Ryan Dunbar, Lava Suntan Studios

Q: What challenges did you face when you first opened Lava Suntan Studios?

I don’t understand how we survived in the beginning. We built the salon for $10,000 and it seemed to work out. We opened with a couple tiny beds and a standup; we sold clients on them without knowing any better. Over time we built things up, learned and began to sell it properly. Now I love my salons.

When we originally built the salon, we stripped back the pet store and built from ideas from other salons that we had frequented. It was hard, not just because we were starting over but because building was more in depth than I realized. The biggest issue was electrical. We weren’t in the industry before so we didn’t think about maxing out panels. Fortunately, we moved from the original location two and a half years later. We got to gut that location, too, and build it from scratch to correct those kinds of problems. After four locations, I find construction goes very smoothly and we’ve got a science.

Q: How come you got rid of your teeth whitening services?

We tried teeth whitening for a while. I liked the machine and the results were fantastic. But the dentists in the area started complaining and trashing us. This was right around the time the IARC report came out — and we already got killed by that. So we realized we had to be careful with the bad press that’s out there and find the right diversification for us. I think diversifying is very important but we just haven’t found the right service to complement UV tanning yet.