247 Ink Magazine (December/January) 2015-2016 Issue #6 | Page 171

It really seems like once you got the ball rolling things took off for you guys pretty quickly from the clientele standpoint as well as the referrals you were getting from different artists. C: It did! Exactly! P: Especially in Philadelphia. It took off pretty fast. It took a lot to get the ball rolling but after it got rolling it was rolling! So at what point did you notice that things were accelerating faster than you had planned? P: I would say…day 3 (laughs). C: We were going along in Boston because starting out we had no name. Tattoo removal was not an entity, it wasn’t an industry. It wasn’t anything that anyone even knew to look at Yelp about. You have to get over the hurdle of “Oh shit! You can remove tattoos?” Then there was “Oh well, It will leave scarring from inappropriate laser use.” So once we educated the public in Boston then they were accepting of us. Right about that time it’s getting busier and busier. Then around that time the Pico(Sure) got introduced and then things just skyrocketed. Once that happened we moved to New York and that really because we already had Boston for people to look at and know we were trustworthy, that just took off. Then it was just the snowball effect. P: it took us a while to prove ourselves. We really, do a great job. It shows in what we do. We have a lot of good result s and they speak for themselves. C: Within the tattoo industry and the general public that people look at tattoo removal with a skeptical eye. “Oh yeah, my friend Mary years ago tried to remove hers and her arm fell off” (laughs). So we had to overcome that hurdle. Would you say that was the biggest hurdle that you face when you were establishing the company as well as now? C: Getting the brand recognition, getting the credential that people believe you won’t hurt them…that’s always been the biggest hurdle. It continues with the new locations. You have to educate the public. And make them realize that technology has come a long way and that tattoo removal is not as expensive or as dangerous is it used to be. With specialization in this industry we have raised the bar for results and realistic expectations Since you’ve had more and more examples of how well your technol169