We recently connected with Mikey Denton and have shared our conversation below.
Mikey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?
I’ve been behind the chair for years. And if you know this industry, you know we get sold to constantly. Hair shows, brand reps, Instagram ads, “free samples” that are really just subscriptions you didn’t agree to. The whole system is built to get professionals buying. And most of us do — because we care about our craft.
So naturally, everyone’s kit is full of stuff they don’t use. A $400 clipper used twice. Shears bought at a show after two glasses of wine. Color over-ordered because you were feeling ambitious. That’s not stupidity — that’s just the industry. But there was nowhere to send it. Facebook Marketplace randos offering you $40 for a $300 tool. People who have no idea what they’re even looking at.
I thought — why doesn’t a proper marketplace exist for this? Pro to pro. People who actually know what something’s worth.
So I started talking about it. At one point I brought it to some brands about potentially partnering. You know what they said? “That’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t build that.”
Which — yeah. Of course they said that. A resale marketplace cuts into full-price sales. The industry runs on pros constantly buying new. I get it.
But that reaction told me I was onto something real. When the people who benefit from the problem existing tell you not to solve it, that’s not a red flag. That’s a green light.
So I built it anyway. That’s why Kitflip exists — a marketplace built by a pro, for pros. Buy, sell, repeat. No randos. No lowballers. Just professionals who actually know what they’re looking at.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’m Mikey — Nashville-based hairstylist, short hair specialist, and former salon owner. I’ve been behind the chair for over a decade, and I still am. That part matters. I’m not someone who used to cut hair and now talks about it from a ring light. I’m actively working with real clients, solving real problems, every single week.
That hands-on reality is the thread that connects everything I do.
On the education side, I run Boring Hair Education — which is exactly what it sounds like. No secret sauce. No guru energy. No “this one technique changed my entire career” nonsense. Just practical, honest haircut education for hairstylists and barbers who are tired of being sold a vibe instead of actual skills. The name is intentional. Boring pays bills. The fundamentals — consultation, execution, consistency — that’s what builds a career. I teach that.
On the business side, I built Kitflip — a peer-to-peer marketplace specifically for beauty and barber professionals to buy and sell their professional gear to other pros. Not Facebook Marketplace. Not Craigslist. A dedicated platform where a $400 clipper gets seen by someone who actually knows what it’s worth. It came out of a real frustration I lived myself, and apparently a lot of other pros lived too.
What sets me apart is pretty simple — I haven’t left the floor to become an “industry voice.” I’m still in it. When I teach something or build something, it comes from what I’m actually experiencing behind the chair right now, not what I remember from five years ago.
What am I most proud of? Honestly — that I built multiple things while still showing up for clients every week. No VC money. No quitting my day job to “go all in on content.” Just a working hairdresser who kept building anyway.
What I want people to know: whether you’re a client looking for someone who actually thinks about your hair, a pro who wants education that respects your intelligence, or someone in the industry sitting on tools that deserve a better home — there’s something here for you.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
hair wasn’t a passion I chased — it was the thing I was actually decent at. And sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes that’s everything.
Besides having kids, the hair industry is the thing that genuinely changed my life. That sounds dramatic until you’ve lived it. It became an outlet for growth I never expected. I had a real fear of public speaking — like, uncomfortable-in-my-own-skin fear. But if I wanted to educate, I had to get over it. So I did. The industry handed me the reason, and then forced me to figure out the rest.
What non-creatives might struggle to understand is that creative industries — especially this one — aren’t just about talent. They’re about reinvention. Every challenge, every slow season, every failed idea — there’s always another door. That’s not toxic positivity, that’s just the reality of hair. The opportunity never fully disappears. It just changes shape. And that’s been my safety net through a lot.
The other thing? There’s genuinely a spot for everyone. I mean that literally. There are clown barbers. There are hairdressers with wild gimmicks and entire brands built around a persona. There’s room for the quiet technician, the loud entertainer, the educator, the entrepreneur. You can be whoever you are and find your lane.
Most industries have a mold. Hair just hands you the scissors and says figure it out.
That freedom is the thing. And once you feel it, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s never had it.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Technically, the chair is still my full time job. But everything built around it? That came from one simple thing — just trying.
It sounds almost too simple to say out loud, but the honest answer is that most of what I’ve built came from putting myself out there before I felt ready. Offering to teach. Reaching out. Saying yes before I had all the pieces in place. And being genuinely surprised by who said yes back.
The education side is a good example. I started offering classes to salons and barbershops — just putting it out there, seeing who’d respond. And people did. What made it hit different was when shops started paying me out of pocket to come teach. If you’ve ever owned a salon or a shop, you know that means something. Most places live and die by the points they rack up through product orders — that’s how they fund education. So when someone writes an actual check out of pocket, that’s not casual. That’s a vote of confidence that costs them something real. As a former shop owner myself, I don’t take that lightly.
The key milestone for me wasn’t a number or a viral moment. It was the first time someone paid me independently to teach and I realized — people actually value this. That shifted something.
Kitflip came from the same energy. Not a grand business plan. Just a real problem I kept seeing, an idea I kept sitting on, and eventually deciding to stop waiting for someone else to build it.
The through line across all of it is the same: you’d be surprised who responds when you actually ask. Most people never find out because they never put themselves out there. I just got tired of being one of those people.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.mikeydenton.com
- Instagram: Mikeydenton
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@mikeydenton_?feature=shared
