The entrepreneur and celebrity hairstylist talks about growing up in Utah, starting a business, having Kris Jenner on speed dial and more at the Bumble Bizz Summit in Sydney
Jen Atkin knows hair. She has applied her Midas touch on the tresses of all the Kardashian and Jenner siblings from Khloe to Kylie, not to mention Bella and Gigi Hadid and Chrissy Teigen, and started Mane Addicts—a website dedicated to all things related to hair, from maintenance tips to styling tutorials.
Her own brand, Ouai, of haircare products has expanded to include perfume, plus a body wash and lotion, and the range is now available at Sephora.
Atkin was in Sydney to headline the Bumble Bizz Summit—a networking event featuring panel sessions for aspiring female entrepreneurs. Bumble Bizz is an extension from the Bumble dating app, where it is the female users that determine who they want to message, and the Bizz side of the app focuses on networking for career and business opportunities.
Atkin first drove to Los Angeles to look for a job and now flies to the Middle East to meet clients for haircut appointments—here are some of her thoughts on starting out, perseverance and being a boss:
1. She grew up in Hawaii and Utah and drove to Los Angeles after high school with her best friend, where she landed her first job as a receptionist at a beauty salon
“We decided we just wanted to discover something bigger than the town we grew up in. At 19 years old, you’re just fearless. You take risks. We had nothing to lose, in hindsight. We packed up our Honda Civics and moved to Los Angeles. We didn’t know anybody, didn’t have a job lined up, didn’t have money, didn’t know how to balance a cheque book. We just went and hoped for the best.”
2. She got her work ethic from her mother
“We grew up in a Mormon town, it was a very small community and none of the moms really worked. My mom worked, she worked since I was small. My family had a ton of different businesses and I grew up helping her in those businesses. My mom had a big impact on me, she is really passionate about everything she did and that really stuck with me.