How Shabana Karim created the UAE's top beauty brand

When Shabana Karim launched The Nail Spa in Dubai in 2002, she wasn't thinking about scale. She just wanted to create a better experience for women like herself. What began as a single-location nail spa quickly evolved into House of Enspa, a multi-brand beauty empire with nearly 20 luxury locations and over 500 staff. In this episode of the Growth Diaries podcast, host Sudheer Koneru speaks with Shabana about how she went from educator to entrepreneur at age 40, why empathy shaped her customer philosophy, and how she unknowingly scaled long before she knew the term. What You’ll Learn: • How to identify and fill market gaps by approaching business from a customer-centric perspective • The power of documented processes and standardized training in scaling a beauty business • Why location strategy must evolve with changing market conditions and digital capabilities • How to maintain service excellence while expanding from one store to multiple locations • The critical role of continuous staff development and creating a family-focused culture • Why staying connected to customer feedback remains crucial even as your business grows Shabana Karim is the founder and driving force behind House of Enspa, a multi-brand beauty powerhouse in the UAE. Starting with The Nail Spa in 2002, she transformed her vision for elevated beauty services into a thriving enterprise encompassing nearly 20 luxury locations and over 500 professionals across brands, including Marquee, Ardpar, and Espai. With a background in education and an innate entrepreneurial spirit, Shabana revolutionized the UAE's beauty industry by establishing the region's first dedicated spa for hands and feet, setting new benchmarks for customer service excellence and operational standards. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here [https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-review]. Chapters: [00:00] Introduction [02:23] From Educator to Entrepreneur [06:23] Global Research, Local Gaps [10:03] Training in Her Living Room [12:53] A Queue of Women and a Founder Who Cared [16:22] Obsessed With Feedback, Not Just Finances [17:11] Scaling by Accident, Leading With Intention [20:31] How to Keep Talent Happy [22:26] Marketing Is More Than Ads [25:56] Distributing to the Competition [27:15] Tech-Savvy Founder Energy [29:19] Advice to New Founders in 2025 [31:33] What She’d Do Differently [33:31] Her Biggest Inspiration #growthdiaries #beautybusinessgrowth #Zenoti #HouseOfEnspa