The future of manis

Our main story today is about Jooyeon & David, and their company ManiMe, which makes manicures that are healthy, accessible, and easy to change. 

What I love about ManiMe is that it’s redefining the manicure experience that hasn’t really been touched by technology, and it promotes artistic expressions and provides a platform for nail artists to monetize their creations.

David & Jooyeon, take us from here.

Why we started ManiMe

Jooyeon: I’m originally from Korea, where there’s a big emphasis on beauty services. I was tired of sitting in a salon for two hours, being exposed to toxic chemicals, and I was intimidated by the drills they used to remove gel manicures.

But the off-the-shelf “stick-on” nails didn’t cut it for me either, since they weren’t a good fit for my nail size. 

David: I met Jooyeon at Stanford and was excited to find a solution to solve this problem. I’m a painter and passionate about building a community around nail art and self-expression.

How ManiMe challenges the status quo

We use proprietary 3D scanning technology to make changing nails as easy as changing shoes. You just need to scan your hands, pick a design, and you’ll receive the stick-on gels that’re completely customized for you in a few days. 

We also went through a lot of changes in the past few months. We realized we didn’t have any black nail artists, so we asked our community on Instagram which nail artists we should include. We then created our CARE collection to showcase these diverse nail artists our community has recommended and donated 100% of the profits of that collection to the BLM movement and COVID relief fund.

We’ll soon launch a new collection that’s more inclusive in nail colors and skin tones. For example, “nude” usually refers to a certain shade traditionally, and we want to change that.