Entrepreneur ditches city job for beauty salon
A BIRMINGHAM businesswoman says she has “no regrets” about quitting her long-spanning corporate career to run a beauty salon.
Tarandeep Ruprai, 30, left her highpowered office role to run her hair and beauty business full-time earlier this year.
Taran started her brand, Taran K Beauty, from her bedroom in Edgbaston in 2015, and has gone on to open a salon in Digbeth and amass thousands of followers on Instagram where she releases daily tutorials online.
Taran is well-known in the city for her bridal make-up, yet she said it still felt like plunge to leave the security of a well-paid and established role to pursue her salon business full time.
“It was a really big decision for me to make because I have been part of the corporate world for eight years, and I really did enjoy my role. But I have always had a passion for being in the beauty businesses and my reason for that is just my personal journey with beauty itself” said Taran.
Taran single-handedly renovated her Custard Factory salon in the pandemic, running the business alongside her office job.
She would often see bridal clients in the early hours of the morning after a full day of work in London or back-to-back weekends of bookings.
Taran said: “I have built my clientele through recommendations, word of mouth, just putting myself out there on social media. It’s been an accumulation of various different things but for the most part a lot of it has been word of mouth and recommendation which I am really grateful for. “Leaving my role in the corporate world has probably been the best decision I’ve made for myself because after graduating, well even throughout university I was working, but after graduating I went straight into a retail job.
“From that I went into a high-pressured recruitment role and then from recruitment I went into the umbrella of equality diversion and inclusion which took me into a more senior opportunity with a bit more influence. So it’s not like I’ve ever needed to leave my professional role because, touch wood, I’ve always done well and progressed but that was one of the main reasons why it was such a difficult decision to make and I don’t regret it at all.”
She added: “Being a woman and running my own business in Digbeth is amazing, Digbeth is a very vibrant space, amazing for independent businesses and it’s just so lovely to be based there.”
Now Taran has just been shortlisted in The English Hair and Beauty Awards 2024, recognising her success as a salon owner and skill within the bridal, beauty and hair industry.
She will find out if she takes home the highly coveted West Midlands crown on April 28.