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"If you're into a fit and healthy lifestyle, chances are you've found yourself scrolling through Hannah Bronfman's inspiring Instagram, featuring empowering workout clips and the best green smoothies you've ever laid eyes on. But beyond being a general wellness enthusiast, Hannah is also the co-founder of Beautified, an app that allows you to book beauty services at the most elite salons, spas, and workout studios in a few select cities. Just one year after the app's massively successful launch, Hannah and company announced a redesign with loads of exciting new features. Here, she discusses what it's like to invent an app, getting it approved by the top dogs at Apple, and how to keep it cool.\n\n \"First, you have to have a concept. In the world of apps, you think you have a good idea, but most likely something has already been done in the same vein. So I did a lot of research to see what the competitive landscape was and then I teamed up with my co-founders. You know when you have a good idea and someone else is on exactly the same page? That's basically what happened\u2014we knew it was the right time. So we got together and shared that we were inspired by companies like Uber and Hotel Tonight. We wanted to create that type of experience for the beauty industry, because it didn't already exist. \u00A0\n\n So that was our point of differentiation. Obviously there were apps that allowed you to look for services for cheap. But from a user standpoint, there was no aggregator for the last-minute appointments for the cool places that I wanted to be going. No one wants to stand on a street corner Googling for last-minute appointments, especially when it comes to something like a haircut or a facial. It's so nerve-racking, not to mention time-consuming!\n\n So we had our concept. But in the beginning, it was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of miscommunication. There were things we knew we didn't want our product to look like, but streamlining the design process with so many people involved and so many things to consider can really be a challenge. It was a time when we were going through ups and downs\u2014like any company does\u2014in order to get their product right. Luckily, we have the most amazing engineers, and we eventually found an equally amazing designer who understood our process, what we wanted to create, and what we wanted our users to feel when using the app. The designer really got it and made the product exactly right. So then we went from concept to proof of concept.\n\n We didn't raise any money when we first started out. The three of us bootstrapped the company at the start, which means we each put in a little bit of money and that's how we were able to get it off the ground. Our timing was of the essence, though. Unfortunately, if someone were trying to do that now, I think that the costs would be considerably different. This was almost two years ago. So we were taking risks, for sure.\n\n With the financing out of the way, we could fully take the big chance: We submitted our working prototype to Apple. Probably the biggest day for us was when we got approved from Apple with the first version we went to market with. In the tech world, you know that if Apple approves your product, you've made something worth putting on the market. It was really remarkable, but it was a very difficult process! We were scrappy and we called in a lot of favors\u2014we were lucky to meet some incredible people who understood our vision. My cofounders (Annie Evans and Peter Hananel) and I had a lot of long nights and back-and-forth until we felt very strongly about what we were putting out into the world. We went from concept to product in under one year.\n\n And now it's been about a year since we first launched, which is really incredible. So, we just introduced the revamped Beautified 2.0! Within the first year, we did tons of different things, from focus groups and taking users out to tea to putting credits into people's accounts. We wanted to surprise and delight our users. We wanted feedback in every way possible. That's how we ultimately ended up progressing our product forward. There are a few different things that have made an impact in the mobile world, whether the certain sliding aspect of Instagram, or the Uber sidebar, and those were all types of user experiences that we were paying attention to\u2014we were listening to our users and our salon and spa partners all of the time. We couldn't have had more feedback. That was how we knew what we needed to do to improve the experience for our users even more.\n\n One of the biggest changes, though, came from a lot of women telling us that they loved being able to book beauty, but they also wanted to book fitness. We launched a big workout component in 2.0, which is obviously very dear to me. We also learned that people love going to the salon and not having to use their credit card, but it was a pain that they had to open their wallets to tip, so we added a tipping feature! People can also now gift a certain amount of money on the app for different treatments. That's a very easy way to give someone a gift, especially during the holidays.\u00A0\n\n\n\n Last week, we finally launched 2.0! We really pride ourselves on our brand. People love the lip graphic and they love our illustrations. We wanted to resonate more with our users so we're providing services that everyone wants! The world is moving to a much more health-conscious lifestyle. Beautified is there for all of those needs. We want to be your beauty best friends\u2014in app form!\"\u2014as told to Emily Gaynor"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/hannah-bronfman-beautified>