Bizou Lash Studio

Cathy Wong and her sister, Cheryl, came into the esthetics business in a rather unconventional way. Neither of them studied it in school. In fact, Cathy was a dental lab technician and Cheryl worked with the government as a chemical technologist. Both were well-paying careers. But, in 2010, they gave up their careers to start Bizou Lash Studio. “Our mom was like ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to branch off and be self-employed?’” says Cathy. “All of our lives, our parents owned their own businesses so maybe entrepreneurship was in our blood.”

They had actually opened Bizou Lash Studio a year earlier and operated it on weekends and evenings while holding onto their regular jobs. They trained to do eyelash extensions after Cheryl had them done on herself and fell in love with them. Her technician left Edmonton, so Cheryl dragged Cathy along to training so they could do it together. “We came back and practiced on friends and family for a couple of months,” says Cathy, who admits to some anxiety about starting the business. “It was scary but we played it safe by keeping our careers and just working at the business on our off time. We had no life because it was seven days a week with 18-hour days.”