We were lucky to catch up with Pierre Dubois recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Pierre thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

A couple of years ago I was visiting my family in France, and I was sitting with my grand father in his kitchen, he was having his hair cut by his hairdresser. We were talking while he was having his hair done, and he was asking me about how was life in the US, how we were adjusting to it. He asked me about hairstylists in the US, inquiring about differences and if we had stylists travelling to people’s houses. I replied I had never heard about it. So when I came back to Atlanta, I asked around … and that’s how DashStylists started.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

DashStylists enables any hairstylist (or barber) to become mobile in 15 min and service those who do need at-home hair services (primarily seniors and homebound people).
We use technology to serve our clients wherever they are : in their home, in aging care facilities, in nursing homes …

We are actually solving two problems.
In one end, about 60 Million Americans need at-home hair services : primarily seniors and homebound people, who can’t walk or drive to the salon.
Their need is not properly addressed : these people must rely on relatives to cut their hair or on very few salon hair stylists accepting house calls.
On the other end, many hair stylists and barbers don’t make enough money to repay their student loan or even to make a decent living.

These two problems not being properly addressed, as a result, at-home services represent about 1% of the hair services market in the US compared to 20% in Western Europe countries, like France.

How’d you meet your business partner?

In 2019, while meeting with hairstylists (several dozens…) to understand the US hair services industry, Pierre met Gabrielle, who had been a Master Hairstylist in New York and Atlanta. She really stood out and they immediately connected regarding the value of the project. In Sept 2020, after the Atlanta COVID lockdown, Pierre offered Gabrielle to become a part time consultant for the company, mainly to start building the network of mobile stylists. Thomas and Pierre have known each other for almost 20 years. In 2020 Pierre and Thomas started discussing the features of the platform that would become DashStylists. When the concept was clear enough (January 2021), Pierre and Thomas decided to build a MVP together.
Thomas officially became a partner in the company around mid 2021 and at the same time Gabrielle also transitioned from contractor to partner.

Thomas working from Paris, Gabrielle and Thomas have never met in person. But we talk and exchange, one to one, or the 3 of us, several times a week .

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Easy ! When Covid hit in 2020, we had started onboarding a dozen hairstylists to start a test and just a couple of days before we start, everything started shutting down, and particularly all hair salons. We had to wait about a year to be able to restart again, and of course we had to rebuild the roster of hairstylists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dash-stylists.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StylistsAtYourDoor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-loic-dubois/