48-year-old quit her high-paying Wall Street job to start a business from her attic—now it brings in $70 million a year

Louisa Serene Schneider has never been short on business ideas.

She once started a yoga-wear company (“long before Lululemon existed,” she says) and at another point tried to launch a language tutoring business. Neither of them stuck, but ideas kept coming.

Then, in 2017, Schneider came up with an idea that she felt had momentum. She quit her high-profile job on Wall Street with what she calls a “competitive C-level salary” to bet on herself and start an ear-piercing business.

“It was the first time in my life that I hadn’t had a full-time job,” Schneider, now 48, tells CNBC Make It. “I was actually terrified, and I was working out of my attic.”

Seven years later the business, now known as Rowan, is the only ear-piercing business with its own medical board and where registered nurses are trained to pierce ears. Rowan has 90 studios across the U.S. and roughly 800 employees, over half of whom are nurses.