New Haircut

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are trying to solve the purchasing problem between restaurant owners and distributors, which is completely offline right now and done in the same way it was 50 years ago. This is dealing with 15 or 20 distributors and sales reps and chasing them down just to place an order.

We’re trying to bring that all online in one place with your choice of distributors and products so users can submit all orders in one place, keep track of orders, have access to product information like pictures, ingredients, and allergens, and recommended preparation methods. Our service will allow users to source new products whether they’re carried by certain distributors or not. We are based in New York City and the company was incorporated in November 2012.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the co-founder along with one other person. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with New Haircut?

The first half of 2013 was spent on technical and market research as well as working with consultants and speaking to people in our network including potential users, distributors, operators, and manufacturers, as well as working with New Haircut.

We met early on and spent the first six months of our relationship doing non-billable work with them understanding the industry and trying get past the learning curve. Ultimately when we did our first round of billable work in June of 2013, the plan was to work with Jay [Melone, CEO and c-founder of New Haircut] and his team to do the development and the relationship has been excellent ever since.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

When I first found them, I just wanted to chat on the phone about big ideas. We knew what we didn’t know about digital marketing so we went to New Haircut for help. We explored working with really high-end branding companies and we got responses from a lot of different firms.

We worked with some of them on limited engagement projects, a brochure here and there, but New Haircut and Jay have done multiple brochures for us. They’ve done email campaigns for us.

They’ve done the logos, the designs, and the brand identity guidelines. They’ve done a lot of strategy recommendation and advice based on the companies they’ve worked for before and what they know about the space. Their focus was definitely technical, but they’ve been heavily involved in the branding and design of the platform. They do the technical part and all our design work. The only thing we worked with someone else on was the actual name.

What was your process for selecting New Haircut with which to work?

We did a lot of research and I kept reading books and articles that spoke to me. Time and again, the author of these books and articles turned up the same person, Jay at New Haircut. I knew that we had to reach out to them.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Some months their bill is $10,000, and other months it is $35,000. Right now, it’s in the higher cost range.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

We were happy with their work. It was successful.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

Our proof of concept has been accepted and attracted investors. That is the main mark of success here because we are still a brand new startup.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

The one thing I liked initially was having a point of contact here despite having people overseas doing some of the work. That was one thing that made me feel really comfortable. They also had the ability to provide better prices by having someone work overseas. The other thing is they basically adjusted their company to work around the U.S. workday. They’re overseas, but they’re working on New York time. 

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Nothing really. I don’t have any complaints with them.