Drybar's Founder Says This Helped Her Overcome the Fear of Failure
When Alli Webb started her first blow-drying shop in 2010, she never expected it to become a multi-million dollar business with nearly 90 locations in the U.S. and Canada. The Drybar founder just thought she’d turn her mobile styling business into a brick-and-mortar shop, “and that would be it.”
But a combination of business savvy, luck, and a true passion for hair took it far beyond that first salon in Brentwood, California.
“There’s always been this passion and personal obsession with hair,” Webb told Cheddar. “It took me a lot of years and a lot of other careers to figure out what I wanted to do.
To get off the ground, she convinced her husband to put all of their money into the business, and got her marketer brother to invest $250,000. “My vision for it was that if we do enough blow outs a day, and we keep the price right, and we’re really nice to people, like this business could work,” she said.
While her family was supportive and on board, she still faced a lot of doubters who thought it was crazy to start a business in the middle of a recession, with such a singular focus. But Webb was confident about her concept. “Women feel better when their hair looks better,” she says. “You just can’t deny that.”
Webb also grew up with parents who were entrepreneurs, so the idea of starting a business wasn’t scary to her. She also says that she always has the attitude that “things will work out,” which helps.
“I felt like it’ll really suck if it didn’t work, and we would all lose money, and that would be unfortunate,” she said. “But I also thought like --no one is going to die-- and we can all go out and get jobs.”
Now, question is no longer about starting the business, it’s about growing it.
Beyond hair styling service, Drybar now has product line that’s sold at Sephora, Nordstrom, Ulta, and Bloomingdales. Her business also boasts of more than 500,000 followers across social media. The hairstylist says that the key to taking the plunge is having a vision, having confidence in your idea, and just going for it.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
Summer is upon us, which means weddings, trips overseas, and trips to see Taylor Swift. Avoid a “Cruel Summer” with these budget-friendly tips and tricks.
While Nvidia's meteoric rise led it to briefly dethrone Microsoft as the world's biggest public company, there's a lot more going on in this market than A.I.
