I had the opportunity to interview entrepreneur and hairstylist Leo Izquierdo who is the founder of IGK Hair. After emigrating to the US at the age of 24, he opened his first salon in Miami alongside brother Franck. Fast forward a few years he is now the founder of IGK Salons & Hair products: one of America’s most successful hair brands that not only has salons in Miami, Los Angeles and New York, but has a product line sold in Sephora and Ulta Beauty.
Today Art Insider interviewed him on his top 5 essential rules to becoming a successful entrepreneur…
1.Take your time in taking decisions – don’t to rush into things, taking informed decisions and making sure of it will save you time in the long run.
2. Listen and take examples from people who you look up to and hope you can follow in their footsteps. I think its so important to not be afraid to ask questions, a lot of people are happy to help.
3. Don’t be a hater – always appreciate someone else’s hard work and success. Most successful people started from the bottom and not many people were just handed their success so at one point they were where you are now, so instead of channelling negative thoughts use that energy to ask questions, research and be open minded.
4. Follow your gut and trust that first impressions are very important. A time that sticks out to me is launching a product that we as a team knew in our gut wouldn’t be a success but we did it anyway because we thought maybe it could work, needless to say this product was quickly discontinued – but we learned from this so it’s not a such bad thing that this happened.
5. Its normal and ok to not succeed at everything you try and feel like you’ve taken a step backwards instead of forwards but to keep on pushing and trying.