Salon to Software: Entrepreneur Erin Mills on When to Walk Away and Build Something Better

Erin Mills is a visionary serial entrepreneur, salon owner, and advocate for women's healing and empowerment, driven by a mission to create spaces where safety, growth, and authenticity thrive. From real estate to salon stylist, Erin built her salon business, Theory Salons, to challenge the male-dominated salon industry and its often-unsafe environments, before walking away from all but one of her locations to reinvent herself as a software entrepreneur with a new technology, Flamingo Salon Software, launching later this year. Her journey of reinvention also inspired her to create the Be Brave Community and a new podcast, I Think You Should Be Brave. 🔑Key Takeaways🔑 💼 🚀 Closing Chapters, Opening Doors: The power of reinvention, and how, after seven years as a multi-salon owner in the beauty industry, Erin Mills closed all but one of her locations—a process that forced real self-reflection about identity, ego, and the drive we attach to our businesses. Her story is a powerful reminder that "letting go" can feel like the ultimate failure but often brings new freedom and clarity. 🤝✨ Lessons in Leadership and Resilience: Learn about the psychological impact of shifting gears, and why our self-worth is not tied to the tangible money and success that comes from any one venture. Erin shares how even the best leader can't control every outcome—people leave, change happens, and that doesn't mean you failed. 🤖📈 A Tech-Driven Future: Learn about Erin's journey from service-based salon ownership to scalable software, and how she's building Flamingo Salon Software, a dynamic new platform designed for salons, spas, and service-based businesses, built on her real, lived experience in the industry. Beta testing is in full swing, and a launch is planned for Q3. 👩‍🔬❤️ Balancing Marriage and Entrepreneurship: Working with a spouse? Erin shares honest thoughts on balancing roles, staying in their lanes, and cultivating strong boundaries at home and work. 🔥🦄 It's Time to Be Brave: Erin shares how she built the Be Brave Community to help women entrepreneurs with the unique pressures of comparison, judgment, the need to constantly prove "you're enough," and why vulnerability gives everyone permission to show up authentically. 🎙️

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Salon to Software: Entrepreneur Erin Mills on When to Walk Away and Build Something Better is an episode from Wings of Inspired Business by Melinda Wittstock.

This episode is 35:48 long.

This episode was published on Jan 27, 2026.

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