By SEAN BOSTON
Hutch Post
BUHLER, Kan. — A gel nail kit given as a 16th birthday gift has turned into an award-winning business venture for Buhler High School senior Taylor Beals, who recently captured first place at a local Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge and earned a trip to the state competition later this month at Kansas State University.
Beals, the owner of Nails by Taylor, earned a $600 prize for winning the local competition after impressing judges with her executive summary, presentation and trade show display. Later this month, she will compete against top student entrepreneurs from across Kansas at the state challenge in Manhattan.
For Beals, the business began with a simple goal, to create a more comfortable and affordable alternative to the traditional salon experience.
“I didn’t like going to the salon ever to get my nails and stuff, because it was really expensive, and it was just always a really uncomfortable setting for me,” Beals said. “So I started doing my own.”
That decision was sparked by a birthday gift from her mother, who gave her a gel nail kit when she turned 16.
“At first, I started doing it just on myself,” Beals said. “Then I started gaining it more as a hobby and getting more into it. I practiced more designs and techniques to gain more skills for it, and I realized it was something I really liked, so I just kept working at it.”
What began as a hobby gradually became something more serious. Beals started by practicing on her own nails, then moved to mini practice fingers before eventually working on friends and family members as her confidence and skills improved.
“I eventually got little stands, like little miniature fingers that I could place nails on and practice them,” Beals said. “After I started getting better at that and learning the hygiene and everything behind it, I started doing my friends and family every once in a while to keep practicing designs on them.”
Last summer, Beals said she began to realize the business had real potential.
“I started really testing my limits of what designs I could paint on nails,” she said. “I realized that I was improving and getting better. And when a lot of people started asking me if I could do theirs for fun or something, I started to realize that people really liked it.”
As more people began requesting appointments and returning for repeat visits, Beals said it became clear that Nails by Taylor could be more than a creative outlet.
“It made me realize that I actually did have a little bit of a talent for it,” Beals said.
That talent was on display at the local Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge on March 10, hosted by StartUp Hutch, where students were required to create a three-page executive summary, develop a formal presentation and design a trade show exhibit to showcase their business.
Beals said preparation was one of the biggest reasons she stood out to judges.
“I put a lot of work into my trade show, and I put a lot of work into my presentation,” she said. “I’m really well spoken in public, and I practiced speaking my speech and stuff. I prepared a lot of stuff to bring with me to the competition so the judges could see what I actually do.”
Rather than simply talk about her business, Beals brought materials that showed the full process behind her work, from application to removal and everything in between.
“They could see all the steps it takes, everything I need to do it, all the steps it takes to put on the nails, take off the nails and everything like that,” Beals said.
Buhler High School business teacher Chelsey Nichols said Beals was the first student who came to mind when she learned about the competition.
“When I heard about this challenge, she was actually the first student that came to mind,” Nichols said. “When I first met her in January, I commented on her nails, and she told me she had her business.”
Nichols said she later looked at Beals’ Instagram page and quickly saw the kind of professionalism and drive that made her a strong fit for the event.
“I was just very impressed by her professionalism and her responsibility and her self-motivation, not only just with her business, but in the classroom setting as well,” Nichols said. “I told her, after we heard about this competition, ‘I’ve been thinking about you for this. I think you’d be really good at this.’ And then she kind of just took it and ran with it.”
Beals is a student in Buhler’s entrepreneurship class, a course that combines classroom instruction with hands-on business experience through Crusader Corner, a student-run operation that sells snacks, drinks and coffee to the student body.
Nichols said the class is designed to give students practical experience they can apply immediately after high school.
“My main goal is for them to learn something that they can use in the real world,” Nichols said. “I have a lot of juniors and seniors who are turning around and going out and experiencing that for the first time. If they can take something from my class and apply it to their real life, even if it’s just one thing they can remember, then I find success in that.”
Beals said her broader experience at Buhler, especially through the Buhler FFA chapter, also helped prepare her for the challenge.
“FFA has had a really heavy impact on this, because I’ve done a lot of public speaking and competitions through FFA, which helped me have more confidence,” Beals said. “We have a lot of speakers come in to our ag classes and stuff and speak to us about the real world and how they run businesses. It definitely helps open up the world and understand things better.”
While Beals’ work centers on creativity and design, she said one of the biggest lessons of running a business has come behind the scenes.
“Definitely the time management,” she said. “You have to work around your own schedule, but you also have to figure out how to work on other people’s schedules to make it work for them. Because if you want them to keep coming back, you want to make sure that you work with them, and not just yourself, and create kind of a relationship with clients.”
That lesson is one she now shares with other students who may be interested in starting their own business.
“I would definitely tell them to be prepared and make a plan, do research before you just jump into it,” Beals said. “I kind of just jumped into it. I didn’t realize how much research I needed to do and how much stuff I needed to have.”
She said understanding pricing, supplies and long-term goals is critical before launching.
“Definitely doing pricing stuff and figuring out what all you need to do, what the future looks like for it, and if you want to continue this and be serious about it, or if it’s something just small that you want to run,” Beals said.
At the state competition, Beals said the format will be similar to the local challenge, with competitors presenting in a mock boardroom setting before judges and then participating in a trade show where they can showcase their work in person.
She already has submitted both a video and an executive summary ahead of the event and said she is especially looking forward to the trade show portion.
“That’s really where people can see what I’ve done,” Beals said. “So I can bring designs that I’ve made and really show what I do.”
Nichols said the experience itself may be just as valuable as the result.
“I think just the experience and the confidence to promote herself and the hard work that she’s done,” Nichols said. “Obviously there’s a cash prize too, and that would be great. I know she wants to put more of that into her business. But I think just the overall experience and confidence of knowing that she’s done a really great job.”
For Beals, the future is already beginning to take shape.
She plans to attend Hutchinson Community College this fall on scholarship, where she will serve as an ambassador while beginning coursework in health care. Her long-term goal is to become a cardiac sonographer, and she said she plans to continue her education at Washburn University after HutchCC.
At the same time, she also plans to keep building Nails by Taylor.
Beals said she intends to attend Crave Beauty School this coming winter to earn her nail technician license, which would allow her to work with the public in a licensed professional setting.
That means the business that began with a birthday gift is not slowing down anytime soon.