How Drybar Went from a Side Hustle to a $255 Million Business
Alli Webb spent her twenties working in salons. When she moved to Los Angeles and became a stay-at-home mom, she started a mobile blowout craze — so she would go to a client’s home, blow-dry their hair, and style it for $40. No haircut or hair color.
“I got tons of customers,” Webb told the businessman Jeff Berman on the Masters of Scale podcast earlier this month. Her first pitch was to other moms in a Yahoo group. It read: “I’m a stay-at-home mom and long-time hairstylist. I’ll come blow your hair for only $40 while the kids sleep.”
Webb’s pitch was successful and soon he couldn’t keep up with the demand. He began thinking about opening a brick-and-mortar location so that his customers would come to him, instead of him going to them.
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His brother, former Yahoo marketing director Michael Landau, was willing to help financially to restore the business, although he had doubts at first.
“He was a little puzzled, ‘Like her, why can’t women grow their hair out?'” Webb said. “And I was like, you grew up with me.” In past interviews, Webb has shared that she had curly hair growing up and was “very concerned about her hair.”
Landau was finally convinced by the success Webb saw on his side. She invested $250,000 while Webb and her then-husband Cameron Webb put in about $50,000 of their own. In 2010, the founding team opened the first Drybar salon in Brentwood, California. It famously offers no cuts and no color.
Alli Webb. Photo Credit: Brian Stukes/Getty Images
Although Drybar salons offer limited hair services — just a wash, blowout, and style — Webb says he wasn’t interested in the business model. What he wanted was volume: 30 to 40 blasts a day to break even.
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The demand ended up being double what was expected – up to 60 to 80 explosions per day.
“We saw immediately, like in the first few days, [that] we were catching lightning in a bottle,” Webb said. “Women were really driving in. I mean we were turning people away left and right.”
Drybar has grown to more than 150 salons across the country within a decade. Webb eventually sold the Drybar product line to leading consumer products company Helen of Troy for $255 million in 2020. WellBiz Brands has acquired franchise rights to Drybar salons in 2021 for an undisclosed sum.
Webb had no idea what Drybar would become. When he opened his first store, he just wanted it to be a place where he could do what he loved.
“I was happy with it and I didn’t think that I would turn it into this huge empire that costs millions of dollars,” he said.
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