One among Britney Winters’ objectives is to “dwell a much less tangled life.”
She grew up in Houston and went on to attend Stanford and main in engineering. She labored on Wall Avenue as an funding banker for a couple of years in New York earlier than returning to Houston with a job in vitality. The corporate Winters was working for sponsored her MBA to Harvard Enterprise Faculty, and it was there that she got here up with the thought for Upgrade.
“I used to be actually struggling to discover a native extension stylist,” Winters advised TechCrunch. “Myself and some of the opposite Black feminine college students began taking day journeys or weekend journeys to New York Metropolis to get our hair finished. I additionally had custody of my 16-year-old sister, so I used to be managing my course load and taking these journeys, and it was throughout one of many these rides that I believed there needs to be a greater method to do that. Clearly, there’s an enormous demand for it, and it shouldn’t be this troublesome to entry high-quality handy hair options.”
Improve is concentrating on the wig and hair extensions industry, which is poised to be a $13 billion trade by 2026. The corporate, which raised $1.7 million final yr, is amongst hair companies geared toward girls and folks of coloration, like Rebundle, Morado and theCut, attracting enterprise capital {dollars}.
Improve’s e-commerce market has two sides: one that permits shoppers to decide on a vetted stylist and have their wig coloured or personalized based mostly on their desired look. Bear in mind Mary J. Blige’s hair at the Super Bowl? That was through Improve. The opposite facet of the enterprise is a brand new month-to-month subscription service for stylists that helps them market their handcrafted wigs, magnificence and different digital services.
Stylists can handle orders from one place, together with direct messaging with customers, one-click transport capabilities, information insights and analytics, protected checkout, cost safety, purchase now, pay later choices and entry to buyer scores.
Improve founder and CEO Britney Winters
“I grew up with numerous hairdressers in my household, so I’ve seen type of firsthand the challenges of working a small enterprise,” Winters mentioned. “A hairstylist can assist a girl really feel higher about themselves. Nevertheless, though they’re offering such vital worth, numerous them function with restricted funding and assets, which finally impacts the client expertise. We’re equipping them with the instruments and assets in order that they will function extra effectively and empower themselves economically.”
There’s a $30 month-to-month subscription payment that stylists pay along with a transaction payment for purchases. For shoppers, there isn’t any subscription payment, Winters mentioned. All the stylists are impartial contractors and set their very own pricing. The value a client pays depends upon the stylist chosen.
All of that is courtesy of a brand new $1 million seed extension from preliminary seed leads The Artemis Fund and Mercury Fund, with Bracken P. Darrell and ANIM additionally collaborating. So far, Improve has raised $3.5 million.
Winters defined that the driving force for the brand new funding was know-how and product growth on {the marketplace}, advertising and marketing and stylist acquisition. Thirty stylists are utilizing Improve at the moment, and 300 are on the waitlist.
“One among our greatest differentiators is know-how,” Winters added. “Our stylists all the time rave about simply how simple it’s to run their companies on Improve, so we determined to productize that know-how, make it extra accessible to the plenty and degree the taking part in subject to present these stylists publicity.”
The corporate additionally has one retail flagship retailer in Houston that serves a triple function of being a warehouse for the wigs and hair Improve sells, a showroom for shoppers to return in and really feel the hair and choose up orders and a workspace for stylists with non-public suites for them to lease out. Winters says she is pleased with the house, however not aiming to have an enormous retail footprint apart from some growth to different giant cities, like Los Angeles and New York.
In the meantime, Improve at the moment has 10 staff, and Winters expects to have double that quantity by subsequent yr. The corporate makes cash on the wig and hair gross sales and noticed income triple over the previous yr.
As a part of the corporate’s progress, Improve is engaged on an providing of micro loans to stylist subscribers to supply capital for them to put money into stock. It’s simply one of many instruments that the corporate gives to stylists in its community to assist them develop their enterprise, which embody assist for submitting a enterprise tax return and making a revenue and loss assertion.
Up subsequent, Winters expects the micro loans providing to roll out by the top of the yr. The corporate might be engaged on extra enterprise assets.
Samantha Lewis, principal at Mercury Fund, advised TechCrunch that Winters is aware of her prospects properly and will do for them what Etsy did for individuals who made handmade items.
“Improve is empowering the stylist, on one hand, to assist them develop their enterprise,” she mentioned. “With Britney’s background, she is actually coming at this from all of the totally different angles, together with the fintech angle with the micro loans. She taught me what I wanted to find out about wigs, hair extensions and the issues that girls of coloration are experiencing relating to that. To have a brilliant profitable firm that’s constructed particularly for Black and different girls of coloration is inspiring.”
