Stephanie Higgins Bealing ’04 recently redesigned and rebranded her business website– an e-commerce business around Replacement Eyeglass lenses. An entrepreneur out of the Carnegie Mellon Tepper Business School, Bealing has been working on and growing “Replacement Lens Express” for nine years.
Bealing was a passionate physics major and studio art minor at Hamilton College. She signed up to take pottery, a requisite needed to fulfill her minor. Despite her confidence in physics, Bealing struggled in pottery. To rectify the situation, Bealing’s ceramics professor suggested she take her interest in physics and look into ceramic engineering. Bealing explored and developed her skills in ceramic engineering after graduating from Hamilton. Bealing knew that there was a “business mentality inside of me. I knew I had to do something I just didn’t know what.” She got her MBA and utilized those skills in entrepreneurial pursuit.
Bealing’s father started an optometry practice many years ago. Bealing grew up in and around her father’s small business and was encouraged and inspired by his work. She decided to dedicate her time post-graduation on reinventing her father’s original business plans. Her twist focused on a high volume, low-profit-margin business model, which would serve customers worldwide. After “Replacement Lens Express” blew up, Bealing moved the company out of her father’s single laboratory and developed their original successes into a profitable self-owned business.
Major: Physics
On-Campus Activites: Christian Fellowship, Debate Society, SPECTATOR
Sorority: Kappa Sigma Alpha
Professional Career: Science, Technology, Engineering & Math
With a lot of “effort, luck, and hard work,” Bealing has built an international business. In August of 2018, Bealing relaunched her business and website with the help of a top web developer. After bouncing ideas off of fellow Hamilton alumni, Bealing rebranded the logo and has spent her time since diving into a more competitive analysis to create a better user experience.
When asked about what she would have changed over the course of her professional career, Bealing said that she wished she had designed her business for large growth from the beginning. She encourages burgeoning entrepreneurs to think big in their pursuits and use resources to implement their ideas.
