Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton Dropped Out of College Twice. Now She Runs a Beauty Empire

Host Amanda Goetz sits down with Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, founder and CEO of Chillhouse and creator of Chill Tips, the best-selling press-on nails sold at Target, Walmart, CVS, Amazon, and Urban Outfitters. Cyndi grew up watching her mom, an esthetician who immigrated from Colombia, grow one salon chair into three spas. Cyndi dropped out of college twice, bartended through her early 20s, and started over as an unpaid intern in her mid-20s.

In 2017, she opened Chillhouse on New York’s Lower East Side. She kept it alive with brand partnerships when services alone couldn’t cover payroll, then turned it into a nationwide press-on nail brand during the pandemic. 

After the last VC firm turned her down, KISS Beauty Group ended up acquiring Chillhouse earlier this year. Today, Cyndi walks you through how she got past self-doubt without a degree or an entrepreneur network, and explains why community will open more doors than capital in the early days.

You’ll also learn how she earned the respect of a team that didn’t believe in her at first, why founders need words of affirmation too, and how motherhood made her a sharper, faster decision-maker.

Plus, Cyndi shares what it’s like to have bosses for the first time after the acquisition, how to think like a founder inside a corporate job, and why she says ambition means being unapologetic about what you want and honest about the overtime it takes.

Whether you’re stuck in the wrong career, comparing yourself to people with the perfect resume or dreaming about building something of your own, this conversation will show you that there’s no such thing as being too late or too unqualified to start.

Key takeaways:

The best careers are often built on the thing you keep coming back to because it brings you joy, not fear or a quick buck.

Community is the most important thing you can build for a business.

Friends and family are often your best early investors.

Not having much capital can force you to be scrappy, which means finding extra revenue streams, like partnerships, early on.

If your team doesn’t respect your leadership yet, put leaders in place whose experience they do trust.