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Name: Vanessa Melman Yakobson
Title: CEO of Blo Blow Dry Bar and CEO and Founder of LashKind
Company: Blo Blow Dry Bar and LashKind
No. of units: Blo, 160 (open or in development), and LashKind, 3
International units: 0
Public or private? Private
Year company founded: Blo, 2007, and LashKind, 2023
Year started franchising: Blo, 2009, and LashKind, 2023
Your years in franchising: 10
Vanessa Melman Yakobson is the CEO and co-founder of Blo Blow Dry Bar, and she has led the company since April 2016. In addition to her role at Blo, Vanessa is the founder of LashKind. A dynamic business leader with expertise across consumer-packed goods, nonprofit, and financial services sectors, Vanessa has a proven ability to drive organizational and brand growth through visionary strategic planning and results-driven execution.
As a leader, Vanessa embraces a collaborative approach and is committed to continual improvement. She says that franchising has provided a way to affect others’ lives in meaningful and positive ways. With help from her team, Blo Blow Dry Bar has grown to 160 units open or in development, and LashKind, which started franchising in 2023, has three.
What is your background? In 2001, my husband and I, along with our business partner, opened a children’s hair salon after having a poor experience with getting our kids’ hair cut. We then decided to acquire Blo Blow Dry Bar in 2007. I was working with the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) at the time. The work was close to my heart because I had battled pediatric cancer myself.
After learning how to build infrastructure and develop partnerships for 11 years at POGO, I was eager to jump full-time into Blo and take the role of CEO in 2015. With the help of my team, we have grown the brand to 160 locations open and in various stages of development across 30 states. Fast forward to 2022, and Blo acquired a Canadian lash concept called MYNC. In 2023, we launched the franchise opportunity in the U.S. under the name LashKind. In September 2024, we acquired a California-based lash concept named LashBar.
How did that prepare you for starting your business? POGO was a well-established nonprofit entity in the medical realm. It had no consumer awareness. Working at POGO required me to build a consumer-facing brand from scratch, create a corporate infrastructure to support fundraising and communications, establish community relationships and partnerships, and learn to become a professional fundraiser. When I decided to leave POGO and return to the corporate world, I was concerned that I had failed to become a functional specialist and worried that would limit my opportunities. However, I realized that I had developed a general management skill set in leadership, team management, marketing/communications, and finance/budgeting. I had learned how to build a business from scratch.
What’s the best and worst advice you got when starting out? The best advice came when I left POGO and wasn’t sure where to go next. A friend and respected businessperson in Toronto told me that I was a business builder. That resonated with me and made sense given what I had achieved at POGO. I knew then that I needed to go and build a business.
Worst advice: As a bold 20-something, I was never afraid to ask questions or share ideas. But I was once told by a CEO’s assistant that the CEO, an old-fashioned business person, did not like young people who thought they knew how the world worked. In other words, I was told to keep my opinions to myself. Needless to say, that did not deter me!
Was this your first time in franchising? Yes.
Why did you choose to franchise? I fell into it because I was a shareholder in the company.
Did you have a partner/co-founder when you started? Yes, my husband, Ari Yakobson, our business partner, Paul Spindler, and a small group of friends and family investors.
How important was that in building your company? It was important because it meant I was surrounded by trusted partners with as much stake in the business as I had.
How did you fund your company at the beginning? As you grew? Friends and family investors. Much later, when Covid-19 happened, we brought on a private equity investor to ensure we came out of the pandemic at full strength.
What were the keys to funding your brand? We needed to be sure we had a viable business model first. We were fortunate to acquire three units of a two-year-old concept that, while new, had proven early success. Next, we expanded within Canada to further prove out the concept before moving into the U.S. By growing slowly and deliberately, my partners and I felt comfortable and excited to fund the business.
What has been the best and the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur? The best: The reward that comes from knowing you are impacting the lives of others in such a meaningful and positive way. The hardest was learning to deal with the setbacks that inevitably come with building your own business. After dealing with setbacks or negative situations, I am grateful that today I have the confidence in knowing that “this too shall pass” and that my team and I are on the right track.
How has your experience in running a franchise business been different from what you expected? I did not anticipate how challenging it can be to deal with franchisees. As a franchisor, we are in the customer service business, and our franchisees are our customers. We recognize that they have a lot at stake. They’ve made significant investments and life decisions that have a meaningful effect on their families, so they can have high expectations for the support they require from the franchisor. It’s also a challenge for my team and me to learn not to take things personally when a franchisee is upset. Instead, we learn what our franchisees are facing and find ways to provide resources and support.
How did you grow the brand at first? What changed as you expanded? I was always committed to responsible growth and determined not to oversell the brand so that we could always support new units. I ensured that as we sold units, we built our corporate infrastructure to have the right people in the right roles to support our franchisees. Our basic approach to building the brand has not changed, but we have evolved and expanded our efforts. Today, I am enormously proud of the system we have built.
How would you describe your leadership style? I consider myself a collaborative leader. I know that great ideas can come from anywhere. I’m also an idea generator, and I create space so that people feel comfortable and confident to come forward and speak their minds.
What is the key to your company’s success? Our company has been successful first by being a category disruptor and then by ensuring that, as we evolved, we stayed true to our roots and the concept that made us a success in the early years. We have also been successful because of our collaborative approach and commitment to continual improvement.
Was being female an advantage or disadvantage for you in building your company? How? It has been an advantage that is unique to Blo. Most of our franchisees and their staff members are female, and our customer base is almost entirely female. I think they are inspired by having a female leading the company. I can relate personally to our value proposition, which helps.
Why do you think there are fewer start-ups with female founders than male ones? Good question! Is that the fact? I’m not sure!
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace? I have worked in the marketing and nonprofit sectors, which are dominated by women. I have also worked in the financial services arena and was shocked to discover that the world had not advanced as much as I thought it had in terms of how women are viewed in the workplace. Sometimes, I have to work hard to earn respect and credibility, which means having the courage of my convictions and being confident to speak up and be a leader.
Which female leaders do you admire? Why? I admire Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta. She wrote the book, which resonates with me. It’s all about taking your seat at the table as a woman in the workplace.
Has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life? How? Absolutely. At POGO, I had no background in fundraising, and at Blo, I had no background in franchising. I have regularly sought out mentors in the industry.
What would you like to achieve in the next five years? For Blo, we aim to have 135 doors open by the end of 2025. On the LashKind side, we are focused on growing responsibly and hope to have 50 doors open within the next few years. Aside from unit count, we are prioritizing growing unit economics for Blo and LashKind franchisees by offering a robust set of tools and resources from our corporate team, including a stellar business coaching program. We are also developing multiple revenue streams for franchisees, including our membership program, and we are working with wonderful brand partners for service and retail.
What’s coming up that you’re excited about? This year is poised to be exciting for the brand. We had record growth in 2024 at the unit and brand levels, and we have several areas of focus to drive continued growth in 2025. New unit sales will be strong, and we are excited about the quality of candidates who will become new franchisees. We are excited about continuing to help our franchisees drive success in their businesses.