Young entrepreneur settles into Kings Hill
Stepping out on your own can be daunting for any entrepreneur, young or old, so finding a business space where you feel supported is hugely important. The newest addition to our Churchill Square Business Centre business community is 21-year-old Harrison Barker, founder of HB Barbers, who, since opening his doors just over a month ago, has already attracted over 100 clients. He shares what makes his cuts different, and why he chose Capital Space.
Setting up a business from scratch
As a hands-on, people person, after leaving school Harrison took a Level 2 and 3 course at London School of Barbering before working in a barbershop for three years. After learning the trade, picking up on how to run a business and making connections with clients, he decided to take the step to do it on his own and set up HB Barbers.
Determined to offer a higher level of customer experience, he shared what makes HB Barbers different: “It’s not necessarily your traditional barber shop; it’s very modern. I do all men’s styles, from buzz cut to full-length scissor cut. I think nowadays, with men’s hair, men don’t only just want to go in for that quick ten-minute haircut, so I offer a 45 minute service.
“For a lot of guys, hair is like the biggest deal ever. The average person might say “I don’t really mind; I don’t really care about my hair,” but realistically they do. So now spending maybe a little bit more money but getting more of a service is quite an attraction to people.”
Finding the right space for a start-up with ambition
For Harrison, the perfect business space needed to work both for his financial situation as a start-up and for his customers, as a barber shop needs convenient access. Harrison explained: “The flexibility of the monthly licence really makes someone like me feel comfortable because let’s say, for whatever reason, it doesn’t go well, and I need to take a month out and maybe just do it on my own terms somewhere else, I can do that. So it’s definitely nice to have that flexibility.
“Free parking is massive to me, because I run appointments every 45 minutes, if a customer can pull up and then quickly, literally buzz through and come straight up, that makes me really accessible. The business centre is also really professional, and a bonus for me is that the community of businesses are potential customers.”
Scaling the business
Growing your new business is not the easiest of tasks but, with a strong social media following and marketing strategy, Harrison has sights on expanding his barbershop in the future.
Harrison shared how he fits creating content for his social media into his day: “So obviously, a large majority of people don’t want to be filmed, but if I’ve got, let’s say, a mate or a longstanding client that doesn’t mind being filmed, I can do it during appointments.
“In terms of expanding, the plan is to scale in this room as much as I possibly can, and then whether that’s then going on to maybe get a bigger room, or maybe having someone work with me in that bigger room, you never know. But, yeah, basically just scale it as big as I can and get to the point where I’m so busy I have to expand out of this space.”
