Carla and Mary Smiley | Smiley Aesthetics
Founders of Smiley Aesthetics
Mary and Carla, known as the Smiley Twins, are entrepreneurs and Nashville natives who turned their passion for innovation into a thriving business and have expanded their business to over 100 independently owned locations across nine states.
The Limitations of Corporate Life
Mary’s entrepreneurial journey began with a desire for more autonomy and flexibility than corporate America could offer. While working at HDA, she encountered familiar constraints: capped earning potential, rigid systems, and limited space for innovation. These challenges sparked a realization—if she wanted more, she’d have to build it herself.
Establishing a Scalable Business Model
Together with her twin sister Carla, Mary transitioned from a traditional brick-and-mortar model to launching their own med spa and then multiplying it. They created a scalable system that allowed others to operate independently without the restrictions of a formal franchise. This approach offered a unique blend of freedom and structure, empowering over 100 locations across nine states to thrive under their guidance.
A Vision Grounded in Innovation and Empowerment
Mary and Carla’s ongoing success is rooted in their forward-thinking approach to growth. From leveraging emerging technologies to building a resilient company culture, they continuously seek ways to improve and adapt. Their guidance to aspiring entrepreneurs is clear: start before you’re ready, stay receptive to feedback, and treat progress as a process, not a destination.
“You just have to find that person who can help you be that entrepreneur or has that spirit that you may not have”
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Hi, I am Mary, and I'm Carla and we're the smiley twins. We kinda have a few different, revenue streams, I guess, in our business. And we have the traditional brick and mortar med spas where you go in and get your Botox and your filler and you see providers, and then another huge side of our business is we have independently owned and operated med spas.
So just like a franchise, but we're not franchise and we now are, have over a hundred of those, in nine different states and just kind of moving into different states and growing. All the time. Yeah. And we were born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and we've been here most of our whole life.
We went to college near here and, I did go to grad school in Knoxville, but always in Tennessee. So big Tennessee fans go both. What inspired me to become an entrepreneur and work for myself is, is my background with where I came from. So I worked for HDA corporate, however, it's. Just like any other corporate position there, it is very difficult to be autonomous, to make your own way to sometimes grow it's also, you know, any position like that is boxed in moneywise. Like there is no overtime, there is no, it's just work as hard as you can and here's your salary and be happy so when this opportunity came up and we saw the, the value and, and started working for myself and she started working for herself, it was like.
Gosh, we gotta figure this ou, we gotta figure out how we can, we can make the roles and we can build the culture and decide on what cultural pillars that we wanna stand on and how, who we wanna be and who we want our employees to be. And, take all of our experiences from the past and make the company and culture that I.
We dream of so I think that the skills that entrepreneurs need to hone in on when they're starting out, um, to help them be more successful in their business is definitely technology based. I mean, in this day and age, you cannot be in really any space. Um, even yoga, any, it doesn't matter what you're doing, even if it's super physical or only physical, you have to be in the technology space, whether it's social media, or just using tools to help you be more efficient.
The advice that I would give to a young entrepreneur, whether you're young in high school or you're just, you have a new idea and you're in a different stage of life mm-hmm, would be that it's never gonna be perfect. Launch it, do it. We spend so much time preparing, laying all these things worried about. Everything from, oh, I don't have a bank account or my LLC or whatever the case is. Um, that we don't just start taking the steps to actually make our realization and our visions happen. Testing it out in a market is like the best thing you can do. Yeah. And getting it to market or, you know, whatever your ideas first and testing it out is that's what's gonna get you answers and get you moving forward versus just nitpicking it to death in, in your garage.
Yeah. I you're not get anywhere that way. So I'd also say that, uh, asking people about your. Your idea And don't ask your friends and family about your bright idea. They're gonna you bright idea. They're gonna tell you it's great, it's great. Go ask 10 random people on the street. And if you're like, I don't, I would never ask 10 random people on the street, ask 'em on Facebook.
Well that, but also consider entrepreneurship. You had have a lot of conversations, and if you're selling something or you are mm-hmm whatever the case is, and you're not willing to go ask 10 people about your product, now how are you gonna sell it? When you get, get it, find the partner that does find the person that, so it's not that your idea has to die, it's not that your company has to die.
It's not that any of that dream has to die. You just gotta find that person who can help you, uh, be that entrepreneur or has that spirit that you may not have, uh, because not everybody has it, and that's okay. That doesn't mean you have a good idea. It just means you need an entrepreneur to help you or another partner to help you either grow into it or get it, get it where it needs to go.
Why We Share These Stories
We believe that celebrating Tennessee’s entrepreneurs will inspire the next generation of bold thinkers, risk-takers, and community builders. Entrepreneurs don’t forget where they come from—and they carry the power to transform not just their businesses, but entire neighborhoods, towns, and local economies. See more entrepreneur stories from the Patton Foundation.
