20+ years ago I was driving between salons with a boot full of Bed Head, learning how the industry really works.
I started out on the road for TIGI Haircare during the brand’s heyday, selling Bed Head and Catwalk into salons across the UK. It wasn’t a desk job. It was thousands of conversations with salon owners, stylists, and managers about how they actually ran their businesses. What worked. What didn’t. What frustrated them. What they wished someone would build for them.
That grounding shaped everything that came after. I went on to work for Dior and Revlon Professional before moving into the tech world. First at a small web design company, and then founding my own agency, Air 66, which is still running today. Air 66 works with businesses across multiple industries, including e-commerce distributors and brands in the hair industry, which means I get to see what’s working elsewhere and bring the best of it back to the trade I started in. Even after stepping out of frontline sales, I’ve stayed close to the salon world. The shift toward rent-a-chair, mobile stylists, and home studios isn’t something I’ve read about. It’s something I’ve watched happen, salon by salon, year by year.
Alongside Air 66, I co-founded Yellow Days, a children’s activity marketplace, where I served as CTO and headed up the tech team, leading the build of a multi-sided platform end-to-end. Salon Whisper is the natural next step. In an industry I love.
The salon industry has changed enormously. Stylists are increasingly independent, renting chairs, going mobile, working from home. But the booking and CRM tools the industry has inherited were designed for 20-chair salons with a receptionist on the front desk. They don’t fit how most stylists actually work today. Meanwhile, clients are messaging across four or five apps. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS. Every missed message is a lost booking. That’s real money walking out the door, every week.
Salon Whisper is the answer to that. One inbox for every channel. Booking in from the conversation. Built around how solo stylists, mobile colourists, and home studios actually work, not how a generic CRM thinks they should.
It’s a product the industry has been waiting for. We’re shaping every feature with real UK stylists. No focus groups, no consultants. The people who join the waitlist now aren’t just signing up for a product launch. They’re shaping what Salon Whisper becomes.
I’d love to have you on board for what comes next.
David
Founder, Salon Whisper