If Van Meter, Iowa, native and DMACC alum Kelsi Ziemann had flunked out of her first term at DMACC and never returned, she’d have a story to tell. But not this story.
If the woman screening job applicants at a local department store took note of the precise way Kelsi had applied her make up but never said anything to her, Kelsi's life story would have taken a turn. But not in this way.
Kelsi — college graduate, entrepreneur, and patent holder – has this success story to tell because of twists and turns in her life. It is one of resilience, positivity, and the rewards of following one’s passions with a resolute patience.
Kelsi enrolled at DMACC when she was 17. But after just one semester, poor grades forced her to drop out.
“I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do,” she said in reflection. “I wasn't super driven, and I didn’t know how to apply myself.”
So she went to a job fair at the newly-opened Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines, and applied for a job in the juniors clothing section at a new store, but the woman interviewing applicants suggested she consider working at a cosmetics counter instead.
“She asked if I would be interested in doing makeup because she thought I did a good job on mine,” Kelsi recalls. “I had never thought about it before.”
Kelsi was hired at the Bobbi Brown makeup counter and went on to work retail cosmetics for 11 years after leaving DMACC, honing her talents and learning what gave her joy.
“As I got older, I realized I loved what I was doing,” she says. “I loved working with people. I was great with communication, conflict resolution, and making people feel really good.”
While the money was a plus and hard to give up, Kelsi wanted more, and going back to college provided the way forward.
Kelsi simply desired to just help people feel good and steer her own course. In 2011, Kelsi returned to DMACC. She finished the job, earning her AA in Liberal Arts in 2013.
While enrolled at DMACC, Kelsi launched her own professional makeup services business, and Drake University’s Entrepreneurship and Marketing program piqued her interest as the next step. She'd been doing makeup for a decade, on “thousands of faces” by that time, and she'd honed her craft.
“I've always been more interested in solving problems and learning how things work,” she says. “I had started learning more about entrepreneurship but hadn't really considered scaling the business.”
Rather than pursuing more education in the cosmetology field, Kelsi sought a degree that could weave together the many facets of owning a businesses.
“I wanted to build a brand," Kelsi said. "I wanted to learn more about how to market things, how to build a product, how to read profit and loss statements and make sure you plan things correctly financially, with infrastructure, and with people.”
Through the program’s capstone classes, she worked on these areas in relation to her business and got feedback on the ideas she pitched.
Kelsi recalls her first business pitch — talking about makeup to a panel of all male judges who told her the field was too competitive, and she couldn’t succeed without partnering with a very big, already-known brand. She did not win.
But Kelsi applied the feedback and went back the next year, pitching to the same panel and coming out on top.
“You can't let those things break you, right?” she believes. “You do have to get out there and keep trying. Things will work themselves out. The hiccups will not define you forever.”
Kelsi earned her BA in Marketing & Entrepreneurship from Drake in 2015, graduating magna cum laude.
Now she owns two successful businesses.
The first, Ivory + Stone Artistry, emphasizes her love of making people feel good, especially brides. She and her team provide expert makeup services tailored for special occasions and professional makeup for TV, film, and production work.
Kelsi also conducts workshops geared to women in their late 40s- mid 60s who learned to apply makeup in high school but never updated it as their skin changed.
Her artistry has been featured in film, print, and advertising materials, including Better Homes & Gardens, Inc., DSM, Fox News, MSNBC, John Deere, Mid-American Energy, Metro Waste Authority, and Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The second business, KZA Cosmetics, grew from her first, when her clients wanted to buy the cosmetics she used with them -- vegan, cruelty-free products, "that weren't available on the market,” she said. So she set out to develop and sell them.
Kelsi found scaling production extremely difficult because most manufacturers don’t want to collaborate with small companies who make small batches. But locally based Kemin Industries and organic cosmetic company Eco Lips of Cedar Rapids provided advice on safety protocols, ingredient testing, and the like to help her move forward.
Today KZA offers a line of lip glosses and lip stains with new products in development. Its mission
is … “to celebrate and support our community’s natural beauty and strength through our products, people, and actions.” Committed to give back in ways that empower women and other disadvantaged groups,
the company gives 5% of all product sales to charitable organizations, programs, animal shelters, and
more.
KZA is a TSB (Targeted Small Business) Certified Woman Owned Business. Kelsi is a graduate of The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businessess program, an opportunity she also had because of DMACC, and holds a patent on a combo lipstick/lip liner dispenser system that allows users to clip coordinating lip liner and lipstick together for convenience and ease.
Of her journey, Kelsi says, “It’s okay not to know what you want do and not let perceived failure define you. Sometimes things can seem like they're out of reach, and you feel nervous to try again. But you can find a way to make it work.
“Everybody’s journey is different; everybody has different paths. At the end of the day, you'll end up where you need to be, and it will be fine.”
Bear Trails highlights unique journeys of DMACC students, alumni, faculty, and staff, celebrating their diverse experiences and inspiring paths.
Have a story idea? Contact Savannah Eadens, Public Relations & Communications Specialist, at sjeadens@dmacc.edu or 515-675-3275.