Not many not-so-mini beauty empires start in the dining room of a cramped Santa Monica, CA, apartment. But for self-taught spray tan guru and Sugared + Bronzed founder and President Courtney Claghorn, the humble surroundings served as the ideal launchpad for her 42-locations-and-counting, now-booming business.For Claghorn, who started Sugared + Bronzed with her spouse, co-founder and CEO Sam Offit, it’s been a disciplined, 17-year build around a white space the duo identified just out of college. Forever on the hunt for a high quality, durable spray tan that wouldn’t break the bank, Claghorn spotted a hefty hole in the beauty market while toiling away at her fintech day job. After a nudge from Offit, who was then her boyfriend, Claghorn nabbed some professional spray tan gear and set to work mastering her craft. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos and made my friends come over for weekly tans that I would inspect the next day,” Claghorn recalled. “I did this over several weeks until all of the tans were consistently perfect.”After the pair kicked in $500 apiece to get rolling, Claghorn booked client appointments around her work schedule, even zipping home during lunch hours to administer fast and flawless faux glows. Once word of mouth started to build, and the whole “dining-room-as-company-HQ” bit started to get untenable, Claghorn and Offit secured the lease on their first physical location, in Santa Monica, in 2010. Wondering when sugaring entered the Sugared + Bronzed equation? Early on, but not before the duo’s first spray tan location was up and running.