Mikki Bey Eyelash Extensions Before Shark Tank
In the celebrity World of Hollywood there are an army of anonymous workers who ensure that your favorite celebrity always looks fantastic. Every time you see a star on the red carpet they’ve been dressed in the finest clothes, and they’ve had every tiny physical imperfection removed by a team of experts.
One of those experts is Mikki Bey, a make-up artist with a wealth of experience and contacts in Tinseltown. Her work could be seen on networks such as E!, MTV and VH1. She wrote a weekly beauty column for the online lifestyle magazine MadameNoire, and she had been selected by the Recording Academy to be a member of the exclusive Grammyglam squad, a group of leading experts in the beauty industry who report live on the annual Grammy awards.
Mikki, originally from Detroit, began her career as a producer for CBS, but she was frustrated by the lack of creativity in her corporate network career and eventually graduated into the World of celebrity make-up artists. She opened her own business in 2011, focusing on her speciality, eyelash extensions.
The Mikki Bey Eyelash Extensions salon, in Culver City, California focused on ordinary women who wanted to get professional eyelash extensions worthy of any Hollywood star, but in order to follow her dream of opening a Mikki Bey salon in every major city in America, she needed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, and she also knew that a business expert would be able to make the process far easier. With that aim in mind she applied to appear on Shark Tank in mid 2015.
Mikki Bey Eyelash Extensions On Shark Tank
Mikki was introduced to Shark Tank viewers in October 2015, her segment began with a small at home segment with Mikki in her Salon, which she described as a ‘Barbie Dream-house’. She explained that she was hoping to expand her brand of beauty across the country, with the help of an investment from the sharks.
Mikki was seeking $300,000 in exchange for 20% of the Mikki Bey business, she entered the tank with two models and introduced herself to the sharks.
She began her pitch by asserting that the glamorous look common to all celebrities was fake. ‘You know it right?’ she asked the business moguls. She went on to explain that they too could look like a celebrity with her professional help.
‘Even men are getting in on the deal’ Mikki explained, and wondered aloud what Mr Wonderful would look like with Mikki Bey Eyelash Extensions. Kevin O’Leary sounded surprisingly enthusiastic about the idea, but Mikki had other ideas. She invited Mark Cuban to come on up and try out her service, and he too loved the idea.
Kevin O’Leary couldn’t see anything unique about the process, but Mikki explained that her own technique was the unique part. She was able to cut the application time of the extensions in half, and it was that technique that she wanted to patent.
Robert Herjavec wanted more details, ‘How can you do it in half the time?’ he asked, but Mikki wasn’t going to be giving away her secrets so easily. She told Robert that she couldn’t tell him the exact nature of the technique, and Lori agreed, clearly understanding Mikki’s reluctance to give any more details away.
Kevin wasn’t as understanding of his fellow shark, he told Mikki that her valuation of $1.5 million must be based on something, and pushed for more information about exactly what made the company worth such a large amount of money, ‘What do you do? What?’ he asked.
Mikki ran though the details of her unique process again, but Kevin was still unable to see any real proprietary value to her business or technique. Mikki ran through her revenue from the last three years, detailing modestly increasing profits year on year, with $130,000 being made in the previous year. Kevin admitted that there was nothing wrong with the business, but again insisted there was nothing unique or proprietary about it. Mikki showed plenty of confidence as she refused to concede that Mr Wonderful was right, but Kevin was clearly a long way from being convinced, even though he appeared to admire Mikki’s confidence.
Robert inquired what Mikki was planning to do with any investment she got from the tank. She outlined her strategy of seeking a patent for her process, and licensing it out to other beauty salons across the country. She revealed that she also wanted to train more staff to increase her own salons potential for profits.
Kevin O’Leary told the entrepreneur that her business was not a suitable investment. He dropped out and also predicted that Mikki wasn’t going to get a deal from his fellow sharks, ‘And I’m never wrong’ he added ominously.
Mikki made an emotional and passionate plea to the remaining sharks, but she became overcome with emotion. She asserted tearfully that the Mikki Bey business was her destiny, and she would not stop until had succeeded in growing the business into a nationwide brand. But the sharks looked concerned at the entrepreneurs sudden loss of control.
Barbara Corcoran asserted that Mikki’s business was a service, not a business. She believed that Mikki lacked the skills to motivate others, and was unlikely to see her business grow in the way she envisaged, and with that, Barbara dropped out.
Lori Greiner told Mikki that her passion would eventually see her achieve the success she was looking for, but she also couldn’t see what there was for her to invest in, and for that reason Lori dropped out of the negotiations too.
Mark Cuban admired Mikki’s successes so far, and her passion for the business, but asserted that he couldn’t add value to the business. He told Mikki that she didn’t need him, although she didn’t look as if she agreed, but Mark was not going to make an offer and dropped out too.
Robert Herjavec believed that the Mikki Bey business was making good money, but it wasn’t a scalable business in his eyes. A string of salons would only increase administration and logistical costs, and ultimately reduce profits overall, and with that Robert was out.
Barbara Corcoran spoke kindly to Mikki, but she had been discouraged by her sudden show of emotion. She told the eyelash entrepreneur to ‘Give up the crying’, and asserted that a woman crying was giving up power, and it was never an appropriate action in a business environment.
‘Don’t cry for money, It never cries for you’ called Kevin, as Mikki left the tank.
Mikki Bey Eyelash Extensions Now in 2024 – The After Shark Tank Update
Barbara’s comments drew a fair amount of attention after the segment aired, with many criticizing her for having told Mikki to “lose the crying stuff.” Regardless, she stood her ground.
Several weeks later, Mikki asserted in an interview that what Barbara said was wrong and that crying “didn’t give away power” and that it was what made them human. She defended her statement by referring to Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, who has previously admitted to crying at work. She also mentioned how Hilary Clinton had become emotional while talking about gun control.
In the interview, Mikki also revealed that the filming of the episode took place on the anniversary of her father’s death and that that plus the pressure of being in front of the sharks had temporarily overwhelmed her.
Despite everything, her business continued to grow- to the point where she eventually had to hire more staff. Mikki also began teaching two-day-long eyelash certification classes- in which she teaches individuals everything they need to know about how to make money within 48 hours- in a number of cities. Whether or not people attended, however, is a different story as we weren’t able to find any details regarding her students.
In the end, her salon only lasted for another year. Despite her passion, she ended up closing the business in 2017, just a year after appearing on Shark Tank.
What is Mikki up to nowadays? According to LinkedIn, after the salon shut down, she worked at abbVie, first as a business development manager, before being a strategic account manager, and senior product manager. In the end, she was with them for a little over three years, from June 2017 to September 2020.
She then worked as an associate director at AstraZeneca. At the same time, she was the president of the National Sales Network. She also worked for a few months as the vice president and general manager at Scientis.
At the same time, she also worked as a life coach out of Atlanta, Georgia. In fact, she’s still doing it to this day. For those who are interested, you can learn more at getmikkibey.com. From the looks of it, she currently offers three types of ‘coaching’ including a life coaching program, a VIP experience, as well as a masterclass for beauty entrepreneurs.
That’s not all, it looks like she also has a podcast in the works (it’s listed as ‘coming soon’ on her website).
Seeing as how she’s clearly moved on from eyelash extensions, we’d say that the chances of her returning to the tank are slim.
Her salon has closed and she returned to her studies in business. Currently she is mentoring other estheticians in Houston, TX
The crying was absolutely pitiful and an embarrassment to women in business everywhere. No one wants to invest good money on an unstable person who can’t control herself whatsoever; Barbara was right. I think business is absolutely the wrong path for her…another career would be better suited to someone who’s such an emotional mess. Teaching, psychotherapy, retail, or just be a makeup artist for film, TV, or events. Something tells me that Barbara and Lori don’t dissolve into tears when things don’t go their way.