Behind the Numbers: Spotlight on Gelous
Some businesses start with a grand vision. Gelous started with a bad birthday present and a bottle of wine.
Harry bought Michelle a gel nail kit for her birthday. It was terrible. Over a few glasses of wine, they started joking about starting their own nail business. Then, the way it goes when you've both run businesses before, the jokes turned into questions. The questions turned into research. And before long, the research turned into a plan.
They started with $10,000, both still working full time. In 2018, Gelous was born.
Starting small, thinking big
The early days came with a few advantages most first-timers don't have. Harry already ran another business - an e-cigarette company with a warehouse in Mount Wellington - which meant Gelous could plug straight into an existing ecosystem. Storage sorted. Logistics understood. The operational basics weren't starting from scratch.
The Shopify store launched in November 2018 with around 16 to 17 SKUs. Harry and Michelle divided and conquered: Harry on the financial side, Michelle on marketing. They were doing everything themselves, figuring it out as they went.
And Evolve was already in the room. Harry had been working with the team before Gelous existed, which meant the financial foundations were in place before they were even needed. Systems built ahead of time. Structure set up for a business that was still finding its feet. That kind of early discipline, with Evolve's guidance, meant Gelous was set up to scale before anyone knew how fast it would.
It was a tidy little business. Then COVID happened.
The lockdowns that changed everything
When New Zealand went into lockdown in 2020, nail salons closed overnight. Suddenly, people who'd been going to the salon every few weeks needed to do their nails at home. And they wanted to do it properly. Gelous had exactly what they needed, and orders surged.
Both their mums pitched in to help with pick-packing. It was chaotic and exciting and exhausting in equal measure, and it set the trajectory for everything that followed.
Growing pains
Fast growth is a gift. It's also a pressure test.
As Gelous scaled, the challenges that come with success started showing up. Demand forecasting was hard. Stockouts were a recurring problem. Cash flow required constant attention - especially bootstrapped, where every decision had a direct consequence. And two founders who'd started by wearing every hat were now running a business with employees, responsibilities, and decisions that affected other people's livelihoods.
"Scary, especially bringing on headcount," Harry said. "There's stress in knowing that others are reliant on the decisions you're making."
Because Evolve was already embedded in Harry's world, Anthony and the team were across Gelous from the start. When the decisions got harder, they didn't need to be brought up to speed. The conversations could go straight to the substance because the trust was already there. Anthony became a consistent presence through the growth - a voice of reason, someone who could de-escalate when things felt overwhelming, and a sounding board when the path forward wasn't clear.
The answer wasn't to slow down. It was to build the right structure around the growth.
Building the team (and knowing when to step back)
One of the principles Evolve encouraged early was hiring ahead of where the business needed to be - putting people in seats before the pressure made it urgent. That approach shaped how Gelous built its team over time, and it paid off.
The first staff member came on in 2021. More followed. But one of the most significant calls Harry and Michelle made was appointing a General Manager - and it nearly didn't happen.
Harry was deep in the weeds. Running Gelous while also managing his other business had stretched him thin, and stepping back from the day-to-day felt counterintuitive. Anthony saw it differently. He pushed Harry to appoint a GM and move into a more strategic role. It was, by Harry's own account, a decision he couldn't have made on his own.
"It was something Harry wouldn't have been able to decide by himself," Michelle said. "He needed that push."
The GM took on casual staff management, warehouse operations, and the rhythm that keeps a growing business moving. It prevented burnout and freed Harry and Michelle to focus on where they could add the most value.
Evolve also encouraged bringing a dedicated finance manager in-house - another move that might have felt premature without outside encouragement. That person now works closely with the Evolve team, meeting fortnightly to build capability, navigate the nuances of the role, and keep the financial side of the business sharp as it scales.
From there, the team grew to nine full-time staff plus casuals, spanning marketing, product development, finance, customer service, and operations. The two-person startup had become a proper business.
An advisory board that showed up
As the business matured, Harry and Michelle formalised what had been happening informally: a proper advisory board, with Anthony from Evolve chairing it. Three external advisors, three internal. For that stage of growth, it was exactly the right structure.
For Harry and Michelle, the relationship with Evolve has never been transactional. Across their businesses, their investments, and everything in between, the Evolve team sits at the centre of the big decisions. Not because they have to be, but because Harry and Michelle trust them enough to want them there.
The board wasn't a rubber stamp. Advisors pushed back, asked hard questions, and helped them think through moves they might otherwise have rushed into or avoided altogether. One early idea was a series of in-person education evenings for customers at the Gelous HQ. The board worked through the numbers and asked the harder question: how many people could they realistically reach that way? The answer led to something better. Gelous Academy, a free online platform, meant anyone could access that education, wherever they were. A pop-up in Australia got the green light after the same rigorous process.
One moment that stuck with Harry came when Anthony started drilling into the team's metrics. Which numbers were they actually using? Which ones were sitting in reports no one was reading? The question that followed shaped how the team thinks about data to this day: what gets measured, gets changed.
"If we're not being challenged, why are we engaging with them?" Harry said. "We understand our limitations. We're not the smartest people in the room, and surrounding ourselves with people who are experts in their fields leads to a better result."
Quarterly catch-ups with Evolve surface things Harry and Michelle hadn't thought to bring to the table. The conversations range from business strategy to investments to the broader economic picture - forward thinking, not just backward reporting. Anthony has been a driving force behind Gelous's plans to diversify, keeping an eye on the cost-of-living pressures affecting consumer spending and helping Harry and Michelle plan for what's ahead.
The business today
Gelous now carries more than 300 colours and 400 to 500 SKUs. The range has grown well beyond its roots, and the team is actively working on expanding into new categories within the beauty market - products that will broaden what Gelous stands for without losing the trust they've built with their customers.
The forecasting challenges of the early years led to something unexpected: Harry built his own software. A purpose-built inventory forecasting and intelligence tool, designed to solve the problem he couldn't find a good enough solution for. It's now the foundation for a separate software company, with Anthony's support as it takes shape.
Gelous itself has become the foundation for more. The confidence, the systems, the team, and the relationships built over years of growth - with Evolve alongside them throughout - have given Harry and Michelle a platform to move into new ventures.
What they'd tell other founders
That it is going to be hard. But it gets better.
Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Give your team the tools they need to grow, and trust them to use them.
And find advisors who go beyond the numbers. Not someone who sees your business once a year, but people who are across everything: your businesses, your investments, your thinking. People who can speak freely because they understand the whole picture.
"We would be in a very different position without Evolve," Harry said. "It's not just your run-of-the-mill relationship."
Harry and Michelle have referred multiple business owners to Evolve. That's not something you do for a service that's merely adequate.
Gelous is an Auckland-based gel nail and beauty brand. Find them at www.gelous.co
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