A Business Model to Dye For

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Walk into the eSalon warehouse in Marina del Rey and you’ll find computer engineers working alongside hair colorists. Strange combination? Not for eSalon co-founders Tamim Mourad and Francisco Gimenez.

ESalon customers fill out an online hair survey and the company mails them customized hair color crafted by professional colorists with the help of a computer algorithm.

Mourad and Gimenez co-founded eSalon in 2008 and began selling the customized hair color in September last year. They recently reached more than 10,000 orders. The pair didn’t have any coloring experience before forming the startup.

They last worked for L.A. comparison shopping website PriceGrabber. Mourad co-founded PriceGrabber in 1999 and was the company’s first chief executive. Gimenez joined PriceGrabber after its first year and became vice president.

When PriceGrabber was purchased by Experian for $485 million in 2005, the two left the company. After some time off, they went looking for a new project.

“We decided online custom hair color could be a mass-market business,” said Gimenez, eSalon’s chief executive. “We spent time putting together a team of people who had the expertise and hair color knowledge. We learned about it from that process.”

They now have a small staff that mixes, tests and bottles all the hair color.

A bottle costs less than $25. If a customer’s order requires two different color formulas the second bottle comes at a reduced price. That’s more expensive than boxed color from the store, but less expensive than having hair professionally colored at a salon.

ESalon might not come with the colorist to dye your hair for you, but Gimenez said the company’s product is more personalized than store-bought kits.

“People who’ve been picking something off the shelf, the experience isn’t the best,” he said. “We’re trying to replicate what’s happening at the salon for people who want to save money.”