Hey everybody, it's Eric Taylor, founder of Salon Republic, and this is episode Noomro Uno of The Hair Game,

where I interview Andrew Does Hair, who is a leading thinker in our business and a true contrarian.

I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you enjoy it.

I'm here at Salon Republic's Beverly Hills, Wilshire location with none other than Andrew from Andrew Does Hair.

Thank you so much for making the drive and coming and doing this with us.

There's so many people love to hear what you have to say and so I'm grateful for the time.

So Andrew, tell us your story. How did you get started in hair and how did you get to the level that you're at now? I get a hold of the mic. You do. The very fancy mic. All right, I'll try to make this the quickest version I can. I tend to ramble and hopefully you can edit it down to something useful. So when I was in high school, I didn't do very good. I was, I was had a hard time following the rules to what I was told. I ended up dropping out when I was a senior. And around that time, I was cutting my own hair and friend's hair in the bathroom. And I wanted to go to barber school because I was, I was 17 and insecure, and I was so afraid that if I was a hairdresser, people think I was gay. Now I could care less, but you know, that's how I was 17-year-old thinks. Anyway, so I couldn't find a barber school around me and I was only interested in doing men's hair, but I found a cosmetology school and I thought whatever it's good enough. So in cosmetology school, they taught me, you know, long hair, short hair cut, color, highlights, extensions, everything. and I knew how to do a wet a wet set I knew how to use a curling iron but I only wanted to do men's hair however my teachers told me that I wouldn't make money doing men's hair and that I should you know learn to do color better and because I was never good at color and they're always like oh you'll get it you'll get it and I never got it so when I when I got my license I went to a barbershop and they wouldn't hire me because I was a cosmetologist and not a barber. So I ended up at a salon where my boss said, you're doing whatever comes in the door because I was working on commission. So for five years, I struggled and I did everything that came in the door. And I used to like have panic attacks in the back room when I would have to do women's hair. haircuts I was okay with, but if they wanted, it curled afterward, I didn't know how to use a curling arm very well. If I had to do highlights, like literally half the time, it was a refund and I was surprised I didn't get fired. But after enough time, what it started happening is when guys would come in for a haircut, they would come back four out of five times, and they would bring friends where if five women came in for haircuts, one of them would come back. And it was because, it wasn't even because she liked her hairs because she thought I was cute or something. Back in those days, I was better looking. We all were. Anyways, so I just accidentally kind of gravitated toward, I always wanted to do men's hair, but I was forced to learn styling and women's hair.

And before Instagram, before I was connected to anybody, I just did what I knew work.

If somebody brought me a picture of David Beckham's long, soft, loose hair that was voluminous, and I knew how to do it.

I knew how to blow dry it and round brush it and tease it and use whatever powder and whatever

required to do it.

And I didn't realize that the majority of barbershops and like men's hair sources were

like wet styling everybody.

And so when I got on Instagram talking about good hair doesn't come from a jar, blow

dry the hair, I didn't realize that it was so rare and you know people are like oh what's your

secret for getting big on Instagram I'm like I just I style hair or I styled

hair in a world where people were focusing on a fade and that that was it I just

stood out by accident it wasn't some great plan that I was like oh the industry

is missing this and I'm gonna be that it was just what I happened to accidentally be forced to learn over the years paid off a lot. And so that's my whole story. That's kind of how I got here. After, so I got like 10,000 followers on Instagram kind of by accident. And when did you start on Insta? I don't know, like four or five years ago. Okay. So I was it was relatively early. I wouldn't say that I was like one of the first on there. Like I know Anthony the Barber was on there way before me. Anthony the Barber nine one six and I know a few other guys were on their way before me but I was on kind of early but the thing is I got 10,000 followers by accident and it bothered me that I didn't know why it happened. People go, how did you get a follower? I'm like, I don't know. So I started reading books by like Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell and Gary Vaynerchuk and Jim Collins. And I started reading all these guys trying to figure out what I did so I could do more of it. Yeah. And so I guess that's sort of

the end. You know, I think that's amazing that you, you know, had the curiosity to the point at

which you went out and you spent a lot of time reading books because I'm not a fast reader. It takes

me quite a while.

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