“Who would have thought that the art of nails could save lives?” This is the question that Bi Ayers, owner of Pro Nails in Ames, asks in Polished, his 2023 book that is part memoir and part business book. “The idea of writing a book was not to tell the world about me or the success of our business,” said Ayers. “I wanted to help other salon owners learn from my experience and raise their standard of practice in hope that if all of us do well will help elevate the industry as a whole.”
Ayers was born and raised in Hue, Vietnam, which is located 60 miles south of the demilitarized zone. He grew up in an entrepreneurial family with multiple generations under one roof, as is customary in Vietnam. Hue became home after his grandparents defected to the south to avoid communist government controlled north.
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, south of the thirty-ninth parallel, allowed for his grandparent’s entrepreneurial ambitions to thrive. During the Vietnam War, they owned land and collected copper from ammunition casings and bomb shells, selling them to the highest bidder which was usually the United States or Japan. But the “Fall of South Vietnam” ended all of that in 1975. “My family lost everything,” said Ayers. “It was illegal to have any wealth of your own, so your lives and daily activities were being monitored until they believe, beyond any reasonable doubt, that you no longer held any valuables.”
This was the Vietnam he grew up in. “I learned this and accepted it,” said Ayers. His life changed when Doug Ayers, an American soldier, proposed to his mother, prompting a move to the United States and a goodbye to the way of life he had always known. At the age of fifteen, Ayers admits that he did not want to move, but his grandmother saw the opportunity ahead. Reflecting, Ayers said, “America allowed me to dream of a bigger and better life than I could have had back in Vietnam.”
The new Ayers family arrived in Colo, Iowa, where everyone spoke English. He was the only Vietnamese student in school and spent much of his time learning the language and culture. He attended Iowa State University, where he earned a degree in Marketing. After a stint in Houston, Texas, working for an engineering company, he and his wife Anh, found themselves back in Ames as the proud owner of Pro Nails.
“We found a niche in a saturated market,” said Ayers, who has focused on building their client base, systems, processes, training for staff, and ensuring a quality experience. In Polished, Ayers dives into how the Vietnamese culture intertwines with the history of the nail salon boom in the United States. As a successful business owner, he feels that it is incumbent on him to continue that tradition. “Vietnamese who want to come to America now have a much easier way to transition,” says Ayers.
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