Louisa Selen Schneider was not short of business ideas.
She once tried to launch a language tutoring business with a yoga wear company (“long before Lululemon existed,” she said) at another point. Neither of them were stuck, but the ideas continued.
Then in 2017, I came up with the idea that Schneider felt there was momentum. She left a prominent Wall Street job with what she called a “competitive C-level pay” to start a business with a bet on herself and keen ears.
“It was the first time in my life that I hadn’t worked full-time,” Schneider, now 48, told CNBC. “I was actually working in the attic, horrifying.”
Seven years later, the business now known as Rowan is the only listening business on its own medical board, with registered nurses being trained to stab their ears. Rowan has 90 studios in the US and has around 800 employees. More than half of their employees are nurses.
Louisa Selen Schneider is the founder and CEO of Rowan, a sharp-eared business with 90 locations across the United States.
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Schneider’s journey to becoming Rowan’s founder and CEO was not easy. “There were a lot of days I wanted to give up, and there were days when I looked at my bank account and thought, ‘I don’t know if I can create a salary or not,” she says. “I just have to keep going.”
Here’s how she built Rowan in a profitable business that generated more than $70 million in revenue last year:
Solution to her own problem
Like many company origin stories, Rowan’s ideas came from Schneider’s own needs.
At the time, she was looking for a place to stab her daughter’s ears. She had a bad piercing experience for herself and didn’t love the option of taking her daughter to the mall or jewelry store.
“Our pediatrician didn’t pierc my ears. I didn’t want to take her to an existing ear pierced option,” Schneider says.
Louisa’s gentle Schneider saw a gap in the market for ear penetration services, which provided “the medical aspects of safety and piercing.”
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Her job as a hedge fund manager, accompanied by the assessment of the sick mall, saw a gap in the market for ear piercing services that provide the safety and medical aspects of piercing and combine it with a celebration and intentional service.
Pus, “My parents were both doctors and for our family, opening ear holes is a medical procedure and I really wanted it to be done safely,” she says. “That’s where Rowan’s idea came from.”
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In 2017, Schneider began working from his attic in Larchmont, New York.
Louisa Celine Schneider started Rowan in 2017 from the attic in her New York home.
Provided by Rowan
She didn’t have the money to build an actual store, so she started with a home concierge style piercing service where people could call and send emails to nurses come to the appointing piercings. Schneider says the company has built the original Pierce Network thanks to a friend who teaches nursing at Columbia University.
The company also sold monthly subscription boxes of hypoallergenic earrings for $20 per pair. This is the idea that piercing customers will purchase a new jewelry subscription model every month.
People tell you you are stupid over and over again, and then you pick up yourself and say, “Okay, are you there? No, I know this is right. I know I can do this.
Louisa Celine Schneider
Founder and CEO of Rowan
Schneider says she and her friend Sarah Fraser, a treasurer who no longer participates in the business, have bootstrap the initial operations with her own savings.
“It was a different experience than I had before, where people sighed and asked questions when I told them what I was doing,” she says. “A lot of people looked at me as if I was crazy. They didn’t see ear piercings, earrings and jewelry as real business.”
However, Schneider saw the potential in her market. Once someone gives a good piercing experience, they and their families can become lifelong customers.
“The fundraising campaign is terrible.”
In December 2018, Schneider paid digital creator Beschappo to promote his subscription jewelry line in time for his holidays.
Within minutes of the post being released, Schneider says the company began selling “hundreds” subscription boxes.
It was far more than they expected, and she was worried about completing her gift order in time. “We didn’t have the ability to meet those orders,” she says.
Rowan currently employs more than 550 nurses trained in ear piercing techniques.
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After the influencer’s viral post, Schneider began an official round of seed funding. Rowan saw positive feedback from his customers, but getting investors on board was a different story.
“Funding is terrible,” Schneider said. “People say you’re stupid over and over again. And you pick up yourself up and say, “OK, I? No, I know this is right. I know I can do this.”
Especially at a low moment, Schneider says he was given the opportunity to attend investors’ meetings during his family trip to California. It’s not just that “no” is repeated.
It has not been lost to her that the investors were mostly male and had not seen her business potential, primarily women. “We felt there was a clear gap in this market as male investors are usually allocators of capital and usually don’t stab the ears,” Schneider says. Other ear-sick businesses have been around for decades, but “this experience has not changed or evolved into the present day,” she points out.
But keep the momentum long enough, and “eventually you’ll meet someone who believes in you,” she says.
The company raised $5 million in seed capital between 2018 and 2021. We raised Series A in the spring of 2021, and by that fall we raised $20 million in Series B funding.
“Since then, our business is fortunately and with a lot of effort, we haven’t raised any money,” Schneider says. The company made a profit in 2023, she says.
Expand their reach
In 2019, Target contacted Rowan for the partnership. The result was a pop-up location that made more than 300 holes in retail stores across the country.
In 2020, when the world was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Rowan continued his work by sending nurses to people’s homes and stabbing them in the ears.
“Families didn’t have to abandon this milestone during a really sad time for many,” Schneider says.
The company eventually opened its first brick and mortar store, allowing people to stab their ears to buy earrings in New York City later that year, and ended their home piercing services and subscription boxes.
Rowan has 90 studios and plans to get 100 locations on track by the end of 2025.
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Rowan continued to open new brick and mortar locations. By 2022, Schneider had decided to end the Target Partnership as his studio was becoming more profitable, providing a better experience for clients and nurses in his space.
Rowan currently employs more than 550 nurses, and the company’s medical team creates its own curriculum and trains nurses with ear peer techniques.
Schneider says it’s important for her to provide a good opportunity for nurses who often work three or four-hour shifts a week at the hospital, but they may want to take additional work on their days off.
According to the company’s recent job listing, nurses will be paid about $23 to $30 per hour, plus more tips, depending on the location of Rowan’s studio.
Rowan opened his first studio in New York City in 2020. There, customers were able to listen to the nurses and shop for earrings.
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Daniela, a nurse at NYC Hospital, works part-time in Rowan two days a week. “I love it here because of the creative side of nursing,” she says. “We can work with our customers, stab our ears and get excited, but it’s a stressful job in the hospital.”
Rowan is on track to provide those opportunities to more nurses and clients. The company is projected to hit 100 studios by the end of 2025, bringing in revenue of $150 million, Schneider says.
“Every time I drill a hole and see a smile, I see the applause and joy from my family,” she says.
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