, I had a Facebook page and this was before Facebook was the done thing so I used to see huge reach with it in terms of developing my own community and building my own freelance clients.
"I always say when I started Sculpted, yes I was on Instagram but it was a presence where I could sit back and say 'Instagram will sell it'."
Aimee added that it's a "constant battle" to draw a line between her as a person and her brand, particularly on social media.
However, she said the brand is lucky to have developed a great community online, particularly over the past 15 months where there has been a drive to 'support Irish'.
"Yes obviously the product has to stand up, but also it's that loveliness towards myself and the brand which honestly is so humbling, it's something you can't replicate in other places," she said.
"We're very aware that as we enter new markets, we're not going to have that lovely niceness that we have in Ireland and it's going to take a bit more grit to break through, which is fine too, but it's definitely something I'm grateful for from an Irish perspective."
As a businesswoman, Aimee added that sometimes she has imposter syndrome, but she is "really confident on what the brand is about, what we create and why we create it".
She continued: "I've had four and a half years of building it slowly and steadily and expanding the team and walking into meetings where, now it's great, it's flipped on its head where Sculpted is a great performer with people so you have a little bit more power and authority with people who are in these discussions.
"I feel more imposter syndrome around events or going into competitions with other businesses because I might look up to them and think, 'Well what am I doing here'."
Advice
On what advice to give to someone considering starting up a business now, she said the biggest thing she has learned is "issues will always arise", but what matters is how you deal with these challenges.
"Issues will always arise, problems will always come, be they small or large, but it's all how you react to it," Aimee said.
"I'm someone who will set massive expectations on myself, just my own goals, and if I don't achieve them I'm so hard on myself.
"I know that comes part and parcel with having drive and ambition and entrepreneurship but sometimes it's a little bit unhealthy because you're not giving yourself a break.
"At the beginning when things would have gone wrong or not as planned, I would have been so devastated about it whereas now, it's fine.
"I feel like you are constantly fire fighting in this role anyway so it's just a matter of how big the fire is and how much stress it's going to take.
"I think how you react to problems is a massive thing I have learned and I wish I had told myself earlier on."
