Start Up, Throw Up, and Grow Up

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Podcast Transcript

Loren Feldman:
Welcome Jay, Dana, and Laura. It’s great to have you all here—especially you, Dana. We haven’t spoken in quite some time. How are you doing?

Dana White:
I’m well, Loren. How are you?

Loren Feldman:
I’m great, thank you. What’s going on?

Dana White:
Umm… Let’s see. I’ve grown up.

Loren Feldman:
Wow. I didn’t know you needed to grow up.

Dana White:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you’re breathing, you need to grow. But I’ve really grown up. I’ve like Sequoia Redwood grown up.

Laura Zander:
Aww. In what way? What happened?

Dana White:
Well, it’s different for everybody, but for me, it’s looking around and being very honest about what’s working, what’s not working, and why it’s not working. And as much as I love Paralee Boyd, Paralee Boyd is not working.

Loren Feldman:
Wow.

Dana White:
And it’s not working because I have three major reasons. And this is pulling a page out of Jay’s book when you sit there and you have your list, right? One, Paralee Boyd isn’t working, because this is not what my market wants. My market wants wigs, weaves, dreads, braids. That’s what my market wants. And it’s not something you’re imagining. You can go to a major airport. You can go to a major city, which I was in. You can go anywhere, and most of the women who look like me are not wearing their hair like me.

Laura Zander:
Is that different than when you started?

Jay Goltz:
In Michigan.

Dana White:
Yes and no.

Laura Zander:
Well, New York is where the inspiration came from. Wasn’t it when you were in New York City?

Dana White:
Exactly. It was in 2010, ’11, ’12. Yes and no. Because these women are coming to the salons in between getting their wigs, weaves, and braids—and as they like to call them, “protective styles,” which is not really true. That’s the first thing, okay? The first thing is my market.

The second thing is staffing. I had to look at staffing as a reflection—not of Dana’s perspective, but from the mindset of my staff members. And Jay and I have had several conversations over the years where he’s put that into perspective. But I didn’t put all of those perspectives together to really truly understand who I was hiring. And, one, my employee base doesn’t fit the vision that I’m trying to make. They come to the interview, and they see Dana, and they put their best foot forward for Dana. Dana’s personable, Dana’s funny, Dana’s not the distant, aloof owner, you really can’t talk to her. Dana’s right there. And so they’re like, “Oh, my God, I’m inspired. I can be like that. I’m going to do my best.”

But that’s not what they can do. And so they present themselves very well in an interview, because I’m a reflection of them that they don’t see very often. And so they’re like, “I’m gonna do my best,” but they’re not really capable or willing to say, “Yeah, I’m limited.” So you’re wondering why you get these people who are applying, who are qualified, but they’re not able to do the job.

And the third thing is me. Paralee Boyd was born of a love for women who look like me, who were not being serviced in the marketplace. However, the service that they wanted was not the service of Dana—meaning: Dana, Paralee Boyd is a reflection of how you wear your hair, what you do for yourself. It’s not a reflection of what the majority of women do. Even in the name, the name has something to do with me, not my market. I thought it would resonate with my market, being an old southern name, but my market—

Loren Feldman:
Explain how you got the name.

Dana White:
It’s my grandmother’s name. And you thought that would resonate. But it doesn’t, because it’s a tongue twister. You have to give them things that are bite-sized so that you don’t have to pull their attention from whatever else they’re thinking about to patronize your business.

Laura Zander:
You’re talking about the consumers here? The attention span.

Dana White:
The consumers, and quite honestly, your staff. You have to make it bite-sized. And Dana isn’t bite-sized. Dana can hear a word, “Oh, that’s fine, right?” Dana’s a little different. And again, years ago, Jay and I had that conversation. I just didn’t put it all together. And I concluded that Paralee Boyd was more about me and what I wanted for my market, as opposed to my market and where they are. They’re not getting their hair done like that. They don’t want to do their hair like that. They want to get it done and not touch it for weeks at a time. You know, some do, some don’t. But most don’t.

If you were to walk out right now and go to an airport or go to a large Black metropolitan area, most women have wigs, weaves, dreads, braids, and protective styles. Very few of us are actually wearing our hair. Very few of us are actually getting blowouts every week or every other week. We’re just not doing it. And so, I tried to revolutionize an industry. And my dear friend who’s also a very successful business woman said, “Paralee Boyd is the best idea that none of us want, because we don’t have your level of hair freedom.”

She goes, “I’m a Black woman. I don’t just jump in a pool. Dana does and doesn’t think about it. Dana cuts her hair.” I just cut my hair a couple months ago. It was practically midway down my back. I cut it off. She goes, “I’m not saying we don’t do that. But we don’t do that en masse. That’s not the norm for us.” And so, she said, “Right now, I have a weave in my hair.” My other girlfriend said, “I have an eight piece in my hair, because I just don’t want to be bothered with it.” And that was it.

Jay Goltz:
So how much of this, though, was moving from Detroit to Texas? Because it was working at some point. Or has the market changed? Or is it both?

Dana White:
It was both. It was working, but it wasn’t working as well as it should have been from. And I am comparing myself to other salons, meaning, their monthly revenue compared to mine. It was doing okay. We weren’t ever making money. We weren’t making enough money to service the debt, and we weren’t making enough money to pay me consistently and comfortably.

Jay Goltz:
Can I just help you with that? I don’t think you meant that it “should” have been making it. I think you mean to say what you needed to make.

Dana White:
So Paralee Boyd is no more.

Jay Goltz:
Whoa.

Dana White:
There’s the product line. And that may go forward in other aspects, but as far as the actual walk-in only, seven-day-a-week hair salon, that is not happening at all.

Loren Feldman:
You had the salon in Dallas. When we started this podcast, you had two in Detroit. You moved to Dallas, and you opened there.

Dana White:
All done.

Loren Feldman:
That’s closed.

Dana White:
All of them. Done.

Jay Goltz:
And I assume, or not, that this wasn’t a case of, you start a new business, and it takes a couple years to get momentum. You’re confident that it just wasn’t going to happen?

Dana White:
Exactly. And so, I had hired someone down here, and it just kept getting worse and worse. And my problem is, I wasn’t edgy enough to be like, “Okay, next. Move on.” I kept accepting the excuses, the personal issues. And so, here’s what I will say: Paralee Boyd is done, but my military locations are not. Those are going to be a different brand, a different name, a different service. It is just all over different, but the good thing about that is that it has all of my knowledge and my edge.

I’ve been broke, I’ve been sad, I’ve been depressed, and I’m never going to let that happen again, because I’ve got a different business model. I’m not saying there won’t be issues. But that edge and—excuse me for saying so, Loren—but that bitch, she’s front and center. She’s still Dana, but quicker to fire you. Because I’m not going to be up worried about money because you can’t get pregnant, or whatever your issue is today that means, you can’t come to work. Okay, next. And I’m going to be constantly hiring. We’re never not hiring. We’re always hiring.

Jay Goltz:
There’s three stages of business: start up, throw up—you’ve been in throw up for a lot of years—and then grow up. And you’ve gotten to grow up. You realized what you’re doing is not working, and you’re figuring out what you need to do. So, yeah, I’ve gotta tell you, 20 years ago, I started a new thing on the side that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. I look back, and I think, “What was I thinking?” But I figured it out, eventually. So I hope you’re not torturing yourself. Are you torturing yourself? “I shouldn’t have, I couldn’t have, I should have known better.” I don’t know that you could have known any of this. I just don’t know that you could—

Loren Feldman:
Let her answer.

Dana White:
Well, there’s been a lot of money put into this. There’s been a lot of money. And so, is it a bad idea? But in the three things that I’ve shared with you, yes. But it’s a salon on a military base with a captive audience, giving the people what they want, making it a viable business, setting the business model up. Instead of trying to revolutionize the industry, go with the industry and make money on a military base.

And then there are other ones that are slated. So there’s going to be… I don’t want to say a renewal. But the military option is still extremely viable. I’m on the phone with them all the time, and they’re still looking at me on other bases. So it’s still not like, “Oh, just one and done because it’s taking them forever and a day to open in Fort Bragg, or Fort Liberty.” But once that gets going, and now I have a new business model, pulling back, and meeting my staff where they are. What did you tell me, Jay, years ago? “Dana, when you were their age, you were making $150,000 a year.”

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, you had the big job. You know, the proof’s in the pudding. You had a big job making a lot of money, which says that you have skill-sets and a mentality or whatever that’s different than someone who makes $20 an hour. My problem was, I never even had that job. So it took me many years to figure out, “Gee, everybody doesn’t think like I think.” That took me 25 years to figure out, I’m sorry to say.

Dana White:
And so I’m projecting this business acumen on those who haven’t been in the same business environment that I’ve been in. So now when I’m hiring at Fort Liberty, I don’t have that same standard, because they’re not going to meet it. And can you blame them? Can you do hair? Can you come to work on time? Can you not look like you just rolled out of bed? Great, hired!

Laura Zander:
Well, going back to the making $150,000, when you were their age, do you ever think about just going back and making $150,000 a year and working nine-to-five?

Dana White:
I was miserable. I hated it.

Laura Zander:
And you’re happy now? [Laughter]

Dana White:
Well, I’m happier. Here’s the thing, Laura: I thought about it. I really did think about it. But the point is, that would require a lot of travel. That was over 10-15 years ago. I’m married now. I can’t just hop on a flight to Pakistan and be gone for two weeks. Do you know what I mean? Like, my lifestyle is different.

Laura Zander:
So it’s worth it. It’s worth it to make less so that you have a more flexible lifestyle.

Jay Goltz:
No, no, no! She’s not necessarily saying she’s gonna make less. It took me back a little bit, Laura, when you just asked that, because I just never think that way. Like, I’m an entrepreneur. This is what I do. In her case, she thinks she’s gonna make more money long-term, and I think she can. So this isn’t a matter of throwing in the towel. In five years, or three years, she could be making more than 150 grand, and pull it off.

Laura Zander:
Yeah, but she could also not. I mean, I think—

Jay Goltz:
Yes, well for you, that’s an option. For me that just never has been, in my head, at least.

Dana White:
Yeah, I would have let the military location go, too, if I didn’t think there was any viable way of doing it.

Laura Zander:
I think it’s interesting. You know, we think about it all the time. We’re like, “How much easier would life have been if we had just stayed as software engineers, and maybe good money?”

Dana White:
But there’s a reason why we left, and I went through my old journals, and I know why I left.

Laura Zander:
Well, there you go. Love that.

Loren Feldman:
That’s why it was a good question.

Laura Zander:
Exactly, Jay!

Jay Goltz:
I didn’t say it wasn’t a good question. I’m just suggesting we have three very different perspectives. Like, this has never crossed my mind in 45 years.

Laura Zander:
Well, you probably also never thought about just marrying somebody rich so that you don’t have to deal with it as well. I mean, or have you?

Jay Goltz:
No, but I’m thinking about it now that you put it in my head. Yeah, that would have been easier.

Laura Zander:
I’m telling you, once a week, at least, I’m like, “Shit, I should have married better.”

Loren Feldman:
Dana, I want to ask you about your original business model and what’s different about the new one that you’re going to use at the military base. Going back to the original business model, as I understood it—when we first started doing this podcast before the pandemic, when you had two locations in Detroit—you had a model that was based on the concept of moving your customers in and out as quickly as possible. And you won a lot of money at a business plan competition because of that model.

At the time, did you think you were trying to revolutionize this market and convince people to do something they hadn’t been doing? Or did you think you were responding to a need in the market that was established and that people were ready for?

Dana White:
Both. I was going after a need in the market. The tail end of that, that I didn’t realize, is that people weren’t ready for it. I thought I’d get them ready. And so I knew I was revolutionizing a market, because I knew there wasn’t hair freedom. I knew that when Black women go on vacation, they get—

Loren Feldman:
What do you mean—what’s hair freedom?

Dana White:
Black women go through things with regards to their hair, as far as prep, getting it ready. So when they go on vacation, a lot of them—especially if they’re going to a hot destination—they’ve got to go get it braided. Anything not to touch their hair, in case it gets wet, in case it gets sand in it. Whereas some of us don’t go through that. Because we just go. We don’t think about that.

I’ve never had a weave. I’ve never worn a wig. And so my girlfriend who does all the time, she said, “You have a hair freedom that I don’t. You touch your hair. I don’t. I don’t want to be bothered with it every day. I’ll go get a weave. I’ll wrap it at night and be done with it. It’s just different for me.” I don’t wrap my hair at night.

Jay Goltz:
So Dana, here’s what I want to know: Looking back, whatever, three years ago, do you think you were delusional?

Dana White:
I think I was hopeful.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, I was gonna say, it’s a thin line between optimistic and delusional. And I’m here to tell you, since I was talking to you a lot about it, I don’t think you were delusional. What you said made sense. Who knew? I’ve done stuff like that. I’ve done stuff that I’ve lost tons of money on that made perfect sense that it took me a long time to figure it out wasn’t going to work.

And in my case, I read a book about it. I’m hypomanic. I got into it, and I thought I was going to pull it off, and I let it go for way too long and lost lots of money that I didn’t need to lose, which is why I cringe when I hear people say, “Never, never, never quit.” They leave out the second half, which is, “unless in good judgment.” I should have thrown in the towel and moved on. I’m happy and proud of the fact you’re throwing in the towel on that. But you’ve got another plan that makes sense again, and I’m here to tell you: Welcome to entrepreneurship.

Dana White:
I’ve been long in the tooth about this, just thinking about you know, “Dana, what were you thinking? Were you delusional?” And I would have been delusional if I had kept putting money into a business that just two people a day… There was a boom. There was a time when there was good revenue. It’s just the market needed to get ready, and my girlfriends have told me the market is not going to be ready until Black women en masse just feel differently about their hair.

And so, the new business—the one on the military bases—is basically: Give the people what they want. And the good thing about me is, I know exactly what they want. I just wanted them to feel about themselves the way that I feel about them and the way I feel about myself. And that’s not always the case. Give the people what they want. So this salon is full-service. I mean we’re not doing nails or lashes, but we are cutting, coloring, sew-in, take out weave. And my stylists are independent contractors. The split is 70/30: 30 to them, 70 to the house. Why? Because I’m paying for marketing.

Jay Goltz:
Is that competitive? Is that what’s out there? Because that doesn’t sound too competitive.

Dana White:
It is. So, most salons that are doing well are 70/30. The ones that are struggling are 60/40.

Loren Feldman:
What were you in Dallas and Detroit?

Dana White:
I was hourly.

Loren Feldman:
So people got paid just for being there?

Dana White:
Just for being there.

Jay Goltz:
I just want to see how far you’re stretching this. Can Loren and I go get our hair cut at this place?

Dana White:
Probably not. It’s going to be women on a military base. We won’t be doing barbering, but we’ll still have the base Paralee Boyd services. But I’m hiring stylists who know how to cut hair, who are coming with a bulk of work, who will be able service the clients that I’m going to be marketing, who can do twist-outs, who can do certain braiding styles, who can do sew-ins.

And then let the decision stand. If people want to come multicultural, that would be great. But I can’t fight that hair is segregated. I can’t fight that when white women see three Black women doing hair, they say, “Oh, that salon’s not for me.” That’s them, I can’t fight that. All I can do is say yes. And then the few who do trust us to do it—which I don’t know why they wouldn’t—they just come.

And we’re projected to do very well. And that’s just on the numbers of just the inquiries alone, the people who are waiting for me to open. We’re projected to do very well. But guess what? Even if we don’t, 70 percent of the revenue comes to me. And I’m not paying triple net—rent is based on a percentage of my revenue. That’s it, 8 percent of my revenue, and that includes water, electricity, all that stuff. So that 70 percent is going to go to marketing, and my subscription services, and putting money back into the business. And then I’ll talk to Jay and say, “Jay, this is what I’m working with. How much of this should I pay myself?” That’s it. It’s a different business model.

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