Barbers and stylists connect with us as humans, value our community, and make us feel healthy, says ClipDart founder Kyle Parker ’18.
The following interview has been edited and condensed and will be published in the Summer 2024 issue of the Rochester Review, the University of Rochester’s magazine.
Kyle Parker ’18
Home: Chicago
Founder of ClipDart, Inc. We provide free on-site hair care to people with limited access to hair care, severe economic hardship, or discrimination.
On gaining confidence at Rochester: “I didn’t know anything about the hair industry or business, but I was so passionate about my idea that I took a business class on entrepreneurship. I applied to the student incubator at the Ain Center through NextCorps and got accepted, having worked at Apple and Google. I had access to everyone in the house and I just went to them and they answered my questions.”
He spent three years at Grinnell College in Iowa before transferring to Rochester. I then spent two years at the University of Rochester, where I majored in Biology (while completing my MD/PhD program) and played on the basketball team.
I’m from the South Side of Chicago, and whenever I needed a haircut, I had a lot of options. I’ve been going to predominantly black barbershops since I was a kid, but if that’s not available, you can go to the Puerto Rican or Korean neighborhoods and there’s always someone skilled at cutting coarse hair. Coming from a diverse city, I’ve never had trouble finding a barber.
When I went to Grinnell, I couldn’t find anyone to cut my hair. The closest city was about 2 hours away and I didn’t have a car. College really felt like the perfect time, but not being able to give my best to special people, social events, and internship interviews started to hurt.
I also forgot about the barber shop. In many cities, barbershops and salons are cultural institutions. People, like me, have great relationships with their barbers. They are places that employ people who are homeless and food insecure. In most large cities and Rochester, these locations are considered safe havens. And we end up making these places not only look better, but feel even better than they look.
I was still in college when I came up with something like ClipDart. At first, I was thinking of creating an on-demand barber shop app. It’s similar to Uber or DoorDash, but instead of delivering food or driving you from house to house, it delivers your barbershop whenever and wherever you want. After nearly five years of development, the release date was supposed to be March 15, 2020.
We were ready to launch, but the arrival of the pandemic came as a shock. But it also gave me time to think and reevaluate my mission, so it was a real blessing. What if you don’t have a phone or internet at home? So instead of using the app to go to a single consumer, I switched to a model where I found organizations with large numbers of people in need, such as universities, hospitals, and nursing homes.
Campus Haircuts: ClipDart, an alumni-owned business founded by Kyle Parker, provided haircuts to graduating seniors at Wilson Commons. (University of Rochester photo/J. Adam Fenster)
ClipDart currently consists of two organizations: ClipDart, Inc., a for-profit corporation, and ClipDart Giveback, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Both organizations provide free on-site hair care to historically marginalized and underserved communities. However, our nonprofit organization strictly serves people facing severe socioeconomic inequalities such as homelessness and food insecurity.
We started with one barber in Arizona, but he really helped me build a team across Phoenix. That’s why our headquarters are there today. And I said, “Do you know a hair professional in Chicago or New York or California that would be a good fit for this?” I wanted not only a highly skilled hair professional, but someone I could have a good conversation with. I am. And today, we work with more than 100 partners in 26 states.
Inequalities arise from a variety of sources other than race and hair type. Many low-income students can’t afford a haircut, and a haircut alone costs about $40. Access to hair care can be difficult for LGBTQIA people and people with disabilities. It’s just a matter of fairness for many people.
