Ted Gibson and Jason Backe had to close one business to make another work.
The married couple (a hairstylist and colorist, respectively) and business partners say it took closing down their flagship salon location on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 2017 to allow them to rethink their futures. What they landed on was a L.A. smart salon "powered by Amazon," that had no receptionist and no inventory -- their hero product, the Shooting Star Texture Meringue, was not sold in store, but on Amazon.
"We knew that that model of 25 chairs, 12 assistants, a huge front desk staff, the overhead of the product -- we knew that that model was a dinosaur," Backe said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast.
In the latest Glossy Beauty podcast, Gibson and Backe talk about bouncing back from having just $2,500 in the bank because of Covid-19, how some beauty companies are all talk when it comes to supporting Black businesses and what the salon of the future looks like.