THINK: OpenTable for the barbershop industry; Tell me what you think

As someone who travels a lot and often look to get my hair cut in different cities, I noticed everywhere I go the barbershop experience SUCKS! From long waits, to double booking, to CASH only, I could go on-and-on. In addition, after speaking with barbers I noticed inefficiencies in regards to managing clients, revenue, and promotion. I seized this opportunity to create myBarber – a mobile and web app that brings both barbers and clients together and more. Check us out at http://www.mybarberapp.com

Note: Our primary target market includes self-employed barbers (~ 1 out of 2) who essentially pay a booth fee at a shop and/or travels to clients. These individuals have an incentive to increase revenues and happen to be primarily of minority descent and thus exclude a lot of the franchised hourly shops (Quick Clips, etc.)

A few questions I have included:

1. Any ideas on how to validate prior to building anything? a. One idea is to manually get the barbers schedule paired with an email list of people I solicited interested in getting discounts on haircuts for example at off-peak times (Mon-Wed.). This adds value to the barber (more $ at off-peak times) and thus proves myBarber can eliminate headaches and increase client base.

2. How would you make money? a. Possible revenue model: barbers pay us a monthly subscription in exchange for the POS, client and revenue mgmt. system used all through the mobile app. FREE for their clients to find, search, book, and rate them.

3. What do you see my biggest obstacle? a. One huge challenge: How to find these barbers who are often in small urban shops with limited web presence. Possible Answer: partner with barber schools.

If you have any other questions or comments please feel free to post or shoot me an email, thank you for your time and consideration.

My girlfriend is a hairdresser, I'll run this by her and give you more feedback.

In the mean time this is what pops into my mind:

* What about the people who don't care to go to anyone else other then their regular barber?

* Do you think they're will be push back since you are creating more work for the barber who has a pretty simple process. (cut hair, small talk, sweep hair)

* Also, a lot of places do cash only and you are going to create a paper trail of money, where some might not want it. (Shocker: Some people don't report all of their earnings.)

Is there a reason why you are not including the other 50% of the population (women). I would think salons would be more interested in this service than barbershops.

Since my girlfriend works in this industry I too have tried to think of ways to solve some of these problems for her. My idea was to create a simple scheduling/ calendar web app that is mobile friendly. The Barber/Hair Dresser can use their smartphone to scheduled appointments. If the barber makes their schedule public, on the salon/barber shop website clients can go and see what particular days and times are open. The client can then submit a request for certain day/time and the barber is notified(maybe email, or sms - twilio). The barber/ hair dresser can then approve the date and the client is notified.

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

In regards to your questions: 1. Regular customers can schedule their appointments regularly and have "VIP" status that gets them FREE haircuts as they refer the barber new clients and take advantage of exclusive promotions, think 'daily deals" the barber can push out to preferred clients.

2. There will be some push back for barbers who dont embrace technology and don't mind a simple list. However, for those who are more tech inclined and time conscious (ex. barbers on the go and barbers who joggle multiple jobs). Also, we hope ourt early adopters, young tech-savvy barbers right out of barber college (looking to build clientile) can influence that older group. I do AGREE the app has to be very simple or they wont use.

I do plan to expand to salons, massage therapists, and tattoo artists but network is mostly with barbers. The thought, "get it right for one niche" and then expand was my thinking.

Your idea for your gf is right on. I would love to hear her feedback and more on your progress.

Thanks.

3. Our view is that we provide more value than just a POS. In the vent they wish to not use the payment portion, they still have promo on the mybarberapp website, client and sched mgmt features.

Hi sharemywin,

This is not an app you could simply stick in the app store and expect people to come. We are planning for a more organic bottom-up approach where we focus on getting all the barbers on board say in one city and offering incentives for barbers and customers to refer others. For example, if a customer refers 3 new clients, he gets a free cut.

2. Scheduling is not new. Our benefit is more of an all inclusive service that not only offers scheduling but a service specifically focused on barbers and clients and thus includes more than just scheduling most importantly a web presence (most barbers idea of high-tech is a facebook page with pics). Note: i have not checked out hte link but will read through after work.

3. I agree this may not be the largest niche, but consider two factors:

1. limited competition can lead to domination. it's a fact that as a minority myself the general sense is that we "consume" technology built by others but not vice versa.

2. May be the potential to expand to other verticals (tattoo artists, massage therapists, salons, etc.)

I rather pivot early with feedback such as this than wait til I spent all my $$$ :)

Thanks again.