Launching an Amazing Service with Alli Webb (Season Finale)

<p>Alli Webb was always interested in beauty, starting from her roots as a curly-haired kid growing up in South Florida. She says that going to beauty school was “one of the best decisions I ever made,” and Drybar, her ultra-popular chain of hairstyling studios, definitely proves her point. While she says she spent her childhood as a people-pleaser—”a wallflower, if I’m honest”—she’s grown into herself as a business owner and service expert.</p><p>Alli spent her 20s in New York City, doing PR and styling hair until she met her ex-husband and pivoted to the stay-at-home-mom gig. “I thought it was the coolest thing ever: I get not to work? I thought I had hit the jackpot!” But after a half-decade of staying home with her two sons, she was bored. So she launched a mobile business called Straight At Home, pitching her blowouts on parental message boards and bringing a luxury that had been previously reserved for the glitterati to moms all over L.A. </p><p>She quickly learned that her business model—which included paying for a babysitter and a <i>lot</i> of gas money—was barely breaking even. But when she tried to pull back, she found that her service wasn’t really available anywhere else; her clients would either skip the little luxury, or they would make do at an all-purpose salon that got the job done but lacked that special touch. She envisioned a hair salon that got straight to where the magic happens: those final moments of a haircut that really put the oomph in the style. From that vision came <a href="https://www.drybarshops.com/" target="_blank">Drybar</a>.</p><p>Instinctively, she knew that she wanted the Drybar experience to be predictable for clients, replicating the same style and services across the country. She even provided the salon tools, bucking the industry norm that stylists provide their own. “Aesthetically, I had this idea of what I wanted, which led to knowing that, whenever you go to a Drybar, you have the same experience.” This meant that clients could trust whoever was doing their styling, n