in a chrome state of mind

Okay, hear me out…I’m in a chrome state of mind?

In 2024, I made a decision to turn my new hobby for doing nails into a business. By the end of 2025, I later decided that maybe, just maybe, I was a bit too hasty in the way I went about it

It could be that I had the wrong motivations for starting the business in the first place. Because If I’m keeping it overly real with myself, I knew that I wasn’t ready – skill and capital wise. But jheez, everyone and their mums had a business. And somehow, it looked like everyone was getting the hang of it

So, I thought to myself, why don’t I try then? 

I had just turned 22, and I wanted to do something for myself

All day, in fact, all week, I wake up bright and early to help someone else’s business make their money. Obviously, I was getting paid — so technically, yes, I was making money for myself. But it was money made through someone else’s dream, not mine. Every hour I gave them was an hour I wasn’t giving to anything with my name on it. And that wasn’t really doing it for me anymore.

Honestly realising this quite early in my career was something. I remember in one of my earlier posts I spoke about adulting feeling like settling, and I knew that I wanted all my big dreams, or at least a good chunk of them, to become actualised. And I couldn’t really do that by spending 40+ hours of the week making someone else rich

So then I started 

I went to my gc and asked my girls for name ideas. I went on canva and I created a logo. I went to my notes app, and I created a faux business plan that was mostly unrealistic lol

But the thrill I got from all of that, was unmatched. The rush I felt when I set time apart to work on my business with my one customer (who also happened to be my best friend haha) was surreal like I had never felt like that in any of the jobs I’d done, no matter how much I liked the jobs

So I mean, I knew then

In my heart of hearts, I’m gonna run my own shit and be my own boss, like that’s what my ideal life looks like

Just like my dad had known all those years ago. Genes I guess lol

BUT Like I mentioned earlier — I wasn’t ready. Skill and capital wise.

I’d been doing my nails for about a year before I decided to turn it into a business, and on paper, a year isn’t nothing. That’s actually decent time to build a skill. But the thing is, I wasn’t doing it like a skill I was building for a business. I started because I wanted a cheaper alternative to the salon, something less damaging to my actual nails 

It was a hobby. A stress reliever. A “let me see if I can replicate this design” kind of thing because I’ve always loved using my hands. If I’d known back then that I wanted this to be a business one day, I probably would’ve been way more aggressive about learning it

And listen — I look back at some of the nails I did when I first started, nails I proudly wore out of the house and told people I did myself, and now I look at the pictures like… whoa. Who let me leave the house.

There were times I did sets for people, but I’d still sit there with this feeling in my chest — like, what if they hate it and just don’t know how to tell me? And if you don’t fully trust your own work, you can’t run a business off it the way you need to. That doubt doesn’t stay quiet. It shows up 

But here’s the thing — I’m not ending this. I’m not throwing away the skills or anything. Nails just happened to be the entry point into something bigger I’ve wanted for a while: beauty. Back when I graduated, I already knew I wanted to be in the beauty space — but more focused on hair because of my own history with it. I dealt with a condition that made me lose patches of my hair, had to cut it all off, and that’s what started my natural hair journey in the first place. So, I knew I wanted to build products or a space for people going through it too

My dad actually said this to me before — that doing nails now could lead into something much bigger later, a full beauty salon, whatever that ends up looking like.

Because here’s what I’ve learned since — especially now, working in finance: starting an actual business is not the same as starting an Instagram page. If you actually want to make money, there’s crazy planning involved — pricing, capital, cost structure, all of it. And if I’m being honest with myself, I never broke even. What I made from clients never matched what I was pumping back into materials and supplies

I need a new strategy so that the next time I pick this up, I’m not doubting my skill or my ability to get there. I’m just trusting the process because I’ll actually have a process.

So, I’m not throwing in the towel. I’m just hanging it on the rack for a bit — long enough to make sure I actually know what I’m doing, instead of just moving with the wind. Because when you’re running a business, you’re not supposed to be moving with the wind. You’re supposed to have a plan at every step.

I was doing a chrome set on myself the exact moment all of this clicked for me. Hence the title