becoming

Mobile barbering: 'It's like Uber, but for haircuts'

Darren grew up in Brixton, south London, where his mother worked as a cleaner and his father as a security guard; they had arrived from Ghana in the 1980s and had dreams of him becoming a banker, lawyer or accountant. University was always part of the plan for him, but when the time came, he wasn't sure which one would feel right. It was a barber shop that helped him decide.

Afro-Caribbean barber shops are well-known for offering a social, convivial atmosphere - a place to hang out with friends. "My dad used to take me to the barber's in the morning and we'd be there for hours," says Darren. "We'd watch the football, and he would usually sip a pint of Guinness, chilling with his boys."

Darren had enjoyed those times. But as he got older he became increasingly frustrated with the slow tempo of the experience. "I got sick of waiting for an hour at the barber, especially on a Friday or Saturday," he says. Or it would be your turn next in the queue, and then the barber would go to eat, or to pick up a child, he remembers.

There was a special feeling of community, but perhaps that was more necessary for the generation before his, he wondered. “The new generation, like me, just want a trim and to get on with their day," says Darren. "We live our life fast-paced."

And so the idea came to him of an app that would allow you to book an appointment at a salon for a fixed time with a specific barber. He thought this would appeal to everyone, not just those who use Afro-Caribbean barbers. Indeed, some apps were already offering a similar service.

He included within his proposal an idea that seemed to him slightly far-fetched. He would eventually like to employ barbers directly, who would drive to clients in a van: mobile barber shops on wheels.

Darren's Trim-It app won the competition, and he was named the University of Sussex's Student Entrepreneur of the Year.

The prize was £10,000. To get his company up and running, he recruited a rival from the competition, a fellow student called Nana Darko, whose confident air had impressed him. Darren promised to make Nana rich. He was similar to him, a young black man from south London with dreams of business success.

Together they pounded the streets of Brighton, signing up barbers to their new app - all barbers, not just the Afro-Caribbean ones. Through hard work they built the app to the point where it was getting 2,000 bookings a month.

But at the same time, the idea and the fledgling business were unravelling, says Darren.

There were constant problems with barbers not turning up on time at the salon. Negative customer feedback was building up. They also hadn't figured out how to make any money from the platform.

The competition money had dried up and the app seemed ready to die a natural death in the app store. “Self-doubt and a bruised ego had become something I was used to dealing with," he admits. Nana too was feeling bitterly disappointed. He had graduated with a first in engineering. But he was missing out at dozens of job interviews in the corporate world and he couldn't figure out why. Was it the way he presented himself, the way he talked, or perhaps the color of his skin?

It was at this low point that Darren and Nana decided to take a risk.

They would focus on the side of the business that had at first seemed so implausible and try the idea of mobile barber vans - only this would allow them to control the whole customer experience.

Through family and friends, they were able to raise a five-figure sum in a last-ditch attempt to jump-start the business and in February 2018 the first van was ready - a Ford transit Darren customized outside his parents' house. The back of the van was all stripped out, to turn it into a mini-barber shop, powered by an electric generator.

They recruited two full-time barbers, updated the app and waited for the bookings to come in. Very quickly those bookings arrived. In fact, by July 2018 the van was permanently fully booked.

Word spread partly due to some celebrity customers such as musicians Charlie Sloth and Sneakbo, who both have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and Twitter.

As Darren and Nana had intended, the kind of people making the bookings were mostly young, black millennials - people like Lewis, from West Norwood.

"If I was 15 or 16, then I'd go to a barbershop," says Lewis. "But I'm 23, managing properties and working part-time, so I don't have time to go to a salon and wait for my turn."

The van also turned out to be attractive to a new generation of black middle-class professionals looking for a haircut while working in trendy areas such as Old Street, Bethnal Green and Shoreditch.

In the first year, about half of the van's business came in this way, says Darren.

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