Like any retail business, the first considerations in setting up an airbrush tattoo business are location, location and location. Popular as temporary airbrush tattoos may be, it is still important that you profile your target customers properly and set up shop where there are enough of these customers to give you a steady business. For instance, if you're after teenagers, you might want to consider places easily accessible to schools, malls or other spots which they usually frequent. If you're targeting a female clientele, sites near or in department stores or beauty salons might be ideal. And then, there are non-fixed airbrush tattoo booths which are set up at school events, country fairs, shows and other special occasions. The key to this type of airbrush tattoo business is to keep an updated calendar of events to choose from, their locations, requirements, fees and estimated attendance. This way, you can prioritize those events with high expected attendance, especially of your primary market.

Do you need special training to set up an airbrush tattoo business? A number of airbrush tattoo practitioners claim that no special training is needed for you to set up shop, and then proceed to sell you a book, a guide or an online course! Unfortunately, like any business that requires skill, and in this case, artistry, an airbrush tattoo business that wants to be around for a long time requires that you possess not just the necessary artistic and creative skills, but also the business know-how. And, this can only come from training, whether formal or by experience.

The next important consideration concerns the product or service you are offering. The target market you choose will determine the type of product your parlor or booth will focus on. It will help you decide how much space you need to rent, what equipment to purchase, what stencil designs to keep on stock, what types of paint, ink and other supplies to use, and all the other information that goes into telling you what your investment and costs are going to be.

Whether you have a fixed airbrush tattoo parlor or a mobile booth, you will need to market your services. You can do this on a small scale or pour some money into your program. Some flyers around the neighborhood of your parlor or at the fair, a free tattoo job for a radio talk show host in exchange for some publicity, complementary tattoos for the opinion leaders in a school or just simple word-of-mouth will create awareness about your business. The most important ad for your parlor, however remains the quality of your work which other people will see on their friends who have been your customers.

Last and certainly not least, you will need a system of financial control. You will have to keep records to tell you how much you took in, how much you spent, and whether or not you made any money at all.
Without this system, you just might wake up one day and find your business is as temporary as the tattoos you airbrush.