Joanna Meiseles sat patiently in a Boston hair salon with a video camera on her lap and her 3-year-old son, Ben, by her side, waiting to record his first haircut. She was looking forward to capturing this special moment. But she noticed that none of the stylists stepped forward to help her. In fact, they did the opposite. For several minutes, “the staff lingered in the back room,” she says. “Nobody wanted to cut his hair.” A stylist finally came over and led Ben to a chair, but the haircut was all business. “There wasn’t anything to entertain him,” Joanna recalls. To keep Ben from wiggling around, the stylist gave him a perm rod to play with, leading Joanna to wish that at least a few toys or DVDs had been on hand. Though Ben ended up with a halfway decent haircut (and a passable video), his mother left with something better: the idea to open a kid-friendly salon.
In September 1995, Joanna launched her first Snip-its in Framingham, MA. The fun, color-ful shop offered kids a chance to blow bubbles and watch cartoons while stylists trimmed their hair. Almost immediately, she knew it would be a success. “There’s a real stigma with cutting kids’ hair,” she notes. “Stylists don’t like the squirming, the jumping around or the crying.”
Before long, Joanna had opened four more shops. And in 2003, speculating that other moms might enjoy running such salons, she made the business available to franchisees. Her hunch paid off: Today, she charges aspiring Snip-its owners nearly $200,000 to open new locations and oversees 60 franchise units that bring in more than $10 million per year. “Nearly every one of our franchisees is a working mom who was inspired by her own children to get into the business,” she says. Joanna is just one of the growing number of entrepreneurs who recognize the tremendous franchising potential of child-focused businesses. While they represent just 1 percent ofall franchises, these companies have experienced high rates of growth, reports FRANdata, an Arlington, VA, franchise information firm. In fact, U.S. units more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, increasing to 4,572 units from 2,227.
What accounts for such explosive growth? The economy, says Terry Hill, spokesperson for the International Franchise Association in Washington, DC.
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