Iron Tribe Fitness President Jim Cavale and his wife Yazmin are working to launch a new, on-demand beauty brand called Glow.
The brand, which Cavale hopes will make it easier for customers to schedule and pay for hair, makeup and spray tanning services, revolves around the Glow app that is slated to launch this summer. Cavale said he and his wife got the idea while she was doing hair, makeup and spray tanning out of their home in Ross Bridge.
“She grew this beauty business in our garage and I just had to show her that I believe in her dream,” he said. “I started talking to tech firms outside of Birmingham regarding an idea I had to get into the infantile, yet extremely potent on-demand app space, by building a beauty app called Glow that would link makeup, hair and spray tan artists with the marketplace to provide their services.”
Cavale said he first looked outside of Birmingham for a tech company to build the Glow app due to past frustrations working with local tech firms, but after shopping around in cities like New York, Atlanta and Nashville, he was convinced to keep his tech needs local, partnering with web and mobile design company Platypi.
“I was impressed and excited because of the three partners’ backgrounds at Microsoft and honestly, because they had come to Birmingham from other markets, like I had,” Cavale said.
Platypi will build the tech platform for Glow and help with initial branding. Matt Landers, CEO of Platypi, said his company is looking to branch into the digital marketing space using its software platform that launched last year and is able to scale customer relationship management systems.
Platypi has since brought back two of its cofounders from Austin, Texas, where last January they established a temporary office in search for more tech talent. Since taking on more business and growing coding camp Depot/U, Landers said they were called back to further the momentum in Birmingham.
Yazmin Cavale said after rolling out the service in Birmingham this year, she hopes to raise more seed capital and expand into neighboring markets in 2017.
“After proving our model in Birmingham throughout Q3 and Q4 of 2016, I want to raise funding-we are still raising a small seed round for our Birmingham launch-to expand Glow into proximate markets like Atlanta and Nashville in 2017 and beyond, with credited beauty companies sponsoring and providing products for our clients and GlowPros,” she said. “I am already working to partner with several beauty brands in the makeup and hairstyling world to provide GlowPros with discounted products for their services, along with these beauty brand partnerships serving as a source for new GlowPros and a lead generation source for new Glow customers.”
Glow is set to host a launch party at Cahaba Brewing Co. on May 12 and will be actively recruiting hair, makeup and spray tan providers to become GlowPros.
This article is from the Birmingham Business Journal
Written by Alan Alexander