Software lets customers see what new 'do will look like before actual cut is made

September 9, 2005 RALEIGH - Anyone who has ever gotten a bad haircut and had to live with the results for weeks knows how nerve-wracking it can be to change hairstyles.

That's precisely the problem that CyberImaging Inc. was founded to prevent. The Raleigh company sells software that shows people what they look like with a certain haircut - before they even get in the stylist's chair.

"For consumers, there's nothing like being able to try it before you buy it," says President Hal Wilson, who co-founded the firm with James Welch in March 1997.

CyberImaging's customers include salons, cosmetology schools and hair-care product companies that purchase the software for $3,000 to $5,000. CyberImaging also resells hardware products such as computers and digital cameras, but the software is where the firm makes its money. A complete system, with hardware and software, runs about $6,000.

The software allows salons to take pictures of customers' faces, then show them what they'd look like with longer hair, a different hair color or other types of cosmetic changes. Beauty Works of Corsicana, Texas, is a competitor that provides similar types of software products.

Cosmetology schools like the CyberImaging product because it can give students step-by-step instructions on how to achieve the hairstyle a customer has selected.

"It kind of takes a lot of the guesswork away for the students," says Kim Rawlins, a cosmetology instructor at Griffin Technical College in Griffin, Ga.

Like those students, CyberImaging's founders wanted as little guesswork as possible when they started the business. Neither Wilson nor Welch had backgrounds in the cosmetology business. They wanted to be entrepreneurs, but they weren't wedded to a specific industry.

Wilson's background was in accounting, while Welch was finishing a degree in artificial intelligence. A third member of the current ownership team, Feng Lou, is a software developer.

They wanted to find a niche where there wasn't a lot of competition and where there were barriers to other would-be competitors. After paying a local marketing company to do some research, they settled on cosmetology software.

"Somebody just couldn't come along behind us and develop it in a day," says Wilson, a native of Lake Waccamaw.

The company now employs four people full-time, as well as two part-time workers. It markets its products using direct mail, e-mail, faxes and by providing seminars for cosmetology schools.

Trade shows were tried but rejected as too expensive and time-consuming.

The company, which has been profitable since 1998, has revenue of about $800,000 a year.

James Devine, who owns Devine Salon & Spa Inc. in Raleigh, is a CyberImagine client who says the system is a real draw for his business. Clients come in and work with a stylist for about 45 minutes at a price of $35. When they're done, customers have as many as eight pictures of themselves with different hairstyles. And they also have a higher level of trust in their stylist - a factor that leads to more business.

Customers get excited about using the system to find that perfect new 'do, a sight that Wilson has seen many times before.

"They're totally amazed," Wilson says. "You'd think we'd invented a cure for cancer or something."

Cancer? Nope. But maybe a cure for the proverbial bad hair day.

Chris Baysden
Triangle Business Jrl
September 9, 2005 print edition