Ask the Attendees: @tressenoire #techstylenyc

TechStyleNYC is an event, held during Fashion Week, that brought together fashion and technology.  The event had a wonderful turnout and attendees enjoyed the chance to celebrate NYC’s fashion week in techsy style!

But just who are the brands that attended the event? What’s their take on the event industry? And what did they think of TechStyleNYC? We took the opportunity to interview a few of the attendees and over the next few days will be featuring their interviews, read on for a peek inside the guests’ heads:

We spoke to Regina Gwynn, co-founder of TressNoire.

First of all, please tell our readers about you – what is the company all about?

I am Regina Gwynn, the co-founder of TresseNoire, an on-demand beauty service that delivers luxury hair salon experiences for naturally curly girls right to their doorstep. As multicutlural professionals with busy schedules, my co-founder Octavia and I were frustrated with being unable to find high-quality stylists, salons and products for our naturally curly hair. We believed we deserved high-quality stylists and could help other naturally curly girls like ourselves find haircare experts who could give us fabulous (and healthy) hair styles at a price we could afford. So we created TresseNoire.

Today, naturally curly girls in New York, Philadelphia, Delaware and New Jersey are rocking our styles because they have had a TresseNoire luxury styling experience.

What were the 3 keys to getting the company off the ground – where did you invest your time?

The first key was finding our initial team of stylists who would provide the service quality that could meet our standards. If we didn’t start there, we wouldn’t be able to achieve the vision for the business we had in our minds. Next, it was tapping into the right resources to help us launch our business. My co-founder Octavia and I have strong networks of African-American professionals, so it was then a matter of getting the first batch of customers that would lead us to proof of concept. Lastly, it was building the technology that would help us create the online user experience that would introduce clients to our brand and seamlessly move them through the booking process to having a TresseNoire styling experience they would love enough to book again.

Just having participated in TechStyle NYC, what role do live events play in your branding and marketing initiatives?

People can read about us or engage with us on social media, but nothing beats having the TresseNoire experience firsthand or hearing how passionate Octavia (my co-founder) and I, and our stylists are about what we do. It’s critical for potential clients and individuals within the beauty and fashion community to have a TresseNoire experience, meet our textured haircare experts, and to meet us. Live events help us deliver that experience and engage with key stakeholders and clients. They also allow us to meet other beauty and tech entrepreneurs with whom we can network to build potential partnerships, collaborations or cross-promotional opportunities.

What was a successful social media campaign you hosted that showed great engagement and traction?

Most recently, we’ve seen that the social media activity that shows the most engagement and traction is when we have had our textured hair experts style social media influencers with natural hair. This could be anyone from Lion Babe, a indie music star with fabulous hair to Avielle Amor who has more than 11,000 followers on Instagram. When these women have TresseNoire styling experiences and post about it on their social platforms we gain hundreds of followers in a matter of days. This is the experience we want to replicate over and over. We want people to book with us, have one of our stylists come to their home and for them to tell all their friends about it – on and offline. So as many individuals we can do this for and have them share their experience online the better.

Finally, what is your favorite app?

I would definitely say UBER. This company has completely changed the way service providers do business. It has flipped the service model upside down and in a way that really empowers the customer and individuals who want own their own businesses. We model ourselves after the convenience, reliability and independence UBER has offered its customers and its drivers. I admire what the company is doing and continue to learn from how it is evolving.