Angelina Kotlyk

Today I am an entrepreneur in the beauty industry in Warsaw, developing a salon network built on system, quality control, and transparent rules for the team.

I started working early. At 12-13, I worked as a sales assistant in my grandmother's grocery stores. From my teenage years, I was used to financial independence and understood the value of money earned by my own work.

At 16, I started in beauty as a nail technician. In practice, I was self-taught: I studied independently, practiced a lot, and gradually turned the craft into a profession and later into a business. I began by working from home, then developed professional skills, built a client base, taught courses, and opened my own salon in Ukraine.

The full-scale war became a turning point. I had to close the Ukrainian part of the business and move to Poland with my children. This stage became not only a challenge but also a point of professional transformation. In Warsaw, I ended my career as a technician and fully focused on the role of business owner: scaling, team building, and systematic process management.

My approach to life and business is based on honesty with myself. I often ask myself a simple question: would I be ready to live my path again? If the answer is no, it is a signal that it is time to change the trajectory and fight for another scenario. This is not a motivational phrase, but an internal principle for making decisions in uncertainty.

I love speed in processes and do not accept chaos. If I take responsibility or give my word, I always bring it to a result. The combination of inner discipline, structure, and high service standards allowed me to build a strong team and launch several business directions in Poland in a relatively short time.

How did the business idea come to you?

The idea was born not from sudden inspiration, but from practical need. At 16, my mother gave me a clear choice: study hairdressing or learn manicures, because she believed it was important to have a profession that would allow me to earn.

At first, we planned courses, but my mother remembered a nail technician she knew, and I simply saw her work up close. At that time, there was no TikTok or Instagram, so I learned independently: searching for rare YouTube videos and practicing a lot on myself and my mother.

Eventually, I began taking my first clients at home. It gradually grew into stable income, and with it came the desire to open my own salon. For me, beauty has always been a universal skill: regardless of location or circumstances, I understood I could earn, because demand for these services remains stable long-term.

In Ukraine, I had one salon, which I did not then perceive as a large-scale project. I managed to implement a more systematic and larger business format in Poland starting in 2023, working in a different market and operating system.

What key skills helped you launch the business?

Several skills became the foundation of my professional growth:

• focus and the ability to bring plans to results
• structure and the need to build clear processes, rules, regulations, and transparent calculations
• service-quality management through attention to details in technicians' work, client communication, and standards
• operational thinking and understanding that the human factor is inevitable, so control mechanisms must be simple and clear
• speed in work and decision-making, which I carried from my days as a fast-working technician into business management

What were the three hardest challenges in the first years?

The absence of a system to rely on. Before opening my first salon in Poland, I worked in three different salons in six months and saw that many businesses lacked clear regulations and organization. This pushed me to build my own system from scratch.

Combining motherhood and work. After the birth of my first child, I worked both at home and in the salon, studied, and organized help from a nanny and relatives. It was a period of constant balancing between family and professional development.

Relocation and business restart after the war began. We planned to sell the Ukrainian salon as a ready business with a client base, but uncertainty made it impossible. In the end, the business had to be dismantled: part sold separately, part of the equipment moved to Poland, and a new stage started.

What crises did your business face and how did you overcome them?

The biggest crisis was the war. I lost the opportunity to sell the Ukrainian salon as an operating asset and had to restart the business in another country almost from zero.

Another serious challenge was the Polish tax system, which differs greatly from the Ukrainian one. I quickly understood that having an accountant does not remove the owner's responsibility for financial control. An accountant keeps official records, but the internal economics of the business, including payments to technicians, advances, expenses, percentages, and employment nuances, must be controlled personally.

There were situations where very large assessments arrived, and only after personal review and recalculation of contributions did I find mistakes. This formed a clear principle for me: even with an accountant, I always check everything myself, because for them these are numbers, while for me it is real business money.

Which decisions were most effective for company growth?

The biggest growth came from decisions combining fast scaling, system, and quality control.

First, I bet on Booksy as the main source of client flow and confirmed that the salon unit economics worked. For a long time, we did not use targeted advertising at all and started connecting it only later.

Second, I scaled quickly. Once I saw the model worked, I opened the second salon only a few months after the first: the first in April, the second in September of the same year.

Third, I consciously gave up the role of technician, even though it brought about 2,500 euros per month. This was an important shift from "earning with my own hands" to the role of an owner building a system, scaling the business, and managing processes.

Fourth, I created a transparent salary-calculation and internal-control system to minimize conflicts and avoid a sense of injustice in the team. I use my own accounting system: a Google Sheet and paper records as primary documentation. This allows me to check data at any moment and resolve disputes quickly.

Fifth, I introduced standards and regulations for the whole team: rules for technicians, administrators, and assistants, as well as disciplinary mechanisms that help maintain high service and culture.

Which mistake do you now consider your most valuable experience?

My most valuable experience came from a starting mistake: I did not document agreements with technicians. Everything was verbal, so people could say at any moment, "I will finish by the end of the week and leave."

At first, I saw it as normal because I was used to acting honestly and openly. But later I saw how strongly that unpredictability hurt the business: schedules broke, service suffered, and the team worked under tension.

That experience forced me to turn verbal agreements into clear rules: regulations, notice periods, standards for administrators and the team. I learned to build a system not from theory, but through my own mistakes and losses.

How did you earn your first $100?

I earned my first $100 at about 12, working as a sales assistant in my grandmother's grocery stores. She had three stores, and this became my first work experience and responsibility for my own money.

How did you earn your first $1,000?

I earned my first $1,000 when I started working for myself. Even as a teenager working for my grandmother, I also saved enough to buy my first iPhone at 14-15.

How did you earn your first $10,000?

My first $10,000 appeared when I was already working independently in beauty. At that time, it was my personal practice, which effectively became my first microbusiness.

How did you earn your first $100,000?

I earned my first $100,000 in the salon business and network development, not only through my personal work as a technician.

How did you earn your first $1,000,000?

I have not yet earned one million dollars.

My most practical experience for entrepreneurs is building a manageable service business in beauty from scratch in another country: from internal regulations to a transparent calculation system and quality control.

I know the real operational side of the salon business: salary conflicts, losing clients because of weak technician communication, lack of discipline in details that seem minor at first glance. It may be uniform, staff behavior, or even habits that the client notices and evaluates.

I believe details shape service and directly influence repeat visits. My focus is to build a system where the technician understands the rules, sees their numbers, and does not feel injustice, while the client consistently receives quality service.

I can also share experience with the Polish tax system. I learned in practice why financial issues cannot be fully handed over to an accountant without understanding them yourself. It is important to understand contributions, taxes, and charges to avoid systematic overpayments and mistakes.

Your experience: how to systematize a business?

I systematize business by turning repeated problems into rules. If I see a situation repeat, I turn it into a regulation point.

Practically, this includes:

• rules for interacting with the team, including a one-month notice period for technicians leaving
• separate regulations for every role: administrators, assistants, technicians
• a transparent accrual system through an internal Google Sheet and paper primary records, so the chain "visit -> payment -> accrual" can be checked at any moment
• quality control as part of the daily process: during the first month, technicians send photos of their work, and administration controls both processes and client communication quality

My principle is simple: the system must remove conflicts where words usually prove nothing.

Your experience: how to grow 2x in a year?

In my niche, doubling growth is not only about marketing. I see growth as a combination of the owner's daily involvement, strong technicians, and uncompromising service quality.

When I needed to scale the salon quickly, I used everything that worked at that moment: bloggers, targeted ads, active search for new technicians, and constant quality control.

The key growth point for me is the team. If a salon has a weak technician, any marketing budget loses meaning because the client will not return.

So I see the foundation of growth in three areas:

• selecting and training technicians according to business standards
• service discipline and work standards, including uniform and communication ethics
• quality control at the start of a new technician's work through photos, feedback, and correction

Another important conclusion: if the owner drops out of processes for a long time, the business may operate, but it stops scaling. For growth, the owner must be systematically involved in development.