Spectra Lashes: an AI-native brand, built from scratch in 2026
Spectra in one paragraph
Spectra Lashes is a UV LED lash brand from Antwerp, sold to professional lash artists across the EU. Spectra Beauty BV was incorporated in January 2026. Vanessa Gonçalves Reis, a lash artist, is the face of the brand. Renout van Hove of NUVAI built the systems behind it together with the Spectra team. It was the first place the NUVAI playbook was applied in practice, with real orders and real customers.
A small team runs it. The brand, the product range, the website, the shop and the data platform were set up in a few months, mostly built in Lovable rather than bought as separate software. Since then NUVAI has added agents that read the data and prepare the work. Vanessa or someone in the Spectra team reads every draft and decides what goes out.
Timeline
- 29 Nov 2025Shop and website started (Lovable project and Shopify store, before the company existed)
- Dec 2025Concept and brand identity
- 23 Jan 2026Deed signed before the notary
- 26 Jan 2026Company registered, Spectra Beauty BV, enterprise number 1033.534.901; the cockpit project started the same day
- 28 Jan 2026Published in the Belgian Official Gazette
- 11 Mar 2026Spectra Signal started as its own project
- 4 Apr 2026First starter kit order (Belgium)
- 9 to 11 May 2026Public launch at the BTS trade show in Utrecht; first order outside Belgium
- May 2026Switch from subscription-first to commerce-first, with the starter setup as the way in
- 19 May 2026EU shipping and the artist map live
- Oct 2026Agents prepare, people decide (daily onboarding list)
Day 0 at the notary
- Company
- Spectra Beauty BV
- Seat
- Antwerp, Belgium
- Deed signed
- 23 January 2026
- Filed and registered
- 26 January 2026
- Enterprise number
- 1033.534.901
- Published
- 28 January 2026, Belgian Official Gazette
The website project was already running when the deed was signed. On the day the company was registered, Renout also started the cockpit, the internal app that later held orders, artists, customers and deliveries. The legal company and the software grew up together from the first week.
Built AI-native
The first plan, in January, was a stack of rented tools stitched together with automation. By March, Spectra's architecture note put it differently: the AI layer carries the weight, and the tools around it can be replaced. In the weeks that followed, rented software layers were replaced by Spectra's own builds in Lovable, on top of Supabase.
| Need | January plan (rented) | May 2026 (built and owned) |
|---|---|---|
| Finding salons and lash artists | Clay, Apollo, Lemlist | Spectra Signal |
| Artist intake | Typeform | Own intake and tier engine |
| Agreements | DocuSign or YouSign | Own signature flow |
| Artist map | Mapbox | Own map, per language |
| Training | Thinkific or Teachable | Own Academy on Bunny, Whisper and DeepL |
| Running the business | A Salesforce-type stack | Lovable cockpit with Supabase and a HubSpot sync |
No agency was involved in the build.
Across the EU
The shop ships across the EU and the website and artist map are available in several languages. Belgium is the home market.
Paid, owned, earned
The split NUVAI uses with clients. Paid is rented, owned is what is built and kept, earned is what the system builds up by running.
Paid
- Shopify (checkout and orders)
- HubSpot (CRM, synced from the platform)
- Supabase (database under the platform)
- Lovable (the build tool)
- An e-fulfilment provider (warehouse and shipping)
- Bunny, Whisper, DeepL (Academy video and translation)
Owned
- Website and shop front in every shop language
- Certified artist map, per language
- Spectra Signal (lead discovery and enrichment)
- Intake and tier engine
- Signature flow
- Academy and cockpit
Earned
- Lead and salon database
- Artist profiles on the map
- Order and onboarding history per customer
- Send log per customer
The rented layer is small and every part of it can be swapped. The owned layer is where the brand lives. The earned layer is what a competitor cannot buy: it grows with each salon found and each customer conversation.
The data platform
Spectra has no off-the-shelf sales software. Lead discovery, enrichment and the pipeline were built in Lovable as Spectra Signal. It searches public business listings per country with local-language keywords, adds what salons show on Instagram and TikTok, and places every lead on a map. It started in the Benelux and was later extended to Italy, Portugal and Spain.
- 01Find. Public business listings per country and city, with keywords in the local language.
- 02Enrich. Social profiles and public details added to each salon or artist.
- 03Deduplicate and sync. Matched on more than one key and synced to HubSpot.
- 04Map. Leads on an internal map; certified artists on the public artist map.
- 05Prepare outreach. A personalised first message drafted per lead, in the right language, for a person to send.
Agents with a human owner
- Own data platform (read only)
- Agents: onboarding, prospecting, social media, operations
- Daily list of drafts (who, what, which channel, why)
- Vanessa reads, edits or skips
- A person sends
- Reply logged back in the platform
Agents read and prepare. Vanessa, for Spectra, decides and sends.
The onboarding agent is the clearest example. A lash artist who buys a starter kit goes through a set path, from a welcome on day 0 to a check-in around day 7, a tip or an invitation to a Lash Day in week two or three, and a reminder to reorder after about a month. Each morning the agent lists who is due, the next best action, the channel that customer actually answers on, why, and a ready draft. Vanessa reads the list and sends what she agrees with, in her own voice.
| Step | Next best action | Next best channel | Who sends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Welcome and first-use tips | The channel the order came in on | Vanessa |
| Around day 7 | Check-in: how did the first sets go? | WhatsApp if she has replied there before | Vanessa |
| Day 14 to 21 | A tip, or an invitation to a Lash Day | Instagram or email | Vanessa |
| Day 30 and later | Reorder reminder for the refill | The channel with the last reply | Vanessa |
How this maps to the playbook
| In this case | Playbook principle |
|---|---|
| Shop, map, Academy and cockpit built in Lovable on Supabase | Your own AI layer |
| Agents read orders and conversations before they suggest anything | Read before write |
| Every draft is sent by Vanessa or the Spectra team | A person decides and sends |
| Dates in this case come from records | No invented facts |
| Rented tools, own builds, data that grows by running | Paid, owned, earned |
| Code and data, including the map, stay with Spectra if a tool or a person leaves | What you own when we leave |
| The daily onboarding list runs every morning, with Vanessa as owner | Routines with a human owner |
| Next best action and next best channel per customer | Customer onboarding example |
What this case doesn't claim
- No agent sends on its own: every message to a customer or artist is read and sent by a person.
- Not everything is built: checkout, CRM, database hosting and shipping are rented; Spectra chose to build the parts that make the brand different.
- No sales figures: revenue and order numbers are left out.