This story is part of CNBC Make It's The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.
Alli Webb's hairstyling empire got its start in 2009 because she needed a side hustle that would allow her to use her skills on her own schedule.
Webb lived in Santa Monica, California, with her then-husband, Cameron, a full-time creative director for a marketing firm, and their children. "The mobile blowout business, Straight At Home, was really a means to get me out of the house," Webb, now 48, tells CNBC Make It. "My kids, at the time, were [about] 2 and 4 …. And I was just looking for something for myself."
She started traveling to clients' homes and charging only $40 to wash, dry, and style their hair. Since that service cost more than $80 at many hair salons around Los Angeles, Webb was able to build a large and loyal following of customers in wealthy local enclaves like Brentwood and Pacific Palisades.
"I realized: 'Maybe I should turn this into a brick-and-mortar [shop]. Instead of going to them, they come to me,'" she says.
Webb enlisted her brother, Michael Landau, a former marketing director at Yahoo. Though Landau wasn't sold on the idea at first, he was won over once he realized how many of his sister's clients were working women with disposable income and limited time, who scheduled regular styling appointments.
Landau put up $250,000. Webb and her husband chipped in their life savings at the time, around $50,000. In 2010, Webb co-founded Drybar.
The concept of a salon chain that does washing, blow outs, and styling, but not cuts, caught on. Today, Drybar has more than 160 locations across the U.S., and more than a few copycats. Landau serves as executive chairman. The company does not disclose its revenue.
In 2019, Webb sold the commercial rights to Drybar's products business, which includes branded styling tools and shampoos, for $255 million to Helen of Troy. Two years later, she sold the business's franchising rights to WellBiz Brands for an undisclosed sum.
Here, Webb discusses how she felt so confident launching Drybar, why entrepreneurs have to be willing to take risks, and why sometimes you have to think small before you can dream big.
When the first Drybar location opened in 2010, you had never run your own shop. How confident were you that you could pull it off?
I didn't really have a ton of fear doing one shop. I was not thinking big, at all, at that time. I had been doing hair forever — since I was in my early 20s — and we thought this would work on a really small scale, opening one shop. Obviously, we didn't have any idea what was about to happen.
Ignorance, in this case, was very much bliss.
I went to my brother … and he was slightly skeptical at first [but soon came around]. My husband at the time, he's also an advertising guy who, kind of, thinks everything is a bad idea. But, he would say, "You get your nails done every week, and I've really never noticed. But when you get your hair blown out, it's the first thing I notice. I think this is like the new nail salon. I love it."
They were really positive about it and that gave me a lot of confidence, in and of itself. Because we all have those people in our lives that we trust implicitly. And when those people think something you think is a good idea is a good idea, it gives you a lot of confidence.
You and your then-husband put in your life-savings at that point, around $50,000. He had a steady advertising job, but you had two small kids at home. Did that feel like a big risk?
I think the biggest fear was, "If this thing doesn't work, my brother is really gonna lose a lot of money." He put in the lion's share of the money. Cam and I put in our life savings, which wasn't very much.
I always felt if we were going to lose that amount, it would have been painful. But, we were all pretty smart and capable people. We'd come back and find something else. I think, if you're an entrepreneur, you can live with that.
There's the old cliche: No risk, no reward. It's true. And I've always been, kind of, a put-it-all-on-the-line type of gal, anyway.
I just felt like this was going to work. I wasn't thinking that big then, and I felt so strongly it was going to work for one shop. So, I didn't feel a lot of fear. I just didn't.
At what point was it clear that this idea was bigger than just one store?
I'm not kidding when I say we knew on the first day.
[DailyCandy] had run a very pithy article about us — you know, "Hot air blowing into L.A." — and they gave the website. My brother and I, I'll never forget, we were sitting at Coral Tree Cafe in Brentwood, which was a couple feet away from where the first store was going to open, and all of a sudden we both started getting all these appointment notifications on our Blackberries. We were like, "There must be a glitch. What's happening?"
We opened up to a fully booked shop. If you know the hair industry, that doesn't happen. So that was already a crazy indicator, like, 'Holy s---, we're onto something. We haven't even opened the doors yet.'
It all happened so fast. I think we had maybe, gosh, between 10 and 15 stores in the first two-ish years. We were just opening up so fast, because people wanted them everywhere. It was so crazy and intoxicating and amazing. I knew my life was going to change forever.
Did the rapid pace of expansion ever feel overwhelming, considering it was so much bigger than what you'd initially envisioned?
We obviously learned so much along the way. At the time, my brother was CEO. And I was like, 'Wow, my brother is doing such a good job!' But even he said: 'This is gonna get too big for me, we need somebody who has some real experience.'
When John Heffner [joined as CEO in 2013], he was the one who really had to put on the brakes and say, "We can't just keep opening stores. We have to reassess and get systems in place. The wheels are certainly going to come off if we keep going at this pace with no real guidance."
At that point, we were all just so excited and giddy about everything that was happening. I mean, we were opening stores like crazy and, although I think we made a lot of great decisions at that time, what was lacking was the operational stuff that we needed, like training manuals and the day-to-day things that people need to be successful. We didn't even know we needed that stuff.
What's your advice for entrepreneurs on how to spot an opportunity and turn it into something successful?
This was never meant to be as big as it got to be, at least not from the jump. And I think that that's an important distinction.
I mentor a lot of entrepreneurs and they have this vision of, like, they want to have 20 stores or 100 stores! They're thinking big, which of course, is great. But I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa — first, make sure it all works. Prove the concept."
For me, it was so much about doing something that I really loved and I was really good at, and I really knew. That is hard, not impossible.
I can only really speak from my experience, but if you're doing it for the right reasons, and there's a real need for what you're doing, and a real love for it, I think it has a much better chance of making it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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