At The Table with Rica Elysée
Rica Elysée is the CEO of BeautyLynk and #AtTheTable. Prior to her life as an entrepreneur, Rica was a successful community organizer, marketer, and fundraising exec who founded an influential beauty and makeup meetup community for women of color in Boston. She was also helping take care of a disabled family member and noticed how confident hair appointments made this family member feel – but it was hard to find an accessible salon experience. She also noticed that most women in her beauty group faced similar problems – late or canceled appointments and long waits for beauty services, etc. In response, Rica founded her startup, BeautyLynk that brings the beauty salon into women’s homes and transforms the beauty industry with technology. While navigating the solo founder journey, she found herself looking to be in community with other female founders. As a result, she co-founded #AtTheTable, a curated dinner experience for female founders to build connections, resources and friends. In this episode, Rica & Nikki discuss the the journey from meetup to startup, the importance of the natural hair movement, the complicated experience of being a solo female founder, creating an accessible and inclusive company using data to meet the evolving needs of her clients and team member, the importance of saying “no,” her unique management techniques in using music to get to another level of understanding with her team and the power of twerking! Show notes: https://www.nikkiinnocent.com/podcast/podcast-episodes/ricaelysee