Tania Speaks Brow Boost
AUTHOR Crystal Chunnu
Growing up, Tania Speaks faced problems due to her naturally bushy eyebrows. No matter where she went, her bullies would taunt her, lowering her self-esteem while poking at her insecurities. “I would cry every day to my mom and tell her that I wanted to cut my brows,” Speaks said. “She would just tell me to embrace them and then one day someone’s gonna love your eyebrows.”
But Speaks wasn’t convinced by her mother’s words. She took a razor and decided to cut her own brows, by herself, without any assistance. The path to beautification took a bad turn.
“I was bleeding really badly and I had to go to the hospital and get stitches. I really thought I knew what I was doing,” she said. “I actually didn’t understand how sharp the razor was, and after that, I went to school with cut-up brows and I was still bullied.”
She had enough. “I knew that there was nothing I could do to change myself to stop the bullying, so I changed the way I saw the situation,” she said. Thus, Brow Boost, the organic eyebrow gel company Speaks started at 15 years old, was born.
The majority of eyebrow gels on the market during her childhood weren’t organic and Speaks feared that if she used any of them, she’d eventually get bullied for rashes and pimples as well. This prompted her to research organic ingredients and create her own “secret sauce.”
Her bullies stopped and people envied Speaks’ new brows and Speaks knew she could capitalize on this opportunity. She brought her eyebrow formula to school, put a sticker on it, and sold one for $3 and two for $5 in her high school bathroom. All of a sudden, her label as “the brow girl” went from an insult to praise.
“My mission is to make Brow Boost a part of women ages 24-38 and adolescent girls’ beauty routines who need a little help redefining how they feel about their brows,” Speaks explained as the company’s mission statement today. “When you look good, you feel good.” Her tenacity, resilience, and story got her featured in Forbes, Black Enterprise, and named one of Time Magazine’s most influential teens. Her infamous eyebrow gel was also seen in NY Fashion week.
Today, Speaks, now 18 years old, spends part of her time giving speeches to aspiring entrepreneurs advising them of the power of turning “pain into a booming business.”
She has four pieces of advice for the up and coming entrepreneur. The first is research. According to Speaks, entrepreneurs need to do three types of research — a quick search, a competitive search, and a legal search. A quick search is a broad search typically done on Google where she learned about organic ingredients she could use for her brow gel.
A competitive search targets other companies that are offering similar products to yours in order to identify what makes your product unique. “I attached my story to it. It’s not only a brow gel. It’s about me, what I overcame and how I overcame it. When you’re looking at these competitors, you need to be able to attach something to what you’re offering,” Speaks said.
The third search is a legal search where entrepreneurs will meet with a lawyer to find competitors they didn't know existed. “Don't start with that because that will easily discourage you … You do that towards the end, because after you’ve already started, you’re not going to look back.”
The second piece of advice was to ask for trusted options. No matter what product or service you’re bringing to the market, Speaks advised entrepreneurs to test it on people whose opinions they value, and listen to the feedback and criticism they give for product improvement.
The next and most unique advice is practicing “instamicacy” or “instant intimacy,” a concept Speaks identifies as the tip to discovering your company’s purpose by making a connection with someone based on sharing an experience. Speaks explained that to practice instamicacy, you need to pick a group of people you regularly interact with, and choose three feelings you’ve felt recently towards them. After writing what triggered those feelings and why it was significant to you, come up with a business idea that resolves those negative feelings.
Writing down your emotions helps us release negative feelings, reflect on our personal growth as humans, and discover creative solutions. “A lot of times we just keep going, going, going. We kinda forget about what we’re going through,” Speaks said.
Lastly, she advised entrepreneurs to do the hardest thing: start. Get out there and make yourself known. “How are you going to start a business and nobody knows who you are?” she said. “I was 15 years old and didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know who to talk to, where to go. But now, I learned from just putting myself out there, I was able to get recognized from these big names,” Speaks said, referencing the publications that recognized Brow Boost’s success.
“You need to start. Today. Whatever you’re thinking about, do it today.”