Drybar Founder tells struggling entrepreneurs to ‘dig deep and get creative’ amid COVID

Drybar Founder Alli Webb joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down how business owners are grappling with unexpected pandemic challenges and discuss the future of hair salons post-pandemic.

Video Transcript

- Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. If you know anything about hair, you probably know what a blowout is. And if you know what a blowout is, you probably know the founder of our next company here. Alli Webb is the founder of Drybar. She's joining us now to discuss, you know, the impacts of the pandemic here, as well as how entrepreneurs are going to have to shift around with all the changing things here in 2020.

I want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Melody Hahm here, as well, to discuss all of this with us. And Alli, appreciate you coming on here. I know you're very busy now hosting a new podcast here in Raising the Bar with Alli and Adrian. We'll get to that in a second, but first just want to talk about kind of all the changes that businesses like yours are going through here.

Obviously, it's a bit of a strange time. You talk to a lot of entrepreneurs about grappling with things. Not sure if everyone's always prepared, necessarily, for a pandemic, but you have to be prepared for everything. So talk to me about what you've heard in terms of not only just how your business is impacted by all this, but also what you're hearing from entrepreneurs grappling with unexpected changes.

ALLI WEBB: Yeah, I mean, it's just such an unprecedented time, and you know, most of my friends are founders of businesses, and we are all kind of in the same boat of trying to-- I mean, I hate to use the word pivot because I know it's so overused this year, but really like pivot and figure out more creative ways to keep things going, keep the lights on in their business. It really is causing us all to have to dig deep and get more creative and, you know, pull on levers of things that we hadn't been thinking about before.

And yeah, I mean, there's just this like, I feel like, the sense in the founder community is like just hang on, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel with all the vaccinations coming now. And you know, I think if we can all just kind of, you know, hunker down, and there's so many adjustments that you can make as a business owner, you know, to do your best and hope you can kind of weather the storm, if you will. And I think that's kind of the mentality of everybody, that this is going to pass and we will get back eventually.

And the silver lining and the good news for me, I think for my businesses and my friends' businesses, is that everyone's going to come out, you know, very excited to get back, you know, getting their hair blown out again, getting massages again. All of the things that we miss so much will be-- you know, people will be coming out in droves, I believe, after this. So fingers crossed.

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, Alli, I mean, you're so uniquely positioned, in many ways, because you did co-found Drybar, and then you're sort of alluding to Squeeze, your massage chain startup that you launched last year here in LA. How has it been for you? You know, you're not in an executive role in either of these companies anymore, but you are kind of close to the ground. You're an advisor for both of those companies. What would be one kind of really practical piece of advice that you've imparted with the team? That I'm sure morale has been really tough during this time.

ALLI WEBB: I really think that if businesses can hold on and get creative in working on things that can be gearing them up to come back, I think that the silver lining in all of this is that women-- well, women and people, you know, I think about women because I think about hair, are going to be coming out in droves once we are able to go out again. I mean, when we reopened Drybar, women definitely started coming in again. They've been dying to get back into Drybar, to get their hair blown out again.

So I think, you know, like many other businesses out there, once we have the green light to open up in full capacity again, you know, there is going to be a huge kind of rush. So I think business will return, and now the name of the game is holding on and getting creative in your business, working on things in the back end that you may not have always had the time to because you were in the throes of running your business on the day-to-day.

So I think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel which we're all starting to see now. And if we can just kind of hunker down for the next few months and come back, I mean, I know, I really strongly believe in, you know, Drybar, women are just waiting and excited for it to come back. And you know, it's just-- it's in our sights now.

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, and Alli, in many ways you were well-positioned to weather this storm, right, because you had launched that DTC brand with a lot of those Drybar products that was available in Sephora, Ulta. So you were able to diversify sort of your revenue mix perhaps way prior to the pandemic, right? Kind of pivoting to talk about podcasting, I know that's been a passion project of yours.

You have a new season of Raising the Bar, the podcast with your boyfriend, your leadership coach, Adrian Koehler. Tell me about the strategy here. I know you've been enjoying it. You've interviewed folks like Mark Cuban. How big do you think that you want to make this endeavor? Do you imagine other sorts of media kind of branded under your name? Would love to get a kind of pulse check of how you're thinking about that strategy.

ALLI WEBB: Yeah, well, you know, in you know, running Drybar for the last 10 years, and being someone who didn't go to college, I definitely feel like I've got an MBA in business, and you know, I've learned so much along the way. And that's really been the impetus for the podcast, is like giving back and talking to other entrepreneurs and founders and talking about their experiences. And now, with Adrian, who, yes, coaches founders and executives for a living, we kind of dig deeper and we kind of ask more personal questions about kind of the building of-- the inner building, the inner working, if you will, of people who are building a business.

So you know, the stuff that people aren't really talking about has been really fun. And I really enjoyed being on the other side of it. And it's really just about getting into these conversations and, you know, being a place where people can go to learn about, you know, business about how it feels to run a business, and you know, the ups and downs and all the things that come with being a founder, especially in a time of a pandemic, which none of us really have any experience with. But I think talking about those things has been really great on Raising the Bar, and I do really enjoy that role, and it'll be interesting to see what comes from it for sure.

MELODY HAHM: And Alli, just a quick follow on that, today, of course, we hear Prince Harry and Meghan Markle striking a deal with Spotify. There's a lot of money to be made, right, in the podcasting world. And to our broader discussion, it's been an easy pivot for people to record in the confines of their home to be able to have a quick interview seamlessly. You would never know that production quality was off. How much do you anticipate in the future, as you seem to be enjoying this opportunity, for you to really monetize this and make this sort of a full-time career for you?

ALLI WEBB: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, it's on par with a lot of the other things that I'm working on right now, which, like, you know, it's not happened yet, but I'm working on my second book, which is more of a memoir of my life and my story and all of that stuff. And you know, I think the podcast space is really big, especially right now, because you know, we are walking a lot, and we want kind of to be inspired.

And you know, the relatability to, you know, people like me and now Meghan Markle-- not that I'm comparing myself to her, but just to have that like real authenticity that you get through a podcast, where it's like it feels like someone's talking to you in their living room, you know, is such a great opportunity, and it's such a way to connect with people, which I think is really what it's all about, and why-- I think why podcasts are so big and will continue to grow, just information about the things you love. And yeah, so it's been a really fun endeavor for me, and I hope to keep it going and get more and more interesting guests on it, and get into the conversations that folks really want to hear, the good stuff.

- Certainly some exciting endeavors lined up there. The founder of Drybar, Alli Webb, it's good to talk to you. And our thanks to Melody Hahm, as well, for joining in on the conversation.