INTERVIEW: Jason Perri, Co-Founder And Chairman Of Glamsquad, On Why In-Home Beauty Services Are The Future

If you’re feeling like you’re four months overdue for a haircut, your brows are starting to look like one, and you can’t bare the sight of your nails, then we’re here to remind you that you are not alone. There’s no doubt that beauty and self-care has taken a back seat during the past few months and rightfully so. Storefronts and salons are starting to reopen but you may not feel ready to jump back in to your normal routine and that’s okay! Glamsquad has resumed their at-home treatments with beauty professionals, so you don’t have to leave the comfort and safety of your home!

Glamsquad beauty professionals are required to follow a strict safety protocol, which includes proper PPE (masks and gloves), sanitation procedures, and additional certification (Barbicide certification and Barbicide COVID-19 protocols). The rules are plain and simple: if you don’t have a mask, you must cancel your appointment. The goal is to have you looking and feeling your best, but Glamsquad will not compromise the health and safety of either parties.

Before your appointment begins, the beauty professional will wash their hands and sanitize products before setting up. During the appointment, clients will be in a designated area of their home and should provide a towel laid out for the beauty professionals’ kits. All trash produced during the appointment will be disposed of by them. Masks will not come off for either individual throughout the entire appointment.

I spoke to Co-Founder and Chairman of Glamsquad, Jason Perri, to learn more about the history of the business and how it’s evolving during these times.

What is your background? What motivated you to start such a unique in-home beauty services business?


JP: I am an investor by professional background. Through my investing activities, I have built and rebuilt many companies over the course of my career and have advised and personally invested in many early-stage entrepreneurs. At a certain point, I wanted to incubate and build something myself from scratch. My co-founders and I have always been drawn to the beauty space for its artistry, size, and growth potential, and we were lucky to have some great friends in the industry and supportive backers who shared our vision. We saw a market opportunity at the nexus of the on-demand, affordable luxury and single-service salon trends. We recognized that time-starved women would appreciate the opportunity to have high-quality services and products delivered directly to their front doors in a safe, consistent, and luxurious way! We also recognized that beauty professionals are artists and entrepreneurs at the same time, and would appreciate the opportunity to grow their businesses and practice their crafts in an empowered, flexible, and supportive way. Glamsquad has been able to curate and build a wonderful and growing community of both clients and professionals under the umbrella of a brand and community that they are all proud of.

The last few months have been one for the books and everyone seems to be racing to get their beauty regime back on track. Can you speak to the early stages of Glamsquad? Where did the concept come from and what are the core principles the business was founded on?
 
JP: From day one, we set out to build a powerful brand as opposed to just a service offering. Other companies created solutions to match customers and service providers, but we were intent on creating a brand that stood for luxury, self-confidence, quality, and consistency. We spent time building a community and highly curated experience. We carefully vetted and partnered with a select corps of beauty professionals, created specific looks, and delivered a consistent and personalized experience whenever and wherever our clients wanted it. We believed that being welcomed and trusted in our clients’ most personal spaces: their homes, their offices, their life events — would lead to the opportunity to expand our service offerings, create products they could use daily based on their specific beauty needs, and curate other partnerships and experiences that would strengthen our relationship with them over time. Empowering and creating economic and artistic opportunities for a talented group of beauty professionals has been a core part of the mission from the beginning as well. We call our community the Glamfam and are proud to have over two thousand professionals on the platform, practicing their craft and, in many cases earning more than they ever have with flexibility and support that they can’t find in the salon.

The global pandemic is on everyone’s mind and Glamsquad’s in-home services could be the saving grace as some people are not ready to go back to regular salons. Will Glamsquad be structured any differently as you cope with the pandemic and surge of in-home requests?


JP: In many ways, Glamsquad was very well-prepared for this moment. We believe that a highly personalized, private service in the home with strict safety protocols is far safer than the uncertainty of having beauty treatments performed in a public space. We have seven years of expertise in delivering safe, secure experiences in our clients’ personal spaces. We have used that experience to create a set of COVID protocols that will ensure the complete safety of both our clients and our beauty professionals. As we prepared to reopen, our team designed, iterated, and perfected a service protocol that will get our clients looking great and more importantly, keep them safe! 

Can you speak to some of the safety precautions the Glamsquad team is taking to keep both the beauty professionals and customers safe?


JP: Going into a clients home in a safe and secure way has been Glamsquad’s core business from day one, so we feel particularly well suited to re-enter the home, now with new heightened safety protocols including required PPE, new beauty pro certification and enhanced sanitation procedures. This protocol is outlined on our website.
 
Glamsquad is expanding rapidly and you’re now several main cities across the United States. In lieu of recent circumstances, is there a potential for Glamsquad to continue growing to new locations in order to accommodate customers who desire more in-home services?


JP: Absolutely. First and foremost, we have massively ramped up our operations in the Hamptons. We have been out here in the summer for years, but with so many of our clients relocating out east for the summer and potentially the foreseeable future, we wanted to make sure we could serve the Hamptons with a full schedule the whole week. I live in Sag Harbor and everyone I speak to out here has been dying to have a safe, hygienic, and trusted alternative to restore their weekly hair and nails routines. To that end, we have made the Hamptons a priority this summer!


More generally, we are now operating in six major markets (New York/Hamptons, LA, Miami, Washington DC, Boston and San Francisco), and their outlying neighborhoods. We have plans to expand over time to more large cities. Beauty is universal. We believe the demand to look and feel great exists everywhere in the country, but we wanted to focus our energy and resources in getting it right in the places that our clients most frequently visit and travel between. But we certainly will continue to grow in the South, the Midwest, and other major cities over time! Through our partnership with CVS, our exclusive GSQ by Glamsquad line is available in over 2,500 CVS locations nationwide! 

Is there anything exciting coming from Glamsquad this year?


JP: Always! As a response to the number one requested service coming out of quarantine, we also debuted haircuts this summer. Everyone got a little shaggy staying home, so we are offering cuts and blowouts in various packages, including sessions for the entire family, in the Hamptons, and everywhere! We also debuted our Glamsquad Collection of premium products on QVC in May and will be appearing in a series of one-hour specials and on QVC.com throughout the summer.

For more information on Glamsquad or to book an appointment, visit www.glamsquad.com.