UPDATE: Great Many, the hair loss clinic launched by former Heyday chief brand officer and co-founder Michael Pollak, has secured $3.6 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round.
The round was led by consumer investment firm BrandProject, which has Iris&Romeo, Gainful, Hello, Atolla, Wonderbelly, Daily Harvest, and Freshly in its portfolio. Midnight Venture Partners and Tonic Ventures also participated as did angel investors, including Lukas Keindl, co-founder of BondVet, Elizabeth Cutler, co-founder of SoulCycle, Megan Maupin, founder of Atolla Skincare and CEO of OurX, and Andy Grover, co-founder of Tend Dental.
“Hair loss is an all-to-familiar problem that remains stigmatized for both men and women, and is critical to most people’s identity,” says Andrew Black, founder and managing partner of BrandProject, in a statement. “The multi-billion-dollar hair loss prevention market is notoriously filled with over promises and confusion, leaving consumers feeling hopeless. Great Many is here to change that with their holistic one-stop-shop solution for people to receive comprehensive, science-backed products and in-studio treatments, all supported by top medical hair experts.”
Funding will support the growth of Great Many’s brick-and-mortar location that opened in New York City in June, in-house product line and a telehealth service platform for non-local customers to consult with third-party doctors and nurses. The product line features a shampoo, conditioner, growth serum and exfoliating serum priced from $34 to $49 and formulated with Great Many’s proprietary growth factor formula, a blend of six ingredients chosen to activate hair growth, including micro algae, gotu kola and saw palmetto extracts. Branded supplements are in the works. The product line and telehealth platform are now available.
Great Many’s debut location in Manhattan’s trendy NoHo neighborhood encompasses 2,200 square feet and six treatment rooms. Customers can book hair assessments with in-house clinicians that include 30-minute consultations and scalp analyses that inform personalized treatment plans to jumpstart hair growth featuring non-invasive procedures like platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections, prescription medication, supplements and topical products.
To Pollak, who developed Great Many with Steve Klebanow, former VP of global omnichannel at Estée Lauder and part owner of barbershop Haar & Co., and splits CEO duties with him, hair loss prevention is the next big beauty service opportunity as the stigma around hair loss erodes. “This is where skincare and Botox was maybe 10 or 12 years ago on the precipice of being this thing that deserves specialization as a brand,” he says. “We’re setting out to create that modern home for hair growth that lays out all the options.”
Pollak is well aware of what it takes to build a specialized beauty service concept. He launched express facial company Heyday in 2014 with co-founder Adam Ross before the segment drew multimillion-dollar investments. Pollak stepped away from Heyday in 2022 when it had about 13 outposts around the country. By the end of this year, Heyday is set to reach 40 locations through franchising. It was forecast to hit $100 million in gross sales last year.
“This is where skincare and Botox was maybe 10 or 12 years ago.”
To differentiate Great Many from online companies like Hims & Hers and medical providers like dermatologists’ offices that typically treat hair loss, Pollak and Klebanow doubled down on specialization and hospitality-level customer experience. All clinicians at Great Many are nurse practitioners, registered nurses or physicians’ assistants focused on hair and hair growth procedures.
PRP, a non-surgical treatment that works by injecting platelets drawn from customers’ blood their scalp to stimulate hair growth, is Great Many’s primary in-house service at launch. Priced at $900 for single sessions or $650 per session for a package of three, PRP injections generally take longer to yield results than other medical aesthetic treatments. Klebanow advises PRP injection recipients to visit Great Many once a month for three months at first and have their progress evaluated at the six-month mark to guide further services. Additional non-surgical treatments will be added to Great Many’s menu in the future.
To augment the effects of PRP treatments, Great Many’s clinicians prescribe oral medications for common hair loss drugs such as Finasteride and Minoxidil, which customers can either fill at a pharmacy or have shipped directly home in branded packaging. Another differentiator, Great Many offers compounded medications like DualBlend Capsules for men and women combining Finasteride and Minoxidil and Spironolactone and Minoxidil, respectively, that ship in 90-day increments.
Klebanow predicts Great Many’s customer base will be divided equally along gender lines and span a broad age spectrum. Some 85% of men deal with hair loss, and more than half of women deal with it. “Everybody has hair,” he says. “Whether you’re a 20-year-old guy worried about looking like your uncle or a 60-year-old woman going through menopause and dealing with thinning, it’s a very, very wide customer.”
Pollak believes it’s important for Great Many to dive into branded products earlier than his previous company did. Heyday’s in-house skincare brand launched last year, nine years after the business started. The brand was the last project that Pollak worked on before exiting the company. Great Many’s branded products will be at the heart of its in-store retail assortment, although it may branch out to third-party brands as well for it. The branded products are expected to travel beyond Great Many to third-party retailers down the line.
“We’re maniacal about great customer experience and great outcomes.”
“It drove me nuts that we had this amazing client experience [at Heyday] that people would write about, but then you go home with other people’s products in the bathroom. There’s no reminder of the place that gave you this great experience,” he says. “So, at Great Many, for us to be able to send someone home with products, it makes sense as part of a routine but also just from a business standpoint to start to build value.”
“What I love about our business model is we have the four-wall box, which has great potential, but we also have telehealth and also our products,” says says Pollak. “So, you’ve got two other components that don’t have the limits of a four-wall space.”
Physical expansion is on Great Many’s long-term roadmap, but Pollak and Klebanow aren’t in a rush to hit the gas pedal on it anytime soon. While Heyday is expanding through franchising, Great Many will favor organic growth in key cities.
“We’re maniacal about great customer experience and great outcomes, and I think we’re both very strategic, but also tactical people,” says Klebanow. “When you talk about too fast of an expansion or franchising, you lose the core DNA of the experience you’re trying to deliver.”
This article was originally published on June 4, 2024.
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