Female Founders: Melissa Pruett of Melt by Melissa On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
No project is life or death and it will get done. Go to the wedding. Go to the birthday party. Go home for Christmas. The work will be there when you get back from living life.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Pruett.
Melissa Pruett, the brow magician, skin-care geek, and lover of all things personal discovery, is the founder of MELT by Melissa — a self care studio.
With locations in both Scottsdale and Phoenix, AZ, her team of Babes are best known for radiating the good vibes while serving up the best brows, lashes, skin care, sugaring, spray tanning, & microblading in town.
From building a business from the ground up and growing a team to creating clean beauty products and an aesthetics training + coaching academy, the vision remains the same. Melissa gained notoriety across her industry and was featured on Create & Cultivate as a Beauty Expert you should know.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Like most entrepreneurs I know (of), my journey to Melt was far from a straight line and resembled something more like a road trip through the Rocky Mountains after a record-breaking blizzard: winding, risky and exponentially thrilling!
I take my story back to little Melissa at age 6; she ran around the house exclaiming, “When I grow up, I’m gonna be a heart surgeon!”
My parents were stunned since I had no doctors in my family and they had no idea how I even knew what that meant.
I stayed the course, dead-set on this singular achievement all the way through my undergrad. That is, until I was 21 and started actually asking myself general inquiries like, “Who am I? Who do I want to become? What impact do I want to have on the world? What am I not just good at (like math and science), but what do I love doing so much that I’d do for free if I had to?”
At first, I was curious.
Then, I was confused.
Finally, I was distraught.
For once, I had no answers.
I suddenly questioned everything I thought I had “known” about myself.
I realized that so many of my motivations were completely outside myself; to make my parents proud, to prove to everyone that I was smart enough to really do it, to keep my word, to make a lot of money, and to be the most specialized (aka to feel the most special).
It was earth-shattering.
Identity-obliterating.
The ultimate lostness.
So, I did the only thing I could consider — scrap it all and start from scratch!
I dropped out from my senior year (sorry mom and dad!), quit my coffee shop job, got rid of my apartment and moved to Arizona all in a span of 5 days. If I was gonna do some serious soul-searching, it certainly was not gonna be heading into the dead of winter in Oregon.
Hellooo Arizona sunshine!
I gave myself “6 months” and if I didn’t figure it out, I’d “give in” and go to med school.
I became a car saleswoman (harder than selling Girl Scout cookies it turns out).
A strength and conditioning coach.
An executive assistant.
Almost moved to Dubai as an Emirates flight attendant.
An international egg donor (maybe almost died…twice).
Almost pulled the trigger on med school (and naturopathic med school) for fear of never finding anything better or selling myself short.
And… started getting laser hair removal.
Luckily, I’m a Chewbacca descendant, so I saw the same woman every month without fail during these years.
Funny enough, it was SHE who inspired me to look into aesthetics — she was radiant, always happy, loved what she did, seemed like she had the coolest job, and exuded something that I was yearning to embodying myself.
“Woah, lasers are cool. I love all things beauty and aesthetically pleasing (#taurus). I value health and wellness. I love working with humans.”
I immediately went to the closest aesthetics + laser school because it checked all the above boxes.
But I became an entrepreneur immediately after school because I discovered that my definition of true success is living life on my own terms — this includes having the freedom, flexibility, and financial independence to make my own schedule, call my own shots, and create whatever I want! To be unapologetically authentic, to take up space, and to express myself through an ever-changing plethora of mediums.
*Insert extreme brow obsession circa 2013.
Fast forward to 8 years in business; I’ve realized something kinda cool…
That in my own special way, I became that heart-surgeon after all.
That everything I do is with the purest intention of touching the hearts of each person I encounter.
Somewhere deep down, I was born with this soulful Melt mission — to help others see and love themselves more fully, to touch their souls and leave a lasting impression, and to encourage us all to strive to live our most beautiful lives.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began Melt by Melissa?
I could write an entire book about the magical, miraculous, synchronistic, serendipitous, too-good-to-be-coincidental events that have continuously and consistently unfolded throughout my journey with Melt. But one of my early favorites was when I went to my first real workshop — my first epic personal + professional development investment I made for myself that wasn’t an aesthetics training course.
It was Robin Sharma’s first ever 2-Day Personal Master Academy in Toronto, Canada (June of 2016).
One of the many life-transforming exercises Robin took us through was all about tapping into our subconscious, child-like mind to dream bigger and co-create our reality. We were each given a huge, blank white poster, a set of crayons, a 5 min timer, and instructions to draw out pictures of our current greatest desires in categories like health, wealth, career, love, growth, etc.
I doodled a building (to represent that I wanted to find my own first studio space), me as a stick figure (in a pink dress, duh), and one stick figure gal on each side of me (the brunette trio). I got specific and jotted down that I’d sign my first lease that summer, paint all the walls pink, and hire my first lash assistant by Oct 1, 2016.
Of course, I found my room and signed it within days after this trip — and the building looked an awful lot like my sketch with wood panels, a grass + concrete walkway, and a cacti entryway. I met Brie a month later and offered her a shadowing position to train in lashes while she finished school and told her she could start the day she got her license in the mail. Which of course, ended up being Oct 1, 2016!
To top it off, I never quite knew why I drew that third stick figure … I had no plans of growing THAT fast considering I didn’t even have a single bed when I was daydreaming. But, as fate would have it, my next babe showed up from the Heavens only 2 weeks later. Right when a bigger room opened in my building and we all 3 worked side-by-side! Yes, we all had long brown hair like the doodle! Lol
So this, my friends, is why I call it MAGIC!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I look back, I honestly don’t register anything as a “mistake”. It’s so cliche, but I think that’s for good reason. Starting a company from nothing, especially when we’re talking the bootstrapping bootleg version where you actually have no idea what you’re doing, is basically one big experiment and playground. Some things work out even better than you could have imagined; some things totally flop and turn into the painful, expensive, and (later) funny lessons we really needed to learn. I always laugh OUT LOUD at some of the crazy ishhh I’ve done myself — either because I was too stubborn and wanted to do it “my way” or because I simply couldn’t afford to hire and delegate to an expert yet.
If I had a dollar for every DIY project… we’re talking my first logo, business cards, and website. Painting walls, building way too much IKEA furniture, moving heavy objects, and any other kind of tenant improvement you can think of. Ya girl did it.
And sometimes, not so well … like the time a few of us were in our sugar hair removal room. I was determined to hang yet another curtain rod in the rickety ceiling of our building and started drilling the anchor while chatting away with the babes. Suddenly, I punched the power drill AND my whole arm through the ceiling with a POW! Not only were we shocked by the humongous, unsightly hole blasted open, but we were all crying laughing as the drywall started collapsing in the room. It. Was. Awful. And, kind of hilarious.
Lesson: hire professionals as quickly as possible.
PS: I’m available for hire on your renovations 🙂
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Absolutely — I may be the sole founder and owner of MELT, but I certainly have not been the only brain, heart, blood, sweat, and tears behind building this business over these last 8 years. There are SO MANY lovely (aaaaand not so loving) humans I am forever grateful for who have directly and indirectly influenced my path.
The very first person who comes to mind is actually Robert Reder — Robert is a dear friend of mine, a former coaching client from my fitness days, and has been my business attorney since the genesis. In fact, HE is the first person who ever actually believed in Melt and it was he who encouraged me to form my LLC from the very start.
I’ll never forget the moment we were in his law office and he was helping me submit my documentation. He looked at me and said, “Mel, Melt is gonna blow up someday and it’s gonna be huge. I’m already so proud of you and I can’t wait to see where you take this!”
We giggle now … because I don’t even know if it really registered to me at the time. And I can honestly say that he believed in Melt becoming a company WAY more than I had even imagined or could foresee. He has been one of my greatest supports, biggest cheerleaders, and most genuine allies since day one and I couldn’t have done it over all these years without such an integrous, inspiring attorney and friend in my corner.
Thank you, Robert. For encouraging me to stretch my imagination, grind with the goal in mind, and turn my love for brows into a real business!
According to the End of the Year report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
In my opinion, one of the greatest barriers for women stepping into the entrepreneurial ring is the feeling of wanting it ALL mixed with the underlying fear that we cannot truly do / be / have it all.
I’m turning 33 this spring and I’d be lying to every reader here if I didn’t openly share that I am regularly reminded of my choice to make my business my baby, my boyfriend, and my ongoing obsession for the past 8 years while many of my colleagues were getting married, having children and vacationing with PTO.
There’s been A LOT of sacrifice — time, energy, relationships, money — and a lot of people aren’t aware of the sacrifices it can actually take to do what I’ve done at this age. Now let me be clear; my way is NOT the only way. And women absolutely CAN do all of the above. I have so many incredible, successful women in my life who are wives, moms and business owners who are juggling it all really really well.
But for me, it’s wild to imagine how different Melt would be if I had settled down and had other priorities.
And now, it’s an exciting challenge to think of what the metamorphosis will look like for me as I still have huge ambitions for Melt while wanting to be a wife and mother someday.
I’ve only recently opened myself up to that potential reality because for so many years prior, I didn’t feel I had a solid enough foundation to make it all work simultaneously.
If I had valued having a family sooner, I’m not sure I would have started a company at 24.
I don’t think these choices are a detriment to our success in any way, shape or form but I do think it’s a REAL variable that we need to acknowledge and take into consideration at different times in our lives as women.
I often wonder, “How will motherhood change my drive? Will Melt matter to me as much as it does now when that baby becomes the apple of my eye and my whole world revolves around her instead? Will I totally lose my edge?”
These thoughts + feelings are totally OK and normal so I choose to believe that I’m gonna be a bad ass businesswoman and a pretty bad ass mom at the same time.
We CAN have it all — just perhaps one step at a time.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
I think we’re already doing it and that society as a whole is making those steps in the right direction —
Look at us having this conversation, asking questions, and brainstorming ideas for women in the entrepreneurial space. Look at social media and the women empowerment movement rushing in with marketing + messaging finally aimed towards self care, body acceptance, beauty in all beings, collaboration over competition, genuine positivity, and freedom in authenticity. Look at all of the iconic women and real women doing real things that we have inspiring us by making waves, using their voice, teaching courses, writing books, coordinating community events, and breaking glass ceilings to prove they don’t have to exist.
Let’s keep the momentum, ladies and gents!
A few things I’d love to see more of:
- More men celebrating (instead of being intimidated by) powerful women or women who make more money than them. This keeps us small and afraid that as we become more successful, our dating pool gets smaller.
- Let’s continue to normalize men helping in homes / with their families. Whether it be some stay home dads or fathers simply being considered equal care giver nurturers, helping pack lunches, prepare dinner, and carry the home load will allow women to maintain their careers too!
- Some of the greatest seeds of change are in our upcoming generation. Let’s keep inspiring little girls to step into their light, to truly chase their happiest dreams, to create, and to become whoever / whatever they want when they grow up!
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Women, we are here to CREATE!!
We are actual magicians that literally grow entire humans from practically nothing in our wombs. Who better to birth fresh, gorgeous ideas into the world than us?!
There’s a book called Big Magic that I love and the entire premise is around ideas not really living in our minds, but actually existing like wifi waves swirling around us. Once these idea “spirits” find that we are their ideal host who has the potential to bring them to fruition, they impregnate our imagination and we can choose to act on them to create a new reality.
Of course, all humans are capable of this, but I believe women have a true innate gift here that is so insanely powerful once we tune in and tap into it!
Fun Fact: did you know that women’s brains are mega wired to be great entrepreneurs?!
Ok, hear me out … women actually have a thicker corpus callosum. This is the band of tissue inside the brain that connects it’s two hemispheres like a fiber super-highway for information to be passed between our right and left sides. It makes us great processors, multitaskers, and combines our logic + creativity!
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
1.You don’t have to be a genius or come up with an idea that has never been done before to be a founder.
What do you love doing or what are the things that you are naturally freakishly good at? Do your friends beg you to come over and do their makeup, to organize their cluttered drawers and closets, or to help them with all their techy devices?? Great! You could start a business offering that service and people with graciously PAY you just to do the things you’re good and enjoy that they kind of suck at or loathe doing.
Magic happens when you find the SWEET SPOT — what I am freakishly good at + what I like doing and would be willing to do for free + someone in the world will pay me for this. That’s IT!
2.You do NOT have to have an entire humongous elaborate MBA level plan. I mean… maybe that would be easier? And I’m not asking you to dive out of a plane without first ensuring you have a functioning parachute on your back.
But I certainly did not start out that way. If you wanna get from A to Z, guess what? You just have to take one single step from A to B. Then, from your new vantage point B, figure out what your NEXT right move is and do that. Be present, prepare for your next couple of moves, and let the Universe slip in some miracles here and there to help you along the way — spoiler alert… It’s actually kinda way more fun that way too!
3. Being a founder means you are winning and everyone else works for you so that you can reap all the rewards and everyone else is “your minion.”
Ummmm…. This seems pretty self explanatory except that it’s a REAL THING. It is SO EASY for the world to look at the founder and think “Oh, she just has all of these people working for her now and blown up, must be nice!” … sigh … while it’s true that no one will ever truly know what goes on behind the scenes for a founder, I think it’s really important to recognize WHY that person is the founder in the first place. WHY that person has such a huge WHY, such a huge MISSION, that it actually extends WAY beyond just her own self-interest or gain. That she is willing to go where none have gone before her. That she is willing to carry the torch, even when it gets heavy and scary, so that others may feel the light and be inspired to follow and even do the same. That she is so committed to excellence in all that she does that she is comfortable being in the limelight for all to witness when she wins AND when she stumbles. That she cares so deeply about others that she will open her arms and invite all in who are called to join together and uplift and that she has enough love, time, attention, energy, insight, etc. to give to ALL who are a part of the movement. That everyone succeeding is the ONLY measure of success. That when they win, she wins. That when she wins, they win. That again we’ll say, a high tide raises all ships.
Due: EOD 1/14
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Absolutely not. And this has nothing to do with CAPABILITY. I think all humans are capable of doing, being, learning, and becoming anything they want in this life — although, I’m 5’3” so I probably won’t shoot my shot at the WNBA anytime soon…
If everyone was a founder, we would only have small companies — who would Amazon be without their current 1.3 million jobs? Think of all the humongous companies across the globe that employ thousands of people; each of those people could be living out their true purpose and doing what they love without ever having to start their own version of it.
Sure, I’m full of ideas, a natural get-it-doner and am an extremely hard worker, but I’m only one person with 24 hours in a day too. We’d all only be able to reach a certain threshold if we didn’t have teams and various positions within our companies.
We need all facets of human expression in this world — employees and employers, big companies and small companies, nonprofits and volunteers, and so on.
TOP SIGNS YOU MAY BE AN ENTREPRENEUR AT HEART:
You’re highly ambitious and a self-starter / self-directed.
You’re an eternal optimist — instead of seeing problems, you see opportunities.
You remain humble with grit — you’re willing to be wrong, willing to be wronged, and willing to “fail”.
You’re a lifelong learner / knowledge junkie — you’re committed to becoming a master at your craft and always identify as a student.
You have an infinitely high belief in self — a deep inner trust and knowing, a strong gut instinct, and a clear intuition.
You’re not just a go-getter, but a grow-giver — the more you grow, the more you give to yourself and the world around you 🙂
5 STAR EMPLOYEES:
“Regular job” folks don’t have to be regular at all… there are some pretty epic jobs out there and if you can think of it, trust me … it exists. If it doesn’t, you can be the first one! I think people who love to focus solely on their scope of practice and who want to belong to something greater than themselves make the best employees. Come in, do your job and do it excellently, go home and leave it all at the door. Going above and beyond stays within a set container and then you have the rest of your bandwidth to put towards family, social life, and other passions.
This is especially true if you have a hobby that you are insanely passionate about OUTSIDE of how you make your living. As a founder / entrepreneur / business owner, it’s a slipper slope … most of us lean more towards the workaholic type but it’s just because our #1 passion typically IS what we’ve made our business out of. So, we wouldn’t rather be doing or building anything else in our “free time”.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Everything is “figuroutable.”
- It will cost you everything; and then times that by two. It will be worth it.
- Get everyyything on paper — people change when money is involved, especially the people you think are your friends / least expect.
- No project is life or death and it will get done. Go to the wedding. Go to the birthday party. Go home for Christmas. The work will be there when you get back from living life.
- Dream BIG. And witness every special moment where even the biggest dreams become your new “normal” life.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
“To whom much is given, much will be required.”
I first heard this line from my North Star, Oprah, years ago and have held it close to my heart ever since. It’s actually quoted from the Bible, but I don’t think anyone has to subscribe to any particular religion to appreciate the message.
Being HUMBLE is everything when it comes to success. Yes, I’m a go-getter; anything I’ve ever wanted in life enough I’ve been willing to do whatever it takes, learn the most, and work the hardest to make it happen for myself. But I’m also a grow giver; as I grow myself, my outer environment changes to reflect it. The more I grow, the more I’m able to give to myself and thus to the world around me.
I truly understand that with all of these blessings and creations, there is an increasing responsibility that comes with it. There are more moving parts to manage, more people to lead who are relying on you, looking to you for answers and observing your behavior, and bigger decisions to be made with more and more on the line to risk.
I’ll continue to grow Melt. Not because I need to have more more more. But because I know that opening more locations means serving more clients their self care and spreading the Melt love to communities that need it. That we’ll provide more beauty professionals positions where they can do what they love, work in an incredible ecosystem, and achieve their version of success. That we’ll teach more courses to provide knowledge and resources to artists everywhere who can take those tools to elevate their services offerings at their own companies. That we’ll send more healthy, clean beauty products with clear education to bathroom sinks so that people everywhere can confidently create their daily routines at home. And that someday, we’ll find even more ways of giving back and impacting the world. Welcome to the Melt Movement!
“I’m going to make everything around me beautiful; that will be my life.” — Elsie de Wolfe
You are a person of great influence in the Beauty & Self Care world. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
The Melt movement is simple and is built on:
Radical self acceptance — and acceptance of others’ choice of expression.
Unapologetic authenticity — discovering who you REALLY are and then having the courage to BE HER!
Eternal optimism — because there is always still beauty to be found in the world if you have eyes to see.
Self care + self love — aka doing the things that make you feel more like the highest version of yourself that you love! It’s not a luxury; it’s a human right.
These have always been at the core of the Melt mission.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
My ultimate dream breakfast date would be with Allie Webb — founder of Drybar. In all my years growing Melt, she has been my lighthouse. Sometimes the sea is dark and stormy in business and just when all the waves come crashing, I remember to look up to a woman who has done it before me. Radiating out, reminding us all that it is possible for us to find the shore too.
I can’t say for sure that I would have such high aspirations if it weren’t for her — being a Drybar client for years and taking note of every detail; the way every location has fresh yellow roses, how every product and accessory has a cheeky libation-inspired name, and how I live for the rom coms on repeat while my hair gets a 10 out of 10 blow out / style no matter where in the country I am. She’s nailed it on every level and I more than admire her — I applaud her in a standing ovation for directly impacting my entrepreneurial journey. Thank you, Allie. Your sister, Melissa.
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Female Founders: Melissa Pruett of Melt by Melissa On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.