Hey everyone, today I share the mic with Melody McCloskey, CEO of StyleSeat, the largest marketplace for beauty services.
Tune it to hear Melody share how she encountered a problem in the marketplace and then set out to solve it, how someone with no background in tech built a booking company for stylists that did $1.6 billion in transactions last year, how StyleSeat acquired 10K clients with essentially no marketing, and why she chose an equity-based model for her employees.
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How First-Time Founder Melody McCloskey Built a $1.6B:Year Salon-Booking Empire TRANSCRIPT
Time-Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:48 – Leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast
- 01:07 – Eric welcomes Melody McCloskey
- 01:17 – Melody’s company, StyleSeat, made $1.7 billion in bookings last year
- 01:40 – StyleSeat is Melody’s first company
- 01:50 – She is the daughter of a police officer
- 02:02 – She is a French major and International Relations major
- 02:12 – She planned on going back to France after college but realized she wanted to work on her own business while in San Francisco
- 02:53 – Melody just recently moved to San Francisco and wanted to get her hair done but she had a hard time booking an appointment
- 03:12 – She found out that the tools that were available were poor and awful
- 03:32 – When she did her research, she found that part of the problem was that professionals in the industry did not have a good way to market themselves
- 04:11 – Melody thought she could bring value to the business owners by helping them with their web presence, customer acquisition, and CRM
- 04:26 – Last year, they made $1.6 billion in bookings, powered about $3.5 billion since the launch, and 70 million appointments across the platform
- 05:04 – In the beginning, Melody was overwhelmed by the idea of starting a company as she did not have a background in tech
- 05:12 – Melody mapped out all the things she needed to and then placed it into phases
- 05:26 – Every day, Melody would attack one or two things from the phase she was in
- 05:50 – Breaking it into small projects made the goal doable for Melody
- 06:28 – Melody did not know a lot of stylists so she asked her friends to send her the emails of their hair stylists
- 06:45 – Melody got 30 names and sent an email saying she wanted to change the beauty industry and that she wanted to meet them
- 07:02 – Melody met the 30 at her friend’s salon and gave a presentation
- 07:27 – The beauty professionals were excited about the mission and were willing to help Melody
- 07:40 – When the first version was launched, the beauty professionals gave Melody feedback every single day
- 08:10 – A year and a half later, they had about 10,000 businesses using them on a regular basis
- 08:17 – It’s 100% organic and until now, they have done essentially no marketing and have grown through word of mouth
- 08:58 – Melody loves that she is working on a combination of awesome software, product development and building a community
- 09:41 – It was hard for Melody to be social but she got over it and loved hearing the feedback of people
- 10:32 – In the early stages, it was about how good you can pitch your company, your vision, and being able to constantly sell
- 10:46 – When people are buying, you now have to build your team
- 11:06 – Melody had to be good at identifying talent and supporting them to do what they needed to succeed
- 11:50 – The unifying theme for Melody is having a curious mind and eagerness to learn, change, and evolve
- 12:07 – Melody assumes she knows nothing every single day
- 12:21 – All she does at meetings now is ask questions and then makes decisions
- 12:45 – Eric recommends the audiobook Multipliers – the premise is to ask questions, not give directives
- 13:07 – Melody says it is about teaching people how to think
- 13:52 – It is teaching your team to have ownership and accountability and to drive the solutions themselves
- 14:47 – Melody says the market has been a little bit crazy
- 14:57 – Melody was hiring a candidate and the candidate wanted a guarantee that she would earn $40 million in the next two years
- 16:06 – Melody has been good at setting expectations
- 16:30 – Melody believes in an equity motivated business rather than a high salary motivated business
- 17:15 – Customer acquisition is done organically
- 17:46 – From being free, they shifted to a paid product
- 18:11 – Customers either left or those who paid had higher expectations
- 18:52 – They dramatically improved the product
- 19:07 – The experience galvanized the team and motivated them to fix the problem
- 19:35 – The challenge of being a free product is that you get a ton of customers
- 19:56 – When they were free, it was less clear who the real valuable customers were
- 20:37 – Melody says advisers are everything
- 20:42 – Find an amazing adviser who has done it before and can give you their time
- 21:13 – Melody’s advisers change over time depending on the need
- 22:32 – Melody found her first developer on Craigslist and she gave him equity from the beginning
- 23:15 – The equity is diluted down as the company grows
- 24:23 – Melody says the hardest part is the ups and downs
- 24:56 – You have to be really good at all the things that are thrown at you daily
- 25:20 – You have to lean into the pain and chaos and get good at solving problems
- 25:55 – What’s one big change you’ve made in the last year that has either impacted you or your business? – Melody brought on a new executive team
- 26:26 – Melody is also more into fitness
- 27:11 – What’s one tool you’ve added in the last year, like Evernote? – Evernote and Sworkit
- 28:28 – What’s one must read book you’d recommend to everyone? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- 28:52 – Tenacity and resiliency are the two most important traits needed as a founder
- 29:10 – Follow Melody on Instagram and Twitter
- 29:47 – End of today’s episode
3 Key Points:
- Teach people how to think by asking questions and letting them come up with their own answers—this will empower them to find solutions themselves.
- Find yourself an adviser who has walked this road before you and learn from them.
- Tenacity and resiliency are the two most important factors to becoming a successful founder.
Resources From This Interview:
- StyleSeat
- Multipliers
- Evernote
- Sworkit
- Must-read book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- Melody on Instagram
- Melody on Twitter
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