Episode 261
Startup Story: Test. Sell. Build. Scale. Lessons from a Co-Founder | Dharmendra Manwani | Co-Founder & CEO, ArtistOnGo
Entrepreneur, CEO, and Co-Founder Dharmendra Manwani shares the startup journey behind ArtistOnGo, offering a real-world look at how to turn an idea into a product—through validation, iteration, and solving the right problem at the right time.
ArtistOnGo is a business in a box solution for beauty and wellness professionals empowering them with all the resources needed like space, digital storefront, wholesale purchases, payments, insurance etc to set up/operate their independent brand and business in less than 30 mins with Zero upfront investment.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
🔅The evolution of the beauty industry has led to a demand for flexible working arrangements, prompting a shift towards independent practices among beauty professionals.
🔅Dharmendra Manwani (DM) co-founded ArtistOnGo after noticing a growing demand from stylists for flexible, independent work models.
🔅DM shares a founder’s playbook: validate demand, sell the concept, then build.
🔅Before writing a single line of code, he pre-sold Artist On Go to 30 salons—proving the market need.
🔅Listening to users and iterating quickly helped shape AOG into a platform stylists actually want to use.
🔅Building a tech product for stylists requires more than great code—it takes industry empathy and problem-solving.
🔅Entrepreneurship isn’t about chasing trends—it’s about solving a pain point others ignore.
🔅AOG’s evolution reflects what happens when tech meets deep industry insight and agile execution.
👉Follow ArtistOnGo on Instagram
👉Check out ArtistOnGo's website
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Transcript
Dharmendra Manwani, AKA dm, is the co founder and CEO of artisango, a salon chair rental platform.
Speaker A:Today we're going to hear how he got into this industry, how he got into this startup, and what has the entrepreneurial journey been along the way.
Speaker A:Now we're also going to get a chance to hear about Artisungo, the platform for those of you interested.
Speaker A:And we're also going to get to hear.
Speaker A:How do we.
Speaker A:How does someone build something like this?
Speaker A:Welcome back to the Hairdresser Strong show.
Speaker A:My name is Robert Hughes and I am your host.
Speaker A:And today I'm with Dharmendra Manwani, AKA dm.
Speaker A:How you doing today, dm?
Speaker B:Very great, Robert.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me here.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Thank you for the audience to know.
Speaker A:I got a call from, I, I don't know if it's your assistant or Daniel Carson.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker B:Yeah, the PR team.
Speaker A:PR team.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:So PR team reached out and explained what the, what the platform was and asked if I was interested in.
Speaker A:And you know, I am interested in tech tools for the industry.
Speaker A:I am interested and it's.
Speaker A:And I'm, I'm excited to see that.
Speaker A:You know, I feel like for so long no money or attention was placed on our industry unless it helped the salon owners or the product companies.
Speaker A:Like, because that made sense because they had all the money.
Speaker A:And so now it's really, it's really cool to start and seeing more and more tools available for folks who, for, for the, for the, for the operator.
Speaker A:Like, it's because I don't really feel like there's a whole lot for us.
Speaker A:So I'm excited to learn about this, but I'm even just as excited to hear what has this journey been like?
Speaker A:Building something, coming up with an idea, turning an idea and turning it into an actual thing that now you're talking about and you're going around and promoting and I think a lot of people listening and watching will be very interested.
Speaker A:So thank you for taking the time.
Speaker A:I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker B:Thank you very much.
Speaker B:You're doing great.
Speaker B:Giving opportunity for us to share the story.
Speaker B:I used to listen a lot of podcasts like this and I'm a big fan of Hairdresser Strong.
Speaker B:So thanks for having me.
Speaker B:My story is simple.
Speaker B:I grew up in hair salon industry.
Speaker B:I co founded and worked with a chain of salons which has 300 plus salons worldwide.
Speaker B:Jean Claude Beguin.
Speaker B:And we were growing very well, around 340 stores.
Speaker B: And in: Speaker B:And I think they had.
Speaker B:We sat down with our leadership team of hairdressers, creative directors.
Speaker B:We try to dig in deep.
Speaker B:Usually your mindset is why you want to go independent as a salon owner.
Speaker B:But I think we had a different approach.
Speaker B:And when we heard back, there were very genuine reasons.
Speaker B:Most hairdressers had one of the four reasons.
Speaker B:Either they wanted to have more creative freedom after working 10, 15 years.
Speaker B:They don't want a marching order from another salon owner who is not even a hairdresser.
Speaker B:A lot of other hairdressers wanted a flexibility.
Speaker B:Their life evolved.
Speaker B:So they got married, they have children, and they just wanted to work for a few hours.
Speaker B:And that was on their own schedule.
Speaker B:And they had a clientele and some of them actually really wanted to build their own business.
Speaker B:So we realized that there was not one reason and there was nothing against the salon owners, but the needs of hairdressers were evolving and they wanted to go independent, but they wanted to work in the salons.
Speaker B:So we started renting the chairs.
Speaker B:But it was so difficult to manage renting the chairs while you're doing so much.
Speaker B:And I realized that there has to be some technology behind it.
Speaker B:There was none.
Speaker B:And then I decided to build one.
Speaker B:So it helped me.
Speaker B:It helped a bunch of hairdressers who were renting chairs from us.
Speaker B:And we thought since the industry is going in this trend, it will help everybody.
Speaker B:That's how I decided.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:So you were able.
Speaker A:Okay, wait a minute.
Speaker A:So first of all, I guess so it sounds to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm getting this wrong, it sounds to me like you're working with this multi location company and you are solving a problem for that company.
Speaker A:And then you're like, why don't we make this available to everybody?
Speaker B:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker A:So how did.
Speaker A:So for those, those of us, those of us who work at a place that is huge and big and they come up with an idea and it helps solve a problem, and then the company turns around and uses that and spins it off and sells it.
Speaker A:How, how are you able to be in a play?
Speaker A:Like, is it a same product?
Speaker A:And like are they, is that company an investor in that product?
Speaker A:Like, how can you tell us a little bit about that ownership structure so we can kind of like understand?
Speaker A:Like, yeah, it's one thing to come up with an idea, but the amount of idea times I've heard somebody come up with an idea at a company, the company is like, okay, great, you're my Employee.
Speaker A:You, you, you made that soon.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:It's mine.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I'm the I, you work for me.
Speaker A:So what you make is mine.
Speaker A:You don't get to have any ownership of it.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can you talk to that?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I think it's a good question.
Speaker B:So when we were working at Wrongflot Beguin and we started to renting the chairs before we started renting shares, we also had investors in our company and we wanted to actually go from 350 salons to around thousand salons.
Speaker B:We tried to buy out some salons and I went back to the board and I was one of the co founders and I went back to the board and I said the trend is changing.
Speaker B:If we open more and more salon because we are already losing some people, the next salons won't be profitable because there's a new trend starting in which means hairdressers will work get some clients, build their books but after some point they have an option to leave and actually rent a salon studio at one of these sweet chains.
Speaker B: That was if you remember in: Speaker B:So it will be very hard for as a company to sustain the margins because every time you are your top talent is leaving you, you have to fill the chair.
Speaker B:So you have to recruit.
Speaker B:And recruiting was becoming difficult and difficult.
Speaker B:And by the time you recruit, you get them training of your own brand, you build the clients for them.
Speaker B:It was not a very healthy proposition.
Speaker A:And then they leave.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And they leave for the right reason.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean it's just like a human behavior.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:They were leaving for freedom and flexibility.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So there's no price for that.
Speaker B:So we spoke to our private equity and we actually thought about opening up a chain of rental salons and diversify.
Speaker B:But in the whole process we are able to be to able got an offer from private equity to buy out.
Speaker B:So we actually sold the company.
Speaker A:Oh wow.
Speaker B:Good for you.
Speaker B:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker B:And we started thinking about building a just a rental salons.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because we were trying to rent there and we thought that renting, building a salon with renting a chairs to the people were was a right idea.
Speaker B:So we built one salon in Soho, New York and we started to rent the chairs there.
Speaker B:And I own that salon.
Speaker B:I built it for myself to learn what the pain point of that salon can be and we can scale.
Speaker B:And what happened when we were started rent?
Speaker B:There were a few learnings actually.
Speaker B:I thought we'll have 16 chairs, 20 chairs and hairstylists Will come and walk in and they say here's the monthly rate for $3,000 per month and they will sign a chair and then we'll fill all the 16, 20 chairs.
Speaker B:And we did a math in the Excel spreadsheet that you know, we had actually 22 stations.
Speaker B:We did a math that we'll make $65,000 in a rent.
Speaker B:And our rent was $25,000 of salon.
Speaker B:And with one manager and some expenses, we will make 30, 40% EBITDA margins.
Speaker B:When we started to a surprise, Most of The stylists wanted three days rental chair, two days renting chair because they were working for 40.
Speaker B:Everybody wanted a flexible chair.
Speaker B:Nobody was ready to sign one year lease.
Speaker B:Nobody was ready to sign for seven days.
Speaker B:Nobody wants to give you.
Speaker B:So you cannot be a landlord.
Speaker B:And subletting a place as simple as that what it means.
Speaker B:And a lot of people were not matched with the other stylists.
Speaker B:So you, at the same time, you don't want to have different kind of stylists in the one room.
Speaker B:So there's a certain vibe of a place and we wanted to match the vibe with the artist with the other artists.
Speaker B:It became a very tedious job.
Speaker B:So it took me a year and to understand that four things.
Speaker B:One, your consumer is looking for more flexible options rather than a cookie cutter options like a doctor office.
Speaker B:B, your consumer which is your hairdresser renter has a needs, the location, the vibe, the equipments.
Speaker B:The third, it's a community business.
Speaker B:It's not like you're coming and going there.
Speaker B:Those people have to stay 8 hours, 10 hours.
Speaker B:So everybody has to build that culture together.
Speaker B:So there, everybody has to gel together.
Speaker B:Four, there has to be system which can be operationally efficient, how to take the payments, how to see the calendar.
Speaker B:Because now it's flexible renting.
Speaker B:So it's not you give the keys to everybody for that chair.
Speaker B:So if chair is empty for a few days, who else is going to rent?
Speaker B:So it needed a whole system of sense SaaS software like where the bookings will happen, where the calendars will happen, how the payments will go, how the messaging will go.
Speaker B:And it was very tedious to do manually.
Speaker B:I needed three managers to do that.
Speaker B:And, and then I understood that's why everybody's scared of renting the chairs.
Speaker B:Because more than the money you make, you need your more manpower to do that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And that's where I, I think I took a step back and decided that this all can be done through technology.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, there was nothing built and that's how we started building that for ourselves.
Speaker B:So yes, we ended up that pilot salon, you know, closing down and then we use the technology and then we kind of started there.
Speaker A:That's cool.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:So did you, do you have like any sort of software background or like did you have to hire, hire a team and you know, put that together like that?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I do have engineering background, but I was not that savvy to write the code myself.
Speaker B:So I went out, I met the co founder who has experience of building this technology and the product manager.
Speaker B:Her name is Aarti.
Speaker B:She's my co founder and she actually used to work for companies like Gemini, which is a big crypto platform.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then I met another co founder, Pat Parenty, who was the president of l' Oreal Professional at that time.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:And he saw the same problem what I saw.
Speaker B:And Aarti has built many applications in financial and healthcare industries of Marketplace.
Speaker B:And actually she happens to be my sister as well.
Speaker B:So I had to convince her to leave her job and join us.
Speaker B:And then we, yeah, and we formed a team, we built up a prototype and we set up a, you know, next seven, eight milestones.
Speaker B:We're happy to, you know, chat about that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, okay, so you, you, you.
Speaker A:I feel like you did a really good job explaining the process of figuring of like observing, participating in, considering and realizing the problem.
Speaker A:And, and then the, and, and the solution is, I agree is, is, is kind of like right there in your face is like some, you got to figure out how to manage all that stuff and then you, so you're like, okay, we're going to do this and we're going to build this system and you go out and you recruit people that have the skill set to help you build it.
Speaker A:And, and do you have to.
Speaker A:Do you self finance this thing or do you raise money?
Speaker B:I did both.
Speaker B:First I self financed.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:But I, I think I don't want to tell one step before to the listeners.
Speaker B:The important thing for me to evaluate because I ran big companies was there are two, two differentiators.
Speaker B:One, do I want to build technology for myself or do I want to build technology and how many people are going to use it or buy it eventually and how many people's life is going to drastically change?
Speaker B:Is it a good, you know, problem to solve for everybody or it's a, it's a first world problem of me and my 30 friends.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:So before we went to full scale, I actually genuinely tried to delay and rather than jumping an idea and saying, hire the team, raise the money and invest.
Speaker B:I actually felt like there has to be some solution and alternate before I build something.
Speaker B:Somebody might have already done that, you know, or there has to be easier way.
Speaker B:So I spoke to a lot of rental salons.
Speaker B:I went to Sola Salon Suite and asked them, do you have any technology I can use it?
Speaker B:Or.
Speaker B:So I spoke to multiple people.
Speaker B:I actually use multiple POS softwares and send an email to them, can you build these features?
Speaker B:But they're like too busy in building anything.
Speaker B:And their priority was separate.
Speaker B:And I also did evaluation that is it worth for somebody to.
Speaker B:Is somebody going to pay for it?
Speaker B:I mean, yes, I'm excited.
Speaker B:It's my idea.
Speaker B:Or I'm just being really asking why and how many people are really going to be passionate to pay for that and will that their life, you know, change if I build something, will their life be changed?
Speaker B:And they will cry and say, yeah, wow.
Speaker B:So I spent actually six to eight months doing that really, you know, and I asked a couple of people to say, can you pay me a hundred dollars per month for that now?
Speaker B:And you know, and six months advance so that I can build it just to test.
Speaker B:And I actually got money from 15 hair salons.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which I of course returned them, you know, after a few months because.
Speaker B:But they were committed that they wanted to give me the money.
Speaker B:So that was a good proof of concept.
Speaker B:And I would just say that's one thing which I will very highly recommend.
Speaker B:Sometimes as an entrepreneur we get very excited and we get very biased with our problems and we think our problem is the world problem.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, 99% of the times it's not world problem and it's not an urgent problem.
Speaker B:It can be world problem, but it may not be urgent.
Speaker B:And thirdly, it may not be worth paying for it, you know.
Speaker B:So, yeah, there are.
Speaker B:There are a lot of things may not be people's problem or problem which are not worth prioritizing.
Speaker B:And maybe it's priority also, but not worth reading.
Speaker B:Just like, I mean, just paying for that.
Speaker B:So one thing one should think about and we work very hard to do that.
Speaker B:And after that, yeah, we raised a couple of rounds of investment from a lot of founders in the tech industry and then a VC fund.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker A:Like test your idea, research it, make sure that there's nobody else doing it.
Speaker A:And I like this thing where you went around and you try to sell it and then you sold it, but you didn't actually sell it.
Speaker A:Is that what you said?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, we sold it, but they use our technology now.
Speaker B:But definitely they paid it for six months.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Yeah, nice.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:So tell us exactly now that we've learned how you built it and.
Speaker A:Well, I guess before we get on to the next thing, I. I want to ask what were the biggest challenges and lessons learned along the way?
Speaker A:If you want to pick like two or three things.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I think when we were building one of the biggest, there are three challenges in three different categories.
Speaker B:One, I would just say the category of user product market fit.
Speaker B:I would say yes, the concept at a high level always got approved.
Speaker B:I wish that we would have done spend more time in doing more research of why you needed what feature is important literally rather than building, you know, too much.
Speaker B:So yes, at a high level, the problem of renting a chair was definitely a yes, yes, yes.
Speaker B:But what is the priority because you have limited resources initially and you want to just work the.
Speaker B:The North Star is user's biggest pain point.
Speaker B:I think a lot of times we want to hear what we want to hear and we neglect what the consumers are saying.
Speaker B:So I would say your ego should be less and your ears and listening power should be at the highest and.
Speaker B:And be surrounded by people who want to challenge you and be open to be challenged.
Speaker B:But definitely if you.
Speaker B:And then you have to make decision of your own.
Speaker B:It's not like when people are challenging, there can be things which they don't see what you are seeing through.
Speaker B:But that's a solution.
Speaker B:So don't bring solution.
Speaker B:First, spend a lot of time in understanding the problem exactly where it is.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:So that is one big takeaway I would say.
Speaker B:Second, don't try to do it alone, you know, but don't try to have hundred people.
Speaker B:So have two or three, you know, key team members who have same skin in the game are very motivated and they have some trajectory or background.
Speaker B:Just not because you are my sister or you're my friend or you're my.
Speaker B:You're the only available.
Speaker B:I will say never compromise on the talent because you're as good as your talent is right.
Speaker B:And you'll end up running 80% of ship through your team.
Speaker B:You can only contribute 20% yourself because.
Speaker B:But what you bring as a founder most is your vision and that's, you know, good 10, 20%.
Speaker B:But you need a very, very strong partnership to bring that and they should be aligned with the mission of the company.
Speaker B:So sometimes you can have the best programmer and the best person and the best human being but not believing in your idea or the, the concept.
Speaker B:So that's a team is the second thing.
Speaker B:The third thing, I would just say by the time you're building something and you have the right people, you should have go to market strategy right in the beginning.
Speaker B:Because if you cannot sell it, you can build it.
Speaker B:You know, selling is the ultimate.
Speaker B:It's like start from the back.
Speaker B:You know, everybody loves the, the, the process of creating something is very beautiful and exciting, but is just 20%, 80% is selling and distributing that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So if you have not figured out, and if you are figuring out after you build it, you're already too late, you're ready to die.
Speaker B:So if you haven't thought about, so I would say before even you build the product, you should sell it and see can you sell it to 30 people, you know, and is that the right channel?
Speaker B:You know, so if you can sell it to 30 people, I wouldn't even suggest you to buy to build anything.
Speaker A:All right, cool.
Speaker A:That was good.
Speaker A:That was so good.
Speaker A:I, I, I can relate to that.
Speaker A:We built something and we're, we're going through process right now and, and all that.
Speaker A:I feel like that was good.
Speaker A:So, so all everybody out there.
Speaker A:If you're building something, make sure that you can build a team with two to three people and that can complement your strengths.
Speaker A:Make sure you have a go to market strategy.
Speaker A:Make sure that you know how you're going to sell it, who you're going to sell it to, what you're going to sell for.
Speaker A:And what was the first one?
Speaker A:It was the team.
Speaker B:The user research.
Speaker A:So the user research.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I would just say here, here's the whole process.
Speaker B:I would just say all three steps.
Speaker B:What you can do, if you're listening here, and if I have to do it again, you sell it first to somebody, then sit down with them and build with them in their office because they will tell you what their pain point is and then you polish it and make it better so that everybody can use it.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker A:All right, so now that we've learned how you build this and then if we have ideas how some advice for us to go out and build our own stuff.
Speaker A:Now let's see, let's hear a little more about what you built and as a matter of fact, why don't we look at it?
Speaker A:I know if you're listening on podcast, you won't be able to see it, but we'll include the links in the description below.
Speaker A:So if you Want to share your screen and kind of show us a little bit about what is to expect, you know, at the highest level.
Speaker A:Yeah, like how do we, how you do, how are you managing chair rental?
Speaker A:And I agree, I think the industry is definitely, I just, I just don't know how salons are going to survive if they don't figure out solutions to the need to provide people with more greater flexibility and etc.
Speaker A:All right, so for those of you on podcast, we have pulled up the website artist on go.com you can use the link in the description and we're going to get a little walkthrough to kind of see what it is that we're looking at here.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So Aristotle platform.
Speaker B:The very important thing, what the problem we are trying to address is twofold.
Speaker B:One is if you are a beauty cosmetology licensed person and if you are looking for flexible renting, which is two days, three days, four days, five days a week or, or half days, multiple half days.
Speaker B:And if you're looking something in your neighborhood, where your clients are and if you're looking to work with like minded people or the vibe of salons because then it's difficult rather than calling 100 people salons, you can come here, you can put the search and see the list of the salons which meet your needs.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So these are a bunch of salons.
Speaker B:You tell them what type of salons and locations you are looking for and it will show it to you.
Speaker B:Once you find your salon.
Speaker B:Let me show it to you one of these salons.
Speaker B:So this is Takamiji.
Speaker B:Once you find the the quiz will ask you questions.
Speaker B:I will not go through there but it will say which location you are looking for.
Speaker B:You can put in the search which location you are looking for.
Speaker B:You know, are you which salon type you're looking for.
Speaker B:Hair, spa, nails, salon vibe, classic, upscale, hip render plans monthly, weekly, full day, halfway.
Speaker B:So once you start looking it will give you choices of multiple salons.
Speaker B:You can see the pictures of the salon, the video tours as you can see here.
Speaker B:So you know what type of a vibe it is and if it's the vibe you are looking for.
Speaker B:You can also see the video.
Speaker B:You can read about the salon.
Speaker B:It is upscale, it's in Lower east side.
Speaker B:It's popular among monthly renters.
Speaker B:It gives you detail about the timings when you can work here.
Speaker B:It has all the information of how you can rent.
Speaker B:If you want a one day it's $200.
Speaker B:If you want three days a week it's $420 if you full day.
Speaker B:If you want it early, it's 25 hours.
Speaker B:There are some salons which don't offer.
Speaker B:So you want to see if it matches you.
Speaker B:The plan which you're looking for.
Speaker B:It tells you the amenities which you are looking for.
Speaker B:You can also search salon based on amenities.
Speaker B:Most of our salons comes with back bar, Wi fi robes and you know, some of the other basic refreshments.
Speaker B:Receptionist.
Speaker B:And you can use the towels and tools so you don't have to carry a big bag.
Speaker A:I got a question.
Speaker A:This says.
Speaker A:So those, those watching you can see it, but those listening.
Speaker A:So we're in kind of.
Speaker A:He's showing us like all the things that are included.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:And I'm reading, I'm reading.
Speaker A:Well, and I mean there's not.
Speaker A:I mean, we have to bring.
Speaker A:You'd have to bring your own color, I'm assuming, right?
Speaker B:Yes, you had to bring your own color.
Speaker B:But you can also buy the color at the salon.
Speaker A:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:I see extra price.
Speaker B:So the carrying Vela color line, Redken color line, and they have a Melbourne.
Speaker B:You can also sell the professional products, I mean care products there.
Speaker B:They give you the commission.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yes, but you have.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:That's, that's, that's cool.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Yeah, so it's, it's different than a.
Speaker A:Most chair rentals where you're just like, that's all you got is the chair and the, the shampoo bowl.
Speaker A:And you can.
Speaker A:You got to bring everything with you if you want to sell.
Speaker A:If you want to sell product, you got to like rent a shelf and buy your own product and sell it.
Speaker A:So this is like a little bit better in my opinion.
Speaker A:If you want to like, I don't want to carry all that stuff around with me personally.
Speaker A:So anyway, keep going.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker B:And, and you can see the reviews.
Speaker B:Like reviews after every booking, people have this real genuine reviews.
Speaker B:This is, you know, love it or whatever.
Speaker B:If you have a problem, you can post it here, but you can keep reviewing, getting reviews.
Speaker B:As you can see, it's a comparison.
Speaker B:Like if you are not renting, you would have, you know, ended up making different amount of money.
Speaker B:But that gives you comparison.
Speaker B:Also you can see the salon guidelines.
Speaker B:Every salon has some guidelines that you need a license and business insurance.
Speaker B:Like the salon, you cannot dress code is professional.
Speaker B:No open toes, no casual clothing.
Speaker B:So every salon can write their own and you can see if it suits your needs.
Speaker B:You can do that.
Speaker B:So this is.
Speaker B:And then when you are ready, you can go here and you can say Full day or monthly booking.
Speaker B:And you can say, I want to do three days booking, three days a week, I want to work.
Speaker B:And you can select a month, let's say July onwards.
Speaker B:You also give a facility.
Speaker B:I mean, and this is a great feature to talk about here.
Speaker B:I know most of the hairdressers live on weekly, week by week, like their finances.
Speaker B:So we just make sure that you want to pay the weekly rent every week.
Speaker B:That's fine.
Speaker B:You don't have to pay a monthly rent and you can.
Speaker B:Or if you want to pay monthly, you can do the monthly.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker B:So you do monthly and you can actually just go and click and, and actually, you know, you're done.
Speaker B:So it's as simple as renting from a salon perspective.
Speaker B:You get a very full suite of, you know, engine where you can see bookings.
Speaker B:This is a, this is the interface with salon owners.
Speaker B:Look at it.
Speaker B:Can you see my screen?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So as a salon owner, I can see all the bookings of the renters, like today's booking.
Speaker B:I can see the reports.
Speaker B:I can see that I already rented and made $2,600 this month by renting few chairs.
Speaker B:And you can see the list of all your renters.
Speaker B:You can see the calendar.
Speaker B:You can get the marketing suite to kind of send an invite to other people payment reports.
Speaker B:So you have a full suite of render management platform, as we were saying.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:It reminds me of Airbnb.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker B:And it's actually if you already have a software for client booking is a similar kind of a software, but it's between hairdressers, share rental.
Speaker B:And so, so think about as a salon owner, you have 12 chairs and you have four employees working for you.
Speaker B:So in your software, whatever you use Ver or Gloss, Genius or any other software, you put four clients and you have four columns.
Speaker B:Then you have eight chairs.
Speaker B:You don't do anything with those eight chairs.
Speaker B:This software manages your eight chairs just.
Speaker B:And the clients are not the people who coming for haircut, but people who are booking the chairs so you can monetize them and everything.
Speaker B:Like how you see your reports in a.
Speaker B:Your normal software.
Speaker B:You see the reports for the rental in here.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:So who, so I, I guess the salon owner or shop owner is the, is your client.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like because you don't take.
Speaker A:I guess that's who pays you.
Speaker A:So the salon owner pays for the platform and then they're able to bring on hairdressers who want to, want to take advantage of that opportunity.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we do two things.
Speaker B:Salon owners Pay a monthly software fee, very small fee, $89.
Speaker B:Usually salon can make around $1,500 to $2,000 share per month.
Speaker B:So if they're renting four chairs they can make six to $8,000 and they can manage that by paying $89.
Speaker B:And we also bring the stylish and match them as you can see match a renter.
Speaker B:So actually we match and we advertise and we have a marketplace and we take 6% fee as a technology, marketing and other fees on a success based only when the renter is there.
Speaker B:So on an average if you are some of our salons make $6,000 a month and they pay us around 60 $650 including the 6% fee.
Speaker B:I mean actually $500 including success fee and $89.
Speaker B:So they keep around 90 in their pocket or 95.
Speaker B:And we overall get 5%.
Speaker B:So much lower fees than Airbnb.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Airbnb is so high.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:This is cool.
Speaker A:And this is.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's nice and it's nice and clean.
Speaker A:It's a nice.
Speaker A:It's a beautiful looking product.
Speaker A:And when did you all launch?
Speaker B:We launched post Covid.
Speaker B:I actually want to show one more thing to the.
Speaker B:To the community.
Speaker B:We have.
Speaker B:We have our community page where we do the events and the blog.
Speaker B:So if you are a salon owner and you like.
Speaker B:So if.
Speaker B:If you are keep watching for events, keep watching for blogs.
Speaker B:We do very educational blogs like where clients find stylists and are they finding you so how do you or the no stress way to find stylists.
Speaker B:So for salon owners, what should they do if they want to rent chairs, what are the do's and don'ts do they want to rent for stylist?
Speaker B:If they want to build their clientele where to post, how to post, what are the keywords, what's happening with the AI world and chat gpd.
Speaker B:So we actually keep every week educational webinar and live Instagram and also white papers which any hair stylist who's either out of cosmology school or a very seasoned.
Speaker B:They may just don't know.
Speaker B:Oh, how do I do social media?
Speaker B:Or they say how do I this.
Speaker B:They can.
Speaker B:They can take a lesson here.
Speaker B:Here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:So I gotta ask.
Speaker A:Based on what you said earlier, it sounds like.
Speaker A:And you were mentioning it sounded like you.
Speaker A:I can't say for certain but it sounded like you were.
Speaker A:You were saying that you.
Speaker A:Or maybe you didn't sound like it.
Speaker A:I assumed based on something you said that you built out A lot of features and there was something about what, what features are the most important.
Speaker A:And so with all of those features in like how long did this.
Speaker A:Well, I guess first question is how long did the whole thing take for you once you started building it to be built?
Speaker B:Yeah, so the first it took us three months to build a basic bear shell platform.
Speaker B:You know, basic transaction payments, showing the inventory and other things.
Speaker B:It was, it was a good decision that we made a very, you know, basic platform and we went out in the market and we had no packages, no monthly.
Speaker B:It's like go and book either us or days or whatever, no community and nothing.
Speaker B:And then we hired a senior engineer after six months, eight months when we raised the money, when we had around 30, 40 clients, 50 salons on one side and people were renting and they, we spoke to them and they're like oh, I have to book the chairs every time can have a monthly package, you know.
Speaker B:So we introduced monthly but then we started hiring engineering team and said let's build this for a scalability.
Speaker B:So if you are a tech entrepreneur, things are changing.
Speaker B:You can build the basic technology pretty fast now.
Speaker B:That's what I hear.
Speaker B:So I don't want to brag about it but that's what I hear.
Speaker B:But still two, three months is a good time.
Speaker B:But I have another advice here, very strong advice.
Speaker B:If you are building a tech company, you either should have a money to hire a very seasoned tech team and if you don't, which is most of the time, don't self fund to hire a technology person because a they are very expensive.
Speaker B:If they're good and running a salary from your pocket can be very high.
Speaker B:I highly recommend that if you're building a tech company, have three co founders.
Speaker B:One, as you as a business person or whoever you are.
Speaker B:Second, technology person and again somebody who has done that, not your nephew, niece or friend or somebody who has done professionally.
Speaker B:And third, a marketer salesperson.
Speaker B:If you cannot sell the idea to two people to join your company, you need to keep correcting it until you find that.
Speaker A:So that's good advice.
Speaker B:So I would say if you don't find it and question can be where can I find it?
Speaker B:There are a lot of platforms, it's like a dating.com like you know, you can meet people.
Speaker B:It may take some time, like six months a year.
Speaker B:But if you want to build a tech company, if you don't know anybody in technology, that's you don't want to be in that industry, you don't want to build the tech product.
Speaker B:So if you want to do the change, you need to go to the tech events, New York Tech Week or SF Tech Week and get into that community, you know, or you raise the money or you find if your idea is so compelling, raise some money and then ask your investor to match you with tech founder.
Speaker B:But anyhow, my point is don't do it from your pocket and fund because it will not get to the most of the times.
Speaker B:It won't get you there.
Speaker A:Totally.
Speaker A:Totally.
Speaker A:So, so when, when you're thinking about community, since you're talking a little bit about community, when you're thinking about community.
Speaker A:And what is my question I'm trying to ask here?
Speaker A:So 1.
Speaker A:Building community is not.
Speaker A:It takes time and it's.
Speaker A:I, I don't, I, I think it, it takes time, I guess so it's not easy and it doesn't happen fast and, but it also seems to be a really important part of business moving forward to have community.
Speaker A:And it's almost like I actually read a piece in the Harvard Business Journal that they said that, you know, there's a new way to build businesses and no one's teaching it in MBA programs and it's coming from content creators building communities and then selling them things.
Speaker A:And so I think it's interesting because you, you're building community.
Speaker A:You're, you're building a product, you're bit, you, you have customers, you're, you're in it.
Speaker A:And, and it's something that the all the audience can quite, can really understand.
Speaker A:I think the audience really can see this, the value of a product like this for them, especially all my independents out there.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of salon owners who are moving away from hiring and, and W2 employees.
Speaker A:So I think that everybody can really kind of understand this challenge.
Speaker A:But can you talk?
Speaker A:Can.
Speaker A:I mean I, I know we're at our time, but maybe, maybe that's for another, another conversation.
Speaker A:But I want to give you a chance to say where, where people can find you Any, any word, words of advice for the entrepreneurs?
Speaker A:Any words of advice for the salon owners who are struggling?
Speaker A:There's a lot of salon owners that are part of our community.
Speaker A:Like we, we go out and one of the, we, we have a solution that we've been working on for helping students getting get into salons so that they can build a relationship with them before they graduate.
Speaker A:And, but like what about the salon owners who don't want to hire?
Speaker A:I, I run into a lot of students or a lot, sorry.
Speaker A:A lot of salon Owners who are like, you know what, I actually hear you, that you want to send me students.
Speaker A:And that makes sense.
Speaker A:And if we can build a relationship with the students, then maybe we can have a longer running relationship and I can actually get a return on my investment for training them.
Speaker A:But there's enough salon owners, I would say half, at least of the salon I talked to don't want to train at all.
Speaker A:Like, even if, even if I could guarantee them and I had a magic wand, they still wouldn't want to go through the training process.
Speaker A:They just, they just, they want to run a salon.
Speaker A:They don't want to run a training salon or, or a building salon.
Speaker A:They want to run a salon full of people who take care of their own clients.
Speaker A:And, you know, the.
Speaker A:Ideally, they would like them to be W2 Commission because they have a vision about what, what the salon is going to be like, what the type of hair that's walking in and out, what the reputation's going to be like.
Speaker A:I think this is probably a better place to wrap up our conversation because I'm sure I'm talking to you, I'm talking your language and let's, let's in this screen share real quick.
Speaker A:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, like, why don't we wrap it up like that?
Speaker A:Because I feel like that's the piece.
Speaker A:I feel like if you're an independent stylist and you, you get it, like, you're like, sweet.
Speaker A:Another tool to help me build my, my business and find people.
Speaker A:I feel like it's the salon owners who want to.
Speaker A:Who are not currently renting their space and, but are thinking about it.
Speaker A:There's a lot.
Speaker A:We talk to so many that are, that's where they're at.
Speaker A:They're like, should I just rent a chair?
Speaker A:Or maybe they're a hybrid space.
Speaker A:They're like, I have some employees, I want to rent my space.
Speaker A:But, yeah, talk to that.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Before you respond, I just want to lay one thing out there and it might come into what you're going to say or it might not.
Speaker A:And I, you know, I'm not.
Speaker A:Whether it does or not is not important, but I will.
Speaker A:I wanted to put this out there.
Speaker A:I had a conversation with one of our panelists for the Beauty Business Brunch this year, and she runs seven salon concepts and each one is different.
Speaker A:Some are membership based, some are rental pays, some are commission based.
Speaker A:And her whole thing was, we need to stop being hairdressers.
Speaker A:Creating a space that we want to work in and then saying hey, this is what the customer's experience is going to be like and this is what our brand is like.
Speaker A:And I want you all, I want to hire people to uphold my brand.
Speaker A:She's saying that, that those days are maybe not completely gone, but they're, they're, they're not for the majority.
Speaker A:And so if you, if you want to run a business and you want to run a salon, you might need to diversify and become more dynamic with what type of brands or work is in there.
Speaker A:I don't know that I'm not saying I'm on the.
Speaker A:I, I agree or disagree.
Speaker A:I'm just, I just want to kind of put that little context out there when you respond to, when you give your, you know, your sign off words on this.
Speaker B:No, thanks.
Speaker B:So first of all, thanks for having me.
Speaker B:It was great chatting.
Speaker B:I think from a salon owner perspective, I'll put a three step process.
Speaker B:Number one, hair stylist and salons owners are actually the same.
Speaker B:They both are artists and creative people.
Speaker B:So we have been in there working for hundreds of years together, but it's evolving the relationship, right.
Speaker B:And I think we have to be respectful of this new way of some people's preference of how do they want to work.
Speaker B:I think the ask is let's work together, but with a different, more responsibility, with our own job and less interference and be still part of community and help each other.
Speaker B:So that's what I think your other salon owner with the seven concept is saying.
Speaker B:And the message is we can be under the one roof, but we don't have to be each other's boss.
Speaker B:You know, we can coexist and we can have a very refined, clear transaction like what I get, what I give.
Speaker B:And when we start working for each other, like as an employee or something, because it's a creativity, you cannot create the carbon copy of everything.
Speaker B:And if you do that, then you are not a creative person, then you're an industrial person.
Speaker B:So I think it's a very first principle.
Speaker B:This community is not like any other CPA office that I'm one CPA and you the same accounting practice.
Speaker B:There's no one way of which haircut is the right cut.
Speaker B:And everybody has a personality and that's what the world cherishes.
Speaker B:So we have to actually nurture that.
Speaker B:But at the same time, we need each other.
Speaker B:We need infrastructure by salon owners and we need artists working in there.
Speaker B:We don't want to work in one single suite alone.
Speaker B:Most of the people like Camino, so what we our vision at Artist ongo is define the boundaries, clarify the transaction.
Speaker B:Who is going to offer what and what is the cost of that is and where can be the collaboration can happen.
Speaker B:So that's what we're doing it and that's what we see now why salons and I think most of the salon owners are not against it.
Speaker B:What their fear when I was a salon owner was how do I navigate the rental system Because I had a concern.
Speaker B:You see the, the worst nightmares like when I say renting, I see a guy who's half drunk and half clothes and coming and speaking loud, doesn't give me respect and, and just says this is my chair, I rented it and I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do that you know.
Speaker B:So when you think about that and he's going to destroy your entire business and you are with your best of your clients and his clients are also drunk or whatever, you know, on the drugs.
Speaker B:And so you, you imagine as a very, you know, worst case possible.
Speaker B:That's not reality.
Speaker B:So what happens?
Speaker B:First let's define.
Speaker B:You have certain rules.
Speaker B:You want to rent a chair, you want to think your as a very business person that I have six chairs which can make $12,000 a month.
Speaker B:Is it worth it to understand what what needs to be done?
Speaker B:So you clarify.
Speaker B:Yes, I want to monetize them but I don't have enough time to invest because I'm a hairdresser full time or salon owner.
Speaker B:I don't want to disrupt my business and I don't want to have the people who I don't appreciate and respect.
Speaker B:The only difference is now rather than they taking commanding orders from me, actually they're managing their own stuff and paying me a fixed price for that rather than like I'm doing everything.
Speaker B:Actually most salon was happy about that.
Speaker B:You know, they're like okay, if you gave me a person who's vetted, if you gave me all the tools that I want, just I have to approve or disapprove.
Speaker B:And if you gave me the people and I get to see them and approve them before they start working and, and don't send me 100 people every day, just send me the same people even if they're coming for three days a week, then they're very happy and I'm happy to make 12,000.
Speaker B:So that's what we do.
Speaker B:Last thing that we build your website on our platform, match you with the right people.
Speaker B:Take a list of things which you want to check before that we read them their license and insurance.
Speaker B:If you Want and then take a payments from them in advance so that we can pay you before they show up.
Speaker B:And also give you portal where you can see who's coming, when are they coming, how much they are paid, how much money has gone in your bank.
Speaker B:So we do.
Speaker B:We kind of have this technology here assistant which does everything and we use multiple AI agents like Zoe and Ashley to actually coordinate everything as well.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:I guess.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:This is so good.
Speaker A:I do have one question though that I can't believe I didn't ask, but what you.
Speaker A:You just shared something.
Speaker A:You said that you can see who's coming before.
Speaker A:So the.
Speaker A:Do the.
Speaker A:Do the t. Do the stylists who are renting the chair, do they have to go like.
Speaker B:How do I say this approval process.
Speaker B:So yeah, there's an approval process for the chair and then we send it for the.
Speaker B:So salons have two options.
Speaker B:They can.
Speaker B:First time they can say, I want to approve every hair stylist or they can say I'm okay to take a stylist with their hair license and everything else.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So before they book it, it's not like just you book a restaurant at Open Table and show up.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You book it.
Speaker B:There's a step of approval and vetting.
Speaker B:And then you get vetted and then you.
Speaker B:You get approved.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:Yes, then you're going through that and.
Speaker A:Does the vetting process.
Speaker A:Are you able to talk to the.
Speaker B:Person or we do text them, we do try to call them, but we also give the numbers to the salon owners.
Speaker B:And every salon owner is a different.
Speaker B:So some salon owners want to license well in advance and insurance.
Speaker B:So we make sure that we tell that those hair stylists, that salon needs a license and insurance and they should show up.
Speaker B:Most of the times you'll be surprised that this is the same guy you are looking and dying to hire and he happened to be in your three blocks away working in a different salon.
Speaker B:And you would be looking at that when can he work for me?
Speaker B:Or I need this kind of stylist.
Speaker B:But it's just we put the process.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:As a salon owner, you can actually.
Speaker B:You can ask.
Speaker B:We have an AI agent called Zoe and you can feed there.
Speaker B:So when people are making a booking and inquiry, Zoe will tell them before making a booking, this salon owner needs a license.
Speaker B:So bring a copy of that.
Speaker B:The salon owner needs insurance.
Speaker B:Bring a copy of that.
Speaker B:The salon owner needs xyz.
Speaker B:These are the rules of the salon.
Speaker B:Please follow them.
Speaker B:And when they show up, same for the hair stylist.
Speaker B:When the hair stylists are there, they get a cheat sheet.
Speaker B:What is the WI fi password?
Speaker B:What is the AC out there?
Speaker B:Where's the back bar?
Speaker B:What are the rules of this?
Speaker B:So they are not like, it's a handy.
Speaker B:I understand every hairdresser is like, we're not very like, like technologically, we, we just want everything up front so we give it after the booking.
Speaker B:So that's a handy to them.
Speaker B:And they're not, you know, they're focused on their client and they have everything.
Speaker B:Like the client says, what is the WI fi?
Speaker B:They just open the phone and say, this is the WI fi.
Speaker A:You know, Nice.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Well, not to, not to add a, like a last minute add on there, but I, I wanna, I was curious.
Speaker A:Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker A:This was such a pleasure.
Speaker A:It was so great to like hear two things in one episode where we get to not only hear about the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial process, developmental process, but we also get to learn about a tool and how, how a founder thinks about their tool, but then a tool also that we can use as well for our industry.
Speaker A:So that was, it was really cool.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed it.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:And I imagine that there's probably other conversations.
Speaker A:I think it'd be curious to know your thoughts on considering your vantage point.
Speaker A:Like, you know, like, where's the industry going?
Speaker A:How's this, what's this evolution?
Speaker A:Like, what are your visions for the industry?
Speaker A:All that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So I'd love to have you back on the show and talk again and.
Speaker A:But until then, I just wanted to say thank you.
Speaker B:Thanks, Robert.
Speaker B:You're a great host.
Speaker B:I'm so, so happy that I was able to make it and you invited us.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:All right, well, until next time, I'll see you later.
Speaker B:Thank you very much.
Speaker B:Bye bye.
Speaker B:Take care.
