Face Foundrié’s growth is based on a franchise model.
Courtesy of Face Foundrié
Michele Henry is obsessed with her business. The founder and CEO of Face Foundrié, has built a $40 million empire consisting of 65 locations across the U.S., all using a franchise model. The facial bars provide all types of services, from facials to caring for lashes and brows. There are three streams of revenue across services, memberships and curated products. By the end of next year, Henry plans to have 107 units up and running.
A serial entrepreneur – her first business, a boutique called Primp where everything was priced under $100 – Henry searched for a solution to support her changing skin, which was impacted by the shift in hormones, age, pregnancies and the toll that life had wrought after the birth of her third child. When she couldn’t find anything that lived up to her standards, the idea of Face Foundrié was born.
“We launched with three corporate stores in January of 2021 and launched our franchising program simultaneously,” said Henry. “Within 30 days of launching, we sold out the state of Minnesota. It was all very organic. It was all clients who had come in and understood our mission and understood our concept. They signed on because they got it and aligned with it.”
Face Foundrié has a singular priority and Henry is steadfast in her commitment to it. “We’re very facial focused,” she said, noting that facials are priced from $75 to $89, depending on location due to the cost structures and operational expenses in different states. “We’re face-forward. We only focus on your face and that focus and decision of not straying guides us. We don’t want to get into foot massages and body waxing. We are truly just focusing on your face.”
Face Foundrié has found success in shopping malls and street locations.
Courtesy of Face Foundrié
With a membership model that creates recurring business for franchisees, clients get consistency and the ability to customize their skin treatments. “Our membership base is pretty substantial,” Henry said. “Each day we sign on more and more members. With our membership model, you can pick any of our facials depending on how you’re feeling or what you’re trying to achieve and you get a complementary enhancement with that facial.”
Henry’s first franchisee, Nicole Delahanty, said, “I fell in love with the concept and with the delivery of the results as a busy working professional and mom who travels all the time. I launched the first franchised store in Bucktown, Chicago in 2021. Since then, I’ve launched four more stores in Chicago and one in Minnesota with a goal of building up to 15.”
Delahanty’s units do about 4,000 facials a month, she said, half of which are for members.
“Michele is an inspirational leader,” Delahanty said. “Her background in retailing, merchandising, design and real estate gave me a sounding board across all those things. Having it reside in one person allowed me to be nimble and go deep fast, which is important in a business like this. It’s hard to do that when you’re trying to gather information and inspiration from a big team. Having somebody like Michele who’s been there, done it and gotten her hands dirty, and can advise you on all those things quickly and nimbly, set me up for success personally.”
Henry has criss-crossed the country with her franchisees. “What’s unique about our concept is that we don’t just go into major markets,” she said. “Some of our most successful franchisees are actually in secondary markets that you wouldn’t necessarily think of immediately, but it’s been very exciting to see their trajectory going in as a new brand in a new market and being able to sustain it.”
Like some of the best concepts, Face Foundrié was born of a personal need. “I couldn’t get a handle on my skin and it was getting so bad that it was affecting my confidence,” Henry said of the catalyst that brought the company to life. “Every time I looked into a med spa, they had the super constrained hours of nine to five, Monday through Friday, and the price point for the services I wanted was high.
“It was not sustainable and just didn’t seem approachable for anyone,” she continued. “That’s really where this idea sat with me. It didn’t seem like there was a membership model out there in the price point that I was trying to achieve. The more I looked into it and the more I ran numbers and connected with vendors and put a business plan together, that’s when I said there’s something here and this could actually work and take off.”
And take off it has. With a set of protocols that doesn’t vary from store to store, you can get a facial at a Face Foundrié in Sarasota, Florida or Sioux Falls, South Dakota and it will be the same, similar to the consistency of a Starbucks cup of coffee. Of course, every facial can be customized. “Let’s say it’s the middle of summer and you’re in Phoenix and you want the cryo facial because you can’t stop sweating and breaking out. Great, cryo with a red light LED enhancement or a scalp massage,” said Henry, noting that other enhancements include dermaplaning and chemical peels. “A lot of the little touches are just things that I’ve experienced over the years that I’m hyper-critical about with other concepts.”
A line of products was introduced in 2020 during Covid-19, which was a catalyst for the proprietary treatment collection. Face Foundrié uses its own brand augmented by a curated selection of outside brands in its facials. “We were importing things pretty heavily and there were some pretty bad backlogs with the ports opening and closing,” Henry said. “We work with a chemist who understands aesthetics and work with a manufacturing facility that’s close enough to drive to so we can watch them package it. We’re very mindful of the sustainability side, so our manufacturing facility is a certified B Corporation. It’s wind-powered. It’s small enough where they can handle big orders but they aren’t too big where they won’t pick up the phone. It’s a win-win for us.”