Founder's Story
Zero to 1000% Growth: How Shane Smith Disrupted the Med Spa Industry | Ep. 203
Sun, 20 Apr 2025
Shane Smith is a seasoned med spa entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and the CEO of Upkeep Ventures—one of America’s fastest-growing aesthetic brands. With multiple Inc. 5000 awards and 1000%+ year-over-year growth, Shane has built a national business by making high-quality med spa services accessible to the customers most companies overlook.His fearless approach to scaling and commitment to affordability are changing the face of the industry.s a seasoned med spa entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience, responsible for building and leading some of the world’s top-performing spa and med spa companies, including multiple Inc. 5000-ranked businesses. As the CEO of Upkeep Ventures, Shane has scaled a national med spa brand focused on affordable, high-quality aesthetic services, driven by rapid growth, fearless strategy, and a commitment to serving customers others overlook.We dive into: – Why being too smart can hold you back as a founder– What Shane learned by shadowing elite CEOs– His no-fluff take on entrepreneurship and risk– Why doing what others won’t is the secret to growth– And how to scale a service business without losing your soul💻 Visit: https://www.upkeepmedspa.com🌐 More: https://www.upkeepventures.comOur Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com
Chapter 1: Who is Shane Smith and what is his background in the med spa industry?
Chapter 2: How did Shane transition from employee to successful entrepreneur?
Chapter 3: What mindset and risk-taking approach helped Shane achieve rapid business growth?
So what was that like? Because I about 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to to go to the Inc. 5000 award ceremony. And I heard Damon John speak and what he said almost changed my life. But what was it like for you?
You know what it was? It was fulfilling. You know, I've always said this. I don't think I've ever been the smartest guy in any room ever. But the one thing that I've always been willing to do that other people aren't is take risks.
And I was willing to lose a lot of money because I understood the value of just having rapid growth, how much VCs look at it, how much investors look at it, how much people that want to be involved in something exciting. If you can show astronomical growth, people don't care about them, the bottom line. You can always cut fat later on, but you can't fake sales.
So you just have to be fully motivated. And that's just something I've always had. I've always been, let's just focus on sales. Let's get these numbers as high as possible. And I mean, this company, I think we're at over a thousand percent growth in revenue year to year right now.
What allowed you to not have that fear? I was just having another conversation with a guest and we talked about their ability to not have fear allowed them also to be successful. What is it that you do differently than most people? Because as we know, most people are not successful entrepreneurs, but they want to be.
Yeah, I think what I do and what most people should do is probably two very different things. I think in reality, a lot of my success is because I might not have been smart enough to know that I was doing something incredibly risky. And I think on the complete flip side, that's why some of the smartest people you know get stuck in that middle management.
Maybe they're working at one of the top companies in the country, but they're a director, and they're going to make $200,000, $300,000, and they're going to make that for the rest of their lives. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's amazing. Good for them. But no matter how smart they are, they would never take the risk of going to start a business. risk their money?
Are we going to be able to pay the mortgage? Are we going to be able to send our kids to school? They'll just never take the risk. And I think ultimately, I was just so dumb and naive when I was a kid that I just didn't even know I was being risky. And then once it works a few times, you just become less sensitive to it. I don't care.
I'm willing to throw it all on black any single time I can and just risk it.
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Chapter 4: How does Shane make med spa services affordable and accessible?
So when you looked at this as the business model, I know you have multiple locations. How did you look at, okay, we were going to make this work. That means we need to market to X amount of people or we have to get X amount of clients to come in. How did you look at this as a business model? Or was there something that sparked it to say, okay, these are the clients that we're going to go after?
Yeah, you know what? We had so many plans, but I'll be completely honest with this. We opened SmackDab June 15th of 2020, right during the pandemic in New York City on the Upper East Side. So arguably the worst market in the world to be opening a business during the worst time in history is when we opened our first location for this company.
So to say that we followed any of our original plans would be a lie. I was just throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck. We were spending all of our budget on ads. We were just trying to figure out, A, Who feels safe enough to leave their house? Who's out there? Who's still in New York City? Market to everyone.
And daily, we're going to look at the analytics and see who's responding, who's booking. We're going to double down on that. And that's really why. I mean, we originally thought we were going to probably live in the mid-30s, early 40s range like most med spas do. But we right now, we're 18 to 34 now. Really, 18 to 26 is where the large majority of our customer base is. That's not what we planned.
That's just kind of what's transitioned. And I think that's important. What your plan is ultimately is not going to matter. It's who's actually spending money. Who cares? Throw your plan in the trash. It doesn't matter if that's not really first coming in.
Figure out who your customer is, who your brand relates with, and just double, triple, 4X down on that and just keep doing that and you'll be fine.
Hey, Airbnb was created in 2008. So there you go. Sometimes when maybe when everyone else is not doing something because it's not a good time, maybe it is a good time. It sounds crazy. Looking back, right? It sounds crazy looking back of when it happened, but that's amazing. I mean, what an incredible story. Sounds very exciting.
And I really like the fact that you're going after a generation of people that are, one, younger. Yeah. which other people may not be going after, but that allows them to also, I mean, you have such a long lifespan of that customer. Um, they might, you know, they might be a waiter or waitress today, but tomorrow they might be an executive and then they have more money. Uh, so I mean,
That is something very interesting. And I'm fascinated that that group of people are looking for med spa services because they want to be their best self. I think that's very fascinating. But I'm curious, what is a piece of advice that you would give to somebody else who's like, you know what, Shane, I want to follow in your footsteps. I want to be a successful entrepreneur. I want to get the Inc.
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Chapter 5: What strategies does Shane use to retain customers and maintain communication?
Chapter 6: Why is following up with clients critical in the med spa business?
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