Position Snapshot

Position Corporate Board Advisors – Marketing, Technology, and Finance

Company Hair Sense

Compensation 0.1% - 0.25% (2-year vesting, 1-year cliff, quarterly thereafter)

Location Remote (Global, US preferred)

Founder(s) Kemba Hall

Website https://hairsenseapp.com/

Score 3 – Startup Board Initiative

There is a dire need for more diverse viewpoints in the boardrooms of corporate America. At Score 3, we are building on our experience with entrepreneurs in the technology industry to create a fast-moving and innovative solution. Our Startup Board Initiative uncovers diverse board candidates and connects them to our wide-ranging network of tech founders. These experienced corporate leaders' partner with companies by taking on the role of board advisor or board director in exchange for company equity.

Our initiative offers the most logical and effective entry point for diverse corporate executives: acting as board members for early-stage startups with diverse founders whose obstacles, talents, and dilemmas they are best equipped to handle. Board members can provide input on company strategy, acceptable risks, and priorities. They are valuable sources of warm introductions to new investors, potential employees, prospective customers, or future board members. In exchange, board members gain experience in the rewarding environment of high-tech, high-growth startups and equity in the company. As they develop their board-level leadership skills, they are exposed to some of the latest ideas, technologies, and business practices. Together, founders and board members will be able to grow professionally while shepherding the company towards future success.

The Score 3 Startup Board Initiative provides people of color, women, and LGBTQ business leaders a way to bypass workplace bias and unfair stereotypes. Board members receive personalized help to gain skills and create business connections that will enable them to take their careers to the next level. Likewise, founders acquire the critical social capital and additional business expertise that they need to accelerate the growth of their company. The technology industry is known for moving fast and breaking things, and it's time to apply that philosophy to disrupting the homogeneity of the corporate boardroom.

Organizational Overview

Hair Sense is an app built to change the hair care industry. It facilitates interactions between brands, influencers, stylists, and consumers. Its current iteration focuses on a market segment that is simultaneously growing and underserved—curly and kinky haired consumers. Once firmly established with this target market, Hair Sense's services and business model would be easily expanded to a universal audience.

Like many companies, Hair Sense was born when its founder, Kemba Hall, looked for a product she wanted and couldn't find it for herself. While busy completing a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer engineering, Ms. Hall wanted an easy way to find new styles based on her hair type and the products that she already had on hand. Although she was frustrated in her initial search, the idea spurred her to conduct market research interviews with over a thousand consumers and launch the Hair Sense progressive web app (PWA).

The Hair Sense app is designed to be an all-encompassing marketplace and community space for textured hair. Businesses, stylists, influencers, and consumers discover new products, partnerships, and trends through the app. Consumers can easily search for products from the best companies that are endorsed by trusted influencers to fit their personal hair type. They also have the option of scheduling one-on-one beauty chats with influencers for a completely unique makeover experience. The commissions for these virtual styling sessions and potential product endorsements have the added benefit of driving influencers to partner with the site—enabling our active users to grow on multiple fronts.

The COVID-19 shutdown has further underscored the hole in the marketplace for personalized virtual beauty routines. Hair Sense is poised to use this new trend in the haircare industry to fuel its growth. Since starting in 2019, we have participated in the First Founders Accelerator, Cohort 13 of Founder Gym, and released our PWA. We are executing the development and launch of several exciting new features, such as the ability for the app to detect hair type via a cellphone picture. Hair Sense is also looking to start our first round of fundraising in the near future.

Board Member's Impact Potential

Hair Sense is at the start of our scale-up, and we are looking for several advisors to help guide our business strategy. Our company utilizes the power of social networking, smartphone technology, and social trends to offer consumers, influencers, and hair industry professionals a revolutionary marketplace and community. We want to balance our efforts to bring this new model to a greater audience with the expertise of seasoned industry professionals. In our search for business executives to join our company as board advisors, it is important that candidates have both an interest in working with an innovative tech startup and a sound foundation in corporate marketing and beauty industry trends.

New team members in this role can expect to be involved with identifying potential strategies, exploring new markets, and discussing branding for different audiences. As Hair Sense continues to grow to scale, board advisors should be able to draw on their prior business experience and contacts to solve relevant problems, make valuable connections, and offer guidance to the CEO on important business decisions.

What Can Be Accomplished

As Hair Sense continues growing to scale, you'll gain experience in corporate governance and teamwork as you and the other board advisors work to review and analyze customer and industry data to refine our business practices, propose new features, identify high-value market prospects, and develop marketing strategies.

User data from the app is one of the key value drivers for Hair Sense. The data gathered from the app provide a chance to track the growth of our community, analyze the success of different marketing strategies, and personalize the user experience. Our board advisors will be able to help Hair Sense to move beyond basic targeted advertising. By developing different ways to add value to the app's data, Hair Sense will become a valuable gatekeeper for consumers, influencers, stylists, and beauty companies alike.

Who You'll Be Working With

Kemba Hall, Founder and CEO:

Kemba Hall has been interning in corporate America since age sixteen. After spending time at Bloomberg, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, she founded her company Hair Sense in 2019 after receiving a National Science Foundation grant. She was a member of Cohort 13 at Founder Gym and is currently a product engineer at Goldman Sachs.

What You'll Bring to the Company

● A successful tenure in a VP or higher-level corporate position

● Appreciation for working in the fast-moving business landscape of tech startups ● Knowledge of trends in data science and/or the beauty industry

● A robust personal network of industry contacts

● Familiarity with developing messaging for the beauty industry and how to tailor those messages for different audiences

● Smart and creative thinker

● Combination of vision and hard work

● Strong personal brand

● Able to think of a variety of ways to accomplish goals within constraints of time, money, etc.

● Legal and entertainment industry work experience, particularly with celebrities or influencers

** Impact Description – Year 1**

The below list breaks down the effect that this position will have on the company into a clear set of actionable goals. We recommend that, prior to reaching an agreement, both the board advisor and the CEO review and modify this list, as necessary. The final timeline should guide the advisor's decision-making process throughout their first year and also provide a mutually defined and understandable measure of success for the end of the year.

Within 1 Month, You'll:

● Work with the CEO to get up to date on any current projects and review the plans for future projects (such as the launch of the marketplace, photographic hair analysis via the app, etc.)

● Become a member of the Hair Sense team by getting to know the other team members and getting briefed on the current business structure, strategies, challenges, and goals of the company

● Develop a list of the top-ten hair care brands and influencers for Hair Sense to work with

● Offer advice on defining and prioritizing the recruitment needs of the company with an eye towards full-time staff for customer support, and marketing

Within 3 Months, You'll

● Act as an ambassador for the Hair Sense brand and support the company's network through twenty “warm” introductions to potential clients, employees, or investors ● Review similar apps/brands (i.e. Influenster, Cherry, Sephora) to become familiar with other combined community/marketplace business models

● Work with the CEO to delineate the company's plan to reach 1,000 active influencers on the app over the course of the next three months

Within 6 Months, You'll

● Contribute to the achievement of the goal to have 1,000 active influencers on the app

● Provide guidance to the founder on developing their relationships with ‘warm introductions' and prioritizing the most promising potential customers or investors

Within 12 Months, You'll

● Analyze historical user data and provide insight on how factors like growth and engagement will impact the launch of the Phase 2 combined

marketplace/community app

● Review the success of the prior year's internal and external business relationships and identify focus areas for the upcoming year

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion @ Hair Sense

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Hair Sense.