There is a polished version of entrepreneurship that is very easy to show online.

The beautiful treatment room.

The new location.

The graduation photos.

The team.

The revenue milestone.

The client transformation.

The business announcement that makes it look like one opportunity naturally led to the next.

My career did not feel that organized while I was living it.

I built businesses while raising my son.

I learned esthetics while trying to figure out what I wanted my life to become.

I learned entrepreneurship because eventually there was nobody else responsible for making the decisions.

I learned leadership by hiring people.

I learned marketing because I needed clients.

I learned SEO because I wanted people searching for our services to actually find us.

I learned finances because revenue means very little if you don't understand what happens to the money afterward.

And I learned resilience because businesses have a way of teaching you lessons whether you're ready for them or not.

I'm Erica Roybal.

I'm a mother, entrepreneur, esthetics educator, permanent makeup artist, author, and founder of Denver Dream Medspa and Colorado Aesthetics Academy.

Today, I can look backward and connect the pieces.

While I was living them, I usually couldn't.

This is the part of my story that doesn't fit on a treatment page or an esthetics-school website.

It is the story behind the businesses.

And more importantly, the life I was trying to build through them.

I Never Had a Perfect Career Plan

I have degrees in Biomedical Sciences and History.

Neither one immediately suggests:

Future med spa owner.

Or:

Esthetics-school founder.

Or:

Permanent makeup artist.

My background gave me something important, though.

Biomedical science taught me to think analytically.

I became interested in how things work.

Why something happens.

What causes one response instead of another.

How small variables change outcomes.

That way of thinking eventually followed me into aesthetics.

Skin made sense to me because there was science behind it.

Technology interested me because I wanted to understand what the device was actually doing.

Permanent makeup appealed to a different part of me—the artistic side.

And business brought everything together with a completely different challenge:

Could I build something of my own?

I didn't know the answer when I started.

Becoming a Mother Changed the Question

Before becoming a mother, career decisions can feel like they're primarily about you.

After becoming a mother, the calculation changes.

Time changes.

Money changes.

Risk changes.

What you tolerate changes.

What you're willing to sacrifice changes.

What success means changes.

My son became part of the reason I wanted more control over my future.

I wanted financial stability.

I wanted independence.

I wanted the ability to create opportunities instead of waiting for someone else to give them to me.

But there was an irony I didn't fully appreciate in the beginning.

Entrepreneurship could potentially give me more control over my life someday.

In the beginning, it often demanded more of my life than a traditional job would have.

That's the part people don't always tell you.

The Myth of "Being Your Own Boss"

When people talk about entrepreneurship, they often talk about freedom.

And entrepreneurship absolutely can create freedom.

But early entrepreneurship can also look like:

Being the first person responsible when something goes wrong.

Thinking about money when everyone else has gone home.

Answering emails after your child is asleep.

Working on marketing because tomorrow's clients aren't guaranteed.

Making a payroll decision while also thinking about groceries.

Taking a client because you need the revenue even though you are exhausted.

Wondering whether you're building something brilliant or making an enormous mistake.

There is nobody standing above you saying:

You made the correct decision.

That uncertainty is one of the hardest parts.

Eventually, you become more comfortable making decisions without certainty.

But I don't think I started that way.

Aesthetics Became the Door

I found something in aesthetics that worked with several parts of who I was.

There was science.

There was artistry.

There was connection.

There was the satisfaction of physically creating a result.

And there was opportunity.

I developed my skills in esthetics and permanent makeup and began learning what it took to work with actual clients.

That education was different from school.

Clients teach you things books cannot.

They teach you how to communicate.

How to manage expectations.

How to recover when something doesn't go perfectly.

How to recognize what someone means even when she isn't explaining it clearly.

How to build trust.

And eventually, how important reputation is.

I became particularly drawn to permanent makeup because it required so much precision.

NanoBrows.

Powder brows.

Eyeliner.

Lip blush.

The decisions are small, but the consequences are visible.

Permanent makeup taught me something I still believe about business:

Restraint is a skill.

More isn't always better.

More pigment isn't automatically better.

More services aren't automatically better.

More employees aren't automatically better.

More revenue isn't always better if the cost of generating it becomes unsustainable.

That lesson took me longer to understand in business than it did in permanent makeup.

Then I Had to Learn How to Get Clients

Being able to perform a service is one skill.

Getting someone to trust you enough to pay you to perform it is another.

Nobody hands a new provider a full clientele.

You build one appointment at a time.

You take photographs.

You post your work.

You explain what you do.

You ask people to come back.

You hope the client tells a friend.

You improve.

You learn which photos actually communicate results.

You learn which services people want.

You learn what they are searching online.

You learn what makes them hesitate.

This was my introduction to marketing.

Not because I dreamed of becoming a marketer.

Because I needed the business to survive.

I Learned Business Out of Necessity

Some entrepreneurs begin with business degrees and financial models.

I learned many business concepts because there was a problem in front of me that needed to be solved.

If I needed clients, I learned marketing.

If I needed the website to rank, I learned SEO.

If I needed to hire, I learned interviewing.

If an employee wasn't performing, I learned management.

If a piece of equipment was expensive, I learned how to evaluate return on investment.

If the business generated revenue but cash still felt tight, I learned why revenue and profit are not the same thing.

If I wanted a new location, I had to learn real estate.

If construction was involved, I had to learn enough to ask better questions.

If the contract mattered, I learned that you don't sign important documents because you feel rushed.

I never reached a point where entrepreneurship stopped requiring me to learn.

I still haven't.

Building Denver Dream Medspa

Denver Dream Medspa became the place where many of those lessons converged.

It wasn't simply about creating a place that offered aesthetic treatments.

I had to create:

A brand.

A client experience.

A service menu.

A team.

Systems.

Standards.

Pricing.

Marketing.

Technology decisions.

Training expectations.

And eventually, a business that did not depend entirely on whether I personally had an appointment every hour of every day.

That last part has been particularly important.

There is a stage of entrepreneurship where being indispensable feels flattering.

Everyone needs you.

Every client wants you.

Every decision comes through you.

Every problem reaches you.

But being indispensable eventually becomes a problem.

If the company cannot function without you, you haven't created freedom.

You've created a business-shaped dependency.

That realization became even more important as motherhood demanded different things from me.

[VISIT DENVER DREAM MEDSPA →]

The Hard Part About Stepping Back

When you've built your identity around being the person doing the work, stepping back can feel strange.

I spent years developing technical skills.

Building clientele.

Creating results.

Becoming known for certain services.

Then eventually, the business required something different from me.

Leadership.

Strategy.

Hiring.

Marketing.

Expansion.

Decision-making.

And at different points, motherhood needed something different too.

There is a strange guilt that can come with stepping away from the treatment room.

You wonder:

Am I doing less?

But leadership taught me that sometimes your highest-value work changes.

The business doesn't always need you performing another treatment.

Sometimes it needs you building the system that allows twenty treatments to happen correctly without you.

Sometimes your child needs the version of you who isn't completely depleted at the end of the day.

And sometimes your next chapter requires letting go of the identity that built the previous one.

Motherhood Made Me Question Growth

Entrepreneurship rewards more.

More revenue.

More locations.

More employees.

More services.

More recognition.

More everything.

Motherhood has repeatedly forced me to ask:

At what cost?

That does not mean motherhood made me less ambitious.

If anything, it gave my ambition more urgency.

But it also gave it boundaries.

I want to build.

I want to grow.

I want to create opportunity.

I want financial independence.

I want my son to see that his mother built something from the ground up.

But I don't want him to look back and remember only watching me work.

Those competing desires are real.

And I think a lot of entrepreneurial mothers experience them.

I don't believe the solution is a perfectly color-coded calendar that magically produces balance.

For me, it has been much messier.

Some seasons are business-heavy.

Some seasons are family-heavy.

Sometimes I'm proud of the balance.

Sometimes I know I need to correct it.

The goal isn't perfection.

The goal is awareness.

Building Elite Aesthetics Academy Changed My Purpose

Eventually, my career moved beyond serving clients.

I started teaching.

And teaching changed me.

Students ask questions that force you to examine what you believe.

Why do you do it this way?

Why does that treatment work?

Why shouldn't I do this?

How do I get clients?

How do I find a job?

How do I know whether I'm being paid fairly?

Can I make six figures?

When should I open my own business?

Those questions made something very clear.

Students needed more than technical training.

They needed perspective.

A student can know exactly how to complete a facial and still have no idea how to build a career.

She can pass an exam and still not know how to interview.

She can become technically talented and still struggle to retain clients.

She can open a business and discover she never learned the difference between revenue and profit.

That became one of the reasons I cared so much about building Colorado Aesthetics Academy.

I wanted to create education that connected technical skill to the actual industry waiting outside the classroom.

[EXPLORE ELITE AESTHETICS ACADEMY →]

Mentoring Estheticians Became More Important Than I Expected

Some of the moments that stay with me most aren't necessarily the biggest business wins.

They're watching someone change.

A student who was nervous become confident.

Someone who didn't know whether she belonged in the industry get her first job.

A provider build a clientele.

A woman who didn't think she could support herself begin earning real money from a skill she developed.

Someone ask:

Do you think I can do this?

and eventually no longer need anyone else to answer that question for her.

That is powerful.

Because I understand what it feels like not to know where a career will lead.

I have been there.

And mentorship doesn't mean pretending everyone should follow my exact path.

I don't want every student to open a med spa.

I don't want every esthetician to become an entrepreneur.

I want them to understand their options well enough to choose intentionally.

Some of My Most Valuable Lessons Were Expensive

I wish I could say every business lesson came from making a brilliant decision.

It didn't.

Some came from:

Buying something I wouldn't buy again.

Trusting someone I shouldn't have.

Hiring before I fully understood what I needed.

Waiting too long to address a performance problem.

Underestimating a project.

Assuming something would be easier than it was.

Not asking enough questions.

Thinking a strong month meant the business was permanently strong.

Learning that every revenue opportunity is not necessarily a profitable one.

Those mistakes are uncomfortable to talk about.

But I think they're more valuable than pretending entrepreneurship is a sequence of smart decisions.

Nobody builds that way.

At least nobody I know.

The goal is not to avoid every mistake.

It's to avoid making the same expensive mistake repeatedly.

The Difference Between Revenue and Success

For a long time, growth can feel like the obvious scorecard.

Did we make more money than last year?

Did we add clients?

Did we add services?

Did we expand?

Those numbers matter.

But business ownership has taught me that revenue alone tells a very incomplete story.

A company can produce impressive revenue and still have:

Poor margins.

Excessive debt.

Unhappy employees.

No cash.

An exhausted owner.

Terrible retention.

No systems.

A company can look successful and feel completely unsustainable behind the scenes.

That has changed the questions I ask.

Not just:

How much did we make?

But:

What did it cost us to make it?

What did we keep?

Can we repeat it?

Did the team get stronger?

Did the business become less dependent on me?

Did this growth improve our lives—or simply make everything harder?

Those are better questions.

My Son Does Not Care About My Revenue

This may be one of the most grounding parts of motherhood.

My son does not care what the business made this month.

He doesn't care whether a page moved higher in Google.

He doesn't care whether we added a device.

He doesn't care about a business award.

He cares about things that are much more immediate.

Did Mom listen?

Did Mom show up?

Can Mom play?

Is Mom paying attention?

That doesn't diminish what I've built.

It puts it in perspective.

Business can become extremely important without becoming the most important thing.

I need that reminder.

Probably more often than I'd like to admit.

I Want Him to See Me Build

At the same time, I don't want to hide the work from him.

There is something I hope he learns by watching me.

That you can create.

That you can learn things nobody taught you.

That you can change direction.

That starting with less knowledge doesn't mean you have to stay there.

That women can lead.

That mothers can build companies.

That mistakes are not evidence you should quit.

That money requires responsibility.

That independence is valuable.

That education can change your options.

And that the fact that something is difficult does not automatically mean you're doing the wrong thing.

I hope he learns those lessons.

I also hope he learns that work is a part of life.

Not life itself.

There Is No Perfect Version of the Working Mother

I used to think there might be a point where everything felt organized.

The business would be running smoothly.

Motherhood would feel balanced.

The house would be under control.

My schedule would make sense.

Everyone would need me at different times instead of simultaneously.

I'm still waiting.

I think the better goal is not perfect balance.

It's the ability to recognize when something has become too unbalanced and adjust.

Sometimes that means saying no to an opportunity.

Sometimes it means delegating.

Sometimes it means working more intensely for a period.

Sometimes it means stepping back.

Sometimes it means accepting that the business will grow a little slower because life needs attention.

That is not failure.

It is a decision.

I Became More Comfortable Changing My Mind

One of the things entrepreneurship has taught me is how dangerous ego can be.

You make a decision.

You announce it.

You invest money.

You tell the team.

Then new information appears.

The immature response is:

I already decided, so I have to keep going.

The better response is:

Does this still make sense?

I've changed strategies.

I've reconsidered plans.

I've adjusted services.

I've changed how I manage.

I've evolved how I think about my role.

That is not inconsistency.

Sometimes it is growth.

You are allowed to become smarter than the person who made the original decision.

Building a Business Changed My Relationship With Risk

Before entrepreneurship, risk can feel theoretical.

After entrepreneurship, you realize risk has invoices attached to it.

A lease.

A loan.

Payroll.

Equipment.

Construction.

Marketing.

Employees who depend on the business.

A family that depends on you.

You learn that courage is not the same as recklessness.

A good entrepreneur does not simply take big risks.

She learns to evaluate them.

What is the upside?

What is the downside?

What happens if I'm wrong?

Can I survive being wrong?

Can I test this smaller?

Do I have enough cash?

Am I solving a real problem?

Am I doing this because the numbers support it—or because my ego wants it?

Those questions have become increasingly important to me.

The Bigger My Businesses Became, the More I Had to Learn About People

Technical skills built the beginning of my career.

People skills became increasingly important as the businesses grew.

Clients.

Students.

Employees.

Managers.

Contractors.

Vendors.

Partners.

People are complicated.

You cannot run a growing company using only policies and spreadsheets.

You have to learn:

Communication.

Boundaries.

Expectations.

Accountability.

Motivation.

Conflict.

When to give someone another chance.

When not to.

When to listen.

When to make the decision.

Leadership is not something I think you "finish" learning.

Every new stage of the business exposes another part of it.

I Don't Want to Pretend I Have Entrepreneurship Solved

One of my biggest goals with EricaRoybal.com is to avoid becoming another person on the internet pretending there is a secret formula.

There isn't.

I can tell you what worked for me.

I can tell you what didn't.

I can show you how I think through a decision now.

I can share lessons that cost me money, time, energy, or sleep to learn.

But businesses are different.

Markets change.

People change.

Your goals may be different from mine.

My advice is perspective.

Not gospel.

I actually think that makes it more useful.

Why I Started Writing About the Real Side of Business

There are things I can say on EricaRoybal.com that don't belong on Denver Dream Medspa.

A med spa website should help someone understand treatments and decide whether to book.

There are things that don't belong on Colorado Aesthetics Academy.

A school website should help prospective students understand education and determine whether the program fits them.

But I wanted somewhere to talk about:

Business.

Motherhood.

Leadership.

Career mistakes.

Money.

Growth.

Risk.

Hiring.

Building a clientele.

SEO.

Commercial real estate.

Equipment.

Failure.

Confidence.

Changing your mind.

And what it actually feels like to build something while simultaneously trying to raise a human being.

This is that place.

What I Would Tell the Woman Building Something Right Now

Maybe your business is still an idea.

Maybe you're working out of one room.

Maybe you've just hired your first employee.

Maybe the company is growing faster than you know how to manage.

Maybe you're a mother trying to build a career between school pickup and bedtime.

Maybe everyone around you thinks you're doing amazingly while privately you're wondering whether you're in over your head.

I would tell you this:

You are allowed to learn while you're building.

You do not need to know how to solve every future problem before you begin.

You need to solve the problem in front of you.

Then the next one.

Then the next one.

Eventually, you look backward and realize you have become someone who knows how to do things that once terrified you.

That has been one of the strangest parts of my own career.

Things that once felt impossible eventually became ordinary.

Not because they became easier.

Because I became more capable.

What I Would Tell the New Esthetician

Your license is not your career.

It is the beginning.

Learn the fundamentals.

Take sanitation seriously.

Get experience.

Learn to communicate.

Learn to retain clients.

Build a portfolio.

Understand sales.

Develop a specialty.

Learn business even if you never plan to own one.

Protect your reputation.

And give yourself time.

Do not compare your first year with someone else's fifteenth.

[READ MY ESTHETICIAN CAREER ADVICE →]

What I Would Tell the Esthetician Who Wants to Open a Business

Don't open simply because you're tired of having a boss.

Build because you understand what you're building.

Know your clientele.

Know your expenses.

Know your pricing.

Understand your scope.

Build savings.

Learn marketing.

Understand cash flow.

Read your contracts.

Don't assume clients will follow you.

Don't finance everything because someone promises a device will pay for itself.

And remember:

Being an entrepreneur is not proof that you're more successful than an employee.

Choose the path that actually fits your life.

[READ: SHOULD YOU OPEN YOUR OWN ESTHETICS BUSINESS? →]

What I Would Tell the Mother Building a Business

You are probably going to disappoint yourself sometimes.

You will work when you wanted to be present.

You will choose family when the business could have used you.

You will wonder whether you're doing enough in either place.

You may compare yourself to entrepreneurs who do not have your responsibilities.

Don't.

Your business is being built inside your actual life.

Not an imaginary one.

Your goals have to fit that reality.

And success that requires losing everything you were trying to build the success for isn't much of a success.

What Success Means to Me Now

My definition of success has changed.

I still care about growth.

I care about revenue.

I care about building great businesses.

I care about helping our students succeed.

I care about creating opportunities for employees.

I care about improving.

But success also looks like:

Being able to step away.

Being present with my son.

Not making every decision from fear.

Having businesses that can function without my constant involvement.

Having the freedom to change direction.

Being able to help another woman avoid a mistake I made.

Seeing a student build a career.

Creating something that outlives the appointment I performed today.

That version of success feels much more interesting to me now.

I'm Still Building

This story does not end with:

And then I figured it all out.

I didn't.

I'm still building.

Still making decisions.

Still evaluating opportunities.

Still learning leadership.

Still learning when to say yes.

Still learning when to say no.

Still trying to build better systems.

Still trying to become a better mother.

Still trying to decide which opportunities are worth pursuing and which ones are simply distractions dressed up as growth.

There is something freeing about accepting that.

You do not arrive.

You evolve.

The Life Behind the Businesses

Denver Dream Medspa is part of my story.

Colorado Aesthetics Academy is part of my story.

Permanent makeup is part of my story.

Esthetics is part of my story.

Entrepreneurship is part of my story.

But none of those things alone are the story.

The story is a woman who kept learning.

A mother trying to create options.

A professional who discovered a career she could build on.

An entrepreneur who made good decisions and bad ones.

An educator who realized helping someone else become capable can be even more meaningful than doing the work yourself.

And someone who is still figuring out what the next chapter should look like.

That's the version I'm interested in sharing.

Not a perfectly polished success story.

A real one.

Why I Mentor Estheticians

I know what it feels like to wonder:

How do I turn this into a career?

Then:

How do I turn the career into income?

Then:

How do I turn the income into a business?

Then:

How do I build the business without letting it take over my life?

Those questions don't have one answer.

But experience helps.

That's why mentorship matters to me.

I want estheticians to understand what is possible.

But I also want them to understand what it costs.

I want them to enter business with ambition and information.

I want them to learn how to market themselves.

Build clientele.

Evaluate opportunities.

Read the numbers.

Choose advanced education strategically.

And decide what kind of career they actually want.

[EXPLORE ESTHETICIAN MENTORSHIP + CAREER ADVICE →]

Why I Support Other Business Owners

Owning businesses has made me appreciate other entrepreneurs differently.

When I walk into a local business now, I don't only see the finished space.

I think about:

The lease.

The payroll.

The construction.

The equipment.

The marketing.

The risk.

The person who probably lay awake one night wondering whether all of this was going to work.

Building something creates empathy for other people building something.

That's one reason supporting other businesses has become important to me.

I understand how much can sit behind something that looks simple from the outside.

The Next Chapter

I don't want the next stage of my career to be only about producing more.

I want it to be about sharing more.

More of what I've learned.

More of what I got wrong.

More about business.

More about motherhood.

More about esthetics.

More about helping professionals build sustainable careers.

More about the decisions behind the polished result.

If something I learned the expensive way can help someone else make a smarter decision, that's valuable to me.

If sharing my story makes another mother feel less alone while building hers, that's valuable too.

And if my son eventually looks back and understands that everything I was building was never only about business, that may be the most valuable part of all.

If You're Building Too

You don't need to know the entire road.

You probably won't.

You need to become good at taking the next step.

Learn what the next decision requires.

Ask better questions.

Get qualified advice when the stakes are high.

Pay attention to your numbers.

Treat people well.

Own your mistakes.

Change direction when you need to.

Protect what matters outside the business.

And keep going long enough to find out what you are capable of building.

I started in esthetics without knowing where it would lead.

It led me into artistry.

Business.

Education.

Leadership.

Writing.

Mentorship.

And a life that looks very different from anything I could have predicted at the beginning.

I'm still discovering where it leads next.

And maybe that's the point.

— Erica Roybal

Explore the Businesses Behind My Story

Denver Dream Medspa

Denver Dream Medspa is the advanced aesthetics practice I founded in Denver, Colorado. It represents years of learning about client experience, aesthetic technology, treatment planning, provider training, marketing, leadership, and what it takes to build a sustainable local aesthetics business.

[VISIT DENVER DREAM MEDSPA →]

Elite Aesthetics Academy

Elite Aesthetics Academy grew from my work as an educator and my belief that students need more than technical education. They need hands-on experience, career preparation, professional confidence, and a realistic understanding of the industry they're entering.

[VISIT ELITE AESTHETICS ACADEMY →]

Continue Reading

How to Become an Esthetician

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[READ THE GUIDE →]

Esthetician Career Advice

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[EXPLORE ESTHETICIAN CAREER ADVICE →]

How to Build an Esthetician Clientele

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[BUILD YOUR CLIENTELE →]

How to Market Yourself as an Esthetician

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[BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND →]

Should You Open Your Own Esthetics Business?

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[READ THE BUSINESS OWNER GUIDE →]

How to Become a 6-Figure Esthetician

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[READ THE 6-FIGURE ESTHETICIAN GUIDE →]