The information in the case study is based primarily from several interviews in 2023 with the case protagonist Samaneh Abidi, founder of Sama Holistic Care. The first author became aware of Abidi’s business through a client known to the first author, that client introduced the first author to Abidi. The case study is not disguised, and the real name of the business owner is used in the case study.
Samaneh Abidi was a woman immigrant and entrepreneur in the skincare and cosmetics business. She first started a mobile aesthetics service in response to organic demand for her services triggered by her Instagram postings and clients from former positions she held in skincare and cosmetics. The small business was also started out of necessity following the closure of the clinic where she worked during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first quarter of 2023, and she operated Sama Holistic Skincare out of a room in her home. As a relatively new Canadian from Iran, she attracted a clientele who were also of Iranian heritage and she created an experience for them which drew from her culture. While the demand for her services was organically growing, mainly because of her regular Instagram postings, appointments were sporadic, some days with eight clients or more, and other days with no clients. It was becoming harder for her to manage callbacks and scheduling appointments and it was starting to affect her well-being. Her financial resources were also limited and she was cautious when spending on promotion and advertising. Her unpredictable schedule left her on edge, unable to fully focus on her business, academic pursuits, or personal life. In the short term, Abidi needed to find a more efficient way to schedule her clients to balance demand and availability. In the long term, she aspired to grow revenues so she could pay herself a higher salary.
This case study is ideally suited for undergraduate courses in entrepreneurship. It would be best placed in a class designed to analyze start up and early-stage growth decisions and/or women’s entrepreneurship more broadly.
