Introduction

GlossGenius is transforming the beauty and wellness industry with its comprehensive suite of tools designed specifically for professionals in this sector. With one of the largest customer bases across the beauty and wellness industry, GlossGenius handles billions of dollars in activity annually and offers busy beauty and wellness business owners a platform that can get all the jobs done. The team is focused on allowing these entrepreneurs to build their unique brand identity, grow their businesses, and maximize income like larger companies would.

Challenge

Running a small salon or spa involves complex logistics. GlossGenius recognized the need for simple, affordable, and elegantly designed tools to help these businesses effectively manage their operations and finances. Since launching in 2017, the GlossGenius team has rolled out a full suite of financial tools to help businesses, from loans to payment processing to appointment no-show protection and expense management. Some offline processes continued to get in the way for salon owners: paying workers involved multiple systems, disconnected spreadsheets, and over an hour of work each week. In seeking to offer a full one-stop-shop for their customers, a natural next step was to decisively solve these payroll pains, too, and embedded payroll promised to make this easy. However, early research into the embedded payroll industry highlighted that choosing the right partner would be an important, and long-term decision. 

GlossGenius wanted a payroll solution that could integrate seamlessly with its existing platform and leverage the compensation data it already tracked without consuming extensive engineering resources or taking many months to integrate.

“We are big believers in fixing payroll and know that a better product experience makes a huge difference to our salon owners. Salsa has been a committed partner. They’re always available, and they prioritize us. Launching quickly took payroll from being something on our long-term roadmap to being in customers' hands within the same quarter. We’re now all-in on payroll and excited about building out this line of business.” - Danielle Cohen-Shohet, CEO & Founder 

Solution

GlossGenius partnered with Salsa to get payroll on the roadmap and expedite the integration process. By leveraging Salsa Express embeddable components that could be customized to fit the GlossGenius brand aesthetic—including specific requirements like button gradients—the team was able to fast-track development and get a product experience that was on-brand and met the expectations of customers with a high bar for design. This approach enabled a rapid transition from the conceptual to the pilot stage, with integration beginning early one quarter and the first payroll run happening just over a month later. Collaboration with Salsa accelerated the product development timeline and ensured that the new payroll product aligned with the high design and functionality standards expected by GlossGenius users.

“In our industry, time is money. When our professionals are bogged down by manual back office work, they’re not monetizing their time with clients. Inside GlossGenius, time is just as valuable… we’re sensitive about tying up precious engineering resources. We were drawn to Salsa because the team had such deep payroll expertise. We bet that this team would build what we needed faster than anyone else in the space and we were right.” - Francine Dong, Product Manager

Result

GlossGenius's further foray into fintech exemplifies how targeted solutions, designed with industry-specific needs, can profoundly impact small business operations. This case study underscores the importance of choosing the right partners and leveraging flexible technology to swiftly bring valuable new services to the market. For the beauty and wellness industry, GlossGenius has become more than a platform; it's a catalyst for growth and operational excellence, and now, it’s a payroll provider.