You move to a new city, need a haircut, and there’s a Sport Clips or a Great Clips nearby. You recognize the name. You have some idea of what you’re walking into.
But when I moved from the DC area to Calabash, North Carolina, finding someone I trusted with my hair was unexpectedly annoying.
I’m a mixed-race guy with curly hair. And at the time, I just wanted a lil temp fade.
I actually called Sport Clips and asked if they had someone who specialized in textured hair. Because knowing there’s a barber shop nearby and feeling comfortable booking with someone there are two different things.
Though this is true for all salons, barbershops, food caterers, and any other
stylistic-booking-thing.
New York’s textured-hair training requirement took effect in September 2026 for its cosmetology and natural hair styling programs.
“Traditional cosmetology courses historically ignored textured hair, leading salons to turn away clients or undertreat Black customers, but everyone deserves to walk into a salon and know they can receive quality, professional care,”
- New York Secretary of State, Walter T. Mosley.
Down the road, I grew my hair out and wanted cornrows, and the aggressive AI-asking-review-reading-portfolio-skimming process began again.
Who does them?
Where can I see their work?
Who knows somebody?
My family and friends know this process well. An auntie who braids. A cousin who has a barber. Somebody who makes house calls.
There’s a whole network of talented people doing this work. But when you’re somewhere new like I was, you still have to find your way into it.
It’s had me thinking about a familiar chain built around textured hair.
Somewhere with barbers and braiders under the same roof. I could get a fade, come back for cornrows, or find someone for loc care. Then if I traveled or moved, I’d have a brand I already knew to look for.
I’d want it to feel home-y
Sport Clips is the reference because of how recognizable it is. I’m not picturing copying the whole experience.
I’d want this to feel high-end, clean, home-y and vibe-y. A place you’d actually be excited to go to, with great work, a good-looking space, and people you feel comfortable asking questions.
And the expertise would need to be visible before you book (shoutouts the innanet). You can see the hair they work with, the styles they do, and the person who’s going to do yours.
To be clear, Sport Clips says its stylists are trained to cut all hair types and textures. Ulta also offers curl haircuts and some braid services, with different availability depending on the service and location.
The combination that I’m thinking about is barbers, braiders, and practical hair-care guidance under one brand, where you know what to expect from location to location.
My braider made another part of this click
The woman who braided my hair is white and has mixed-race kids. (and is the Michael Jordan of cornrows)
She told me a lot of her clients are also white moms with mixed-race children, who need help learning how to care for their kids’ hair.
Shoutouts to my mom who’s in this demo, ily 💜
That really stuck with me when I zoomed out. You can get someone’s hair done, but then they go home and still have to know what to do with it.
What products should they use?
How do they keep the style looking good?
What changes as the hair gets longer?
And if you’re a parent who didn’t grow up caring for that type of hair, you’re trying to learn it while also trying to teach your kid.
All of this feels like validation for the concept.
You go to someone who does good work and explains what you need to know. Then you have videos from the same brand they work for to go back to when you’re at home.
This is where the idea gets so, so, so sick to me
I’d want this to feel like a media brand that “happens to have locations”.
The content from all of the shops would feed one national brand account on each platform. Not every shop trying to build its own little following from scratch.
Picture a barber who’s really good at explaining a cut. A braider who makes tutorials people actually wanna sit and watch. Somebody else is just funny and great on camera.
There are a few no-brainer directions:
Hair and hairstyle tutorials. How to get a certain look, wash-and-go routines at different lengths, and what products to use.
Braiding tutorials. Showing the process clearly enough that someone can actually learn from it.
Before-and-afters. Let people see the work and who did it.
The people in the shops. Their personalities, how they think about hair, and the conversations they’re good at having.
Some of it would help people do their own hair or find a product they need. Some would make them wanna book. Some would just be fun to watch.
I don’t think every video needs to turn into “book an appointment.”
You could follow the brand for months because you like the content, even if there isn’t a location near you. And then if one opens nearby, you already know who they are and what their work looks like.
The content could do a few jobs at once
YouTube is especially interesting to me here.
A useful tutorial can be something people come back to. And if the channel qualifies for YouTube monetization, there’s the potential for the content to earn revenue itself.
Meanwhile, you’re also building a library of assets you can use in ads. Which makes my mouth foam up as a media buyer.
A cool before-and-after could become an ad for the shop where it was filmed. A braider explaining their process could help someone feel more comfortable booking.
And whatever performs well could help you decide what to make more of across the locations.
The shops give the media brand more people and work to feature.
The media brand gives the shops a bigger audience to introduce themselves to.
The questions people ask online and in the chair help shape the next round of content.
I’m even curious whether you could get to something like negative net customer acquisition cost, where the media revenue covers both content production and customer acquisition, with money left over.
That’s not something I’m assuming would happen. But even getting some of those costs covered by the content would be siiiick for the PnL.
Why I keep coming back to it
I know there’s a lot between picturing this and building it. It requires people who really understand the hair side of the business, and the service would have to be good enough to justify the trust.
The equity is likely in:
The training/recruiting of staff.
The media brand.
An extremely obvious phase two is e-commerce, whether licensing the brand or making our own products.
But I love the idea of following a brand for its people and its work, learning from the videos, and then being able to go get my hair done at one of its locations.
I’d have somewhere to look when I’m in a new city, and someone else might finally find a tutorial that helps them take care of their kid’s hair. Both would give people a reason to keep coming back to the same brand.
Purty cool biz idea to me
Peace and Love,
Travis