I dropped out of university and built five beauty businesses. Here's how I did it

Marcia Kilgore may not be a household name, but her Beauty Pie brand, launched in 2016, is recognised worldwide as an industry‑changing online‑only subscription service. Before that she built Bliss, Soap & Glory and FitFlop. At 57, the serial entrepreneur outlines the five lessons that guided her path. **1. You don't need a perfect plan** Kilgore says she never imagined becoming an entrepreneur, but growing up she witnessed the strain financial insecurity placed on her family. "I retrieve deciding astatine eight-years-old that erstwhile I was my parents' age, I would ne'er privation to beryllium stressed astir my electrical bill," she says. That early realization shaped her attitude toward work and risk. "I knew that moving for different radical wouldn't needfully springiness maine the state I wanted and astatine slightest erstwhile you are an entrepreneur, the hazard is your own." She did not start with a grand business plan; she moved from Canada to New York to attend Columbia University, but her tuition fell through, forcing her to take a job to support herself. "You can't beryllium astir thinking: 'What americium I going to do? You person to survive. I knew I had to usage the skills I had to enactment myself and past I would fig it out." She began working as a personal trainer and taking evening fitness classes, discovering she was "rather bully astatine the quality manufacture job," which prompted her to leave university and pursue the field full‑time. **2. Know the job inside out** Working in her salon, Kilgore handled every aspect of the business—from laundry to performing treatments and training staff. She says that hands‑on experience proved