SoGal Waterloo: Founder’s Chat with Aileen | BeBlended

✏️Co-authored with Kristy Gao

Last week at SoGal we had the privilege of having Aileen with us for a founder’s chat. Aileen is a final year Environmental Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. She’s the founder of BeBlended, a startup focused on the black hair care industry. After working in a variety of companies in Canada and Belgium, Aileen founded BeBlended. As the founder, Aileen attributes her success to hard work, a supportive network and her Christian faith. When she’s not working on BeBlended or studying engineering things, she’s out hiking, mentoring women in her community and spending time with friends and family.

Aileen’s parent’s immigrated to Canada from Nigeria. As a first generation Canadian, she has always been curious about the world around her. She grew up having a passion for science and math so it was only natural for her to end up in engineering. Ironically, in high school, she felt strongly about not wanting to go into business. Thanks to the Waterloo co-op program, Aileen has been able to co-op in many different places including Belgium and Ottawa. Moving to Ottawa for co-op was Aileen’s first time being away from home and all the comforts that came with it. Two months into her first co-op, she struggled to find a hair salon that understood how to style her hair.

Origin Story

My hair is typically a large Afro — I remember thinking, okay, I can just find someone.

Like any typical newcomer to a city, Aileen googled hair salons near her. She lived in downtown Ottawa at the time and identified about 15 salons near her. She visited every single one of them only to be turned away. Not a single stylist knew how to work on her hair texture. She was disappointed to find that many of the stylists even acted hostile towards her and felt that Aileen was poking holes into their credibility

I would see so many black women on the streets of Ottawa just going to and fro their business and I remember thinking — Where are they getting their hair done?

After reaching out to some friends, she started getting referrals of friend of a friend of sister over there in this location. She quickly learned that the black hair care industry was a tight network that was extremely difficult to break into. After this frustrating experience, she emerged inspired to start BeBlended. She started small — with a Google form she sent to over 2000 Black women on Facebook. After two months, she found that 90% of Black women are turned away from hair salons because many hairstylists don’t know how to work with their hair texture. It is been amazing looking back at those Google form days and see how far she has come with a community of over 900 BeBlended members.

Past Experiences

When she started at University of Waterloo, all Aileen knew was that she wanted to study something related to engineering. It was only through co-op that she learned the kinds of careers, managing styles and work environments that she thrived in. Aileen has completed a variety of co-ops ranging from the public sector working for the Government of Canada and the Toronto Transit Commission to the private sector like Manulife Maple Leaf Foods and a startup in Belgium. When she was an intern in Belgium, she already had an idea for BeBlended but didn’t have any plans in place yet for how they would unfold. Her startup experience in Belgium is what amplified her interest in startups and entrepreneurship.

Aileen wore so many hats as an intern at the startup. She recalls taking on tasks in marketing, product development one day and then coding algorithms another day. In short, it was a transformative experience that showed her the possibilities as a founder. Upon returning to Waterloo, she started reaching out to people in her network and stumbled upon the Greenhouse Incubator, a social impact incubator at St. Paul’s University College. She considers her involvement with Greenhouse the catalyst for BeBlended. She was encouraged to start participating in pitch competitions and apply for Velocity, an early-stage incubator. Her mentors from the program helped her build her business acumen and opened her eyes to the nitty gritty business aspects of starting a company.

Finding Co-founders

Her strongest word of advice in terms of getting and finding the right people is dedicating time to build relationships with the people around you. Two of her current team members were were already close friends with Aileen before BeBlended. The third, however, was recruited through a cold reach out on LinkedIn. When Aileen was searching for a technical lead, she began by sifting through her LinkedIn connections and to identify candidates she thought would be passionate about what she was working on with BeBlended. After scheduling a casual introduction call with her current technical lead, she found that they really clicked and their working relationship blossomed from there. They slowly built up their working relationship by meeting weekly and eventually she was integrated into the team.

Aileen would say to anyone looking to build a team, grow a team, or find talent is to look within your network. If your story is compelling enough and what you are doing is interesting to you, it will eventually be interesting to someone else — you just have to be patient.

Impact of COVID-19

BeBlended is in the haircare industry and many salons have been affected by the pandemic. Interestingly, however, with the black hair care industry, many hairstylists are freelancers. So many of them work out of their homes are operate independently of salons. Things have been fluctuating quite a lot in the past year with lockdowns and restrictions easing and increasing again. In the past year, BeBlended has focused mainly on building out and strengthening their software. They’ve shifted their focus away from actively promoting hairstylists and their services and are working on the onboarding process and automation of connecting black women to hairstylists. Particularly, the Black beauty industry has many specific services and unique terminology. Making BeBlended tailored to facilitate easy access for these specific services helps make Black customers feel more included in the beauty industry. Aileen thought that when lockdown happened it would affect BeBlended’s momentum but she’s found that many of her users are eagerly waiting for things to reopen — there is real no shortage of customers yet.

Next 36

Aileen is an alumni of Next 36, a program for 36 of the most entrepreneurial undergrads and recent grads from coast-to-coast who have what it takes to build Canada’s next “narwal”. Aileen learned about the program through an info session at the velocity incubator. The process consisted of writing an application, attending “selection weekend” where she had tens of difficult, but intensely interesting interviews about herself and BeBlended. Long story short, she got in!

When you see other people do it, you are so encouraged that you can do it too.

The highlight of the program was meeting other cohort members and attending workshops from professors of Harvard, MIT, and Oxford, just to name a few. She learned the ins and outs of being a founder and the nitty-gritty details of running a business that her engineering degree didn’t provide her. She left Next 36 with a plethora of resources, funding opportunities, and a strong network of founders she can relate to.

Looking Ahead

Her long-term mission of BeBlended is to automate the Black beauty experience. BeBlended currently has stylists from British Columbia to Ontario — but Aileen sees BeBlended growing to the States, UK, and Australia. Their goal is to be the number one provider of black consumer beauty data, and create an inclusive environment for the black community.

In the next year, BeBlended is looking at raising their first funding round. They plan on hiring their first employees and roll out an updated version of BeBlended. Aileen is ambitious and hopeful about growing BeBlended and providing her envisioned community to black people.

Essential Skills for a Founder

Perseverance and grit. Although BeBlended is doing great now, there were definitely times when things were chaotic. There is a lot of work when you’re rolling up your sleeves and starting your own company. Aileen urges future founders to believe in themselves and trust themselves. Leadership abilities are so important — to be able to be proactive, persistent and thoughtful. Aileen highlighted the importance of empathy. You have to be able to empathise with your customers — step into their shoes and dive deep into what their needs are. You have to be able to empathise with your team members because they might be having a bad day and not be performing in the way that they could, but you have to trust that they are still the genuinely good people that you brought onto the team. Empathy towards the world that might be saying “no” to all your ideas — understand why they might be feeling the way that they do.

In particular, Aileen wanted to emphasise that being a strong programmer, being great at math or having some other technical talent is not as important as people think it is. There are so many amazing people who have those technical skills and you could also be come an expert like them — but it is those people with a strong set of soft skills such as perseverance, leadership and empathy that succeed as founders. The first step to gain these skills is to be willing to intentionally improve in those areas. Attend your local networking events and reach out to people. It can be nerve-wracking to reach out to people you don’t know but take it one step at a time. Aileen suggests starting off by reaching out to people you who share some common interests or background with. After the initial connection, follow up and build the relationship. As you gain confidence, you can start exploring beyond the Waterloo startup ecosystem — maybe reach out to people at your job. One underrated but often over looked opportunity is reaching out to professors. So many university students never go to office hours, even when they are struggling.

Diversity and Inclusion

It means not being an afterthought.

It is so important that diversity and inclusion not be an afterthought. BeBlended is focused on the Black beauty community because the community has been neglected for too long. Growing up, Aileen’s parents always encouraged her to work hard, do her best and instilled a lot of confidence in her. She attributes her confidence to her parents nurturing and support. Aileen often finds herself being the only black person in a room. As an entrepreneur, it makes Aileen so excited to be present in these rooms and discussions and bring something of value into the world that actually does improve diversity and inclusion. BeBlended has been a product of her finding the intersection between entrepreneurship and her personal mission — to create an inclusive environment for the Black community.

Looking back. What would she tell herself?

Failure is okay. A little-known fact about Aileen is she failed one of her academic terms. At that point, she had attached her worth and everything to her grades. It was only after getting through that difficult term that she realised she was worth more than her grades. She attributes her success getting through that hurdle to her active Christian faith — she does whatever she can to be the best person she can possibly be and trusts that everything else will fall into place. She recommends not comparing yourself to others. When starting out, seeing the overwhelming success of other entrepreneurs can be intimidating but what you don’t often see are the failures and hardships people endured to get to those points.

Don’t compare yourself to everybody. You’re on your own race, you are doing your own thing. If you’re genuinely passionate, enough about what you’re doing and you do believe in it, you will succeed.

Despite enduring some hardships through the pandemic, she has confidence in their BeBlended’s success.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, Aileen advises you to just start. If you find something you are passionate about and have an idea — you should just start. The idea does not have to be perfect. She advises against trying to create something perfect behind the scenes or waiting for the perfect idea. In the real world, rarely do founders make something amazing on their first try and open the curtain and have users flocking right away. It’s important to just dive in and find out of people resonate with you product or service by reaching out to people in your target audience.

Don’t be scared of people stealing your idea.

People tend to get to protective of their ideas. Although there is a chance someone may steal it, the real work that comes with your idea is the execution. The execution is what everybody likes to run away from. If you’re a student and you’re thinking of starting something, you should just start because there are so many grant opportunities, funding opportunities, and people are looking to help you. Aileen has found many seasoned entrepreneurs who are excited to help the younger generation. Time is ticking and time doesn’t wait for anybody. If there is something you’re interested in, just start and don’t be afraid of failure.

Biggest Challenges

Aileen says the biggest challenge is wanting to do things the easier way. For example, working a full-time job is much more stable than pursuing your own venture, and making the decision between the two options can be very challenging. Sometimes doubts can creep in about your path — this is where having a good support system is important. Persevering and handling the hardships of entrepreneurship is difficult but crucial.

When you realize that you’re doing something that you genuinely believe in, and that actually affects and helps people, you’ll have a passion that will sustain you through these trials and tribulations.

Taking Risks

Luckily, Greenhouse provided Aileen micro-funding to kickstart her first website and a BeBlended social. Pitch competitions and other awards through the University provided her with financial support too.

However, starting your own still has a degree of risk. Initially, taking a term to work on BeBlended meant Aileen was foregoing what she could learn in a coop and the salary that comes with it. Now, it means not taking a full-time job after undergrad. While others look for jobs with a salary, Aileen has to look for investors to build her own salary.

Despite that, Aileen couldn’t be happier with her decision to pursue BeBlended.

Work Life Balance

Making sure to prioritize people that you care about is something Aileen emphasized. For Aileen, that means carving out time to spend with her family, friends and her boyfriend. Making sure that she spends enough time with them helps their relationship and also helps her. She suggests making a list of your priorities because as your startup grows and your ideas start to get traction, many more opportunities will come your way. Eventually, you won’t be able to say yes to every opportunity and you have to learn to prioritize.

Don’t get too caught up on trying to maintain work-life balance. There will be times when it goes a little off balance but when that happens reassess your priorities and adjust. For Aileen, what matters the most is to make sure she isn’t burning out and that she is present for your family and friends. Aileen finds that many entrepreneurs end up pursuing goals and passions that don’t necessarily reflect what they are passionate about. She urges everyone to not drop their own passions or try take the path of other people.

Closing Words

If you got anything out of this article, Aileen wants you to believe in yourself as, cliche as it sounds. There will come a time as a founder where people will look towards you for direction. You have to truly believe in yourself and see the capabilities of your own actions. There will be people in different situations from you — maybe their upper hand was finances or connections — regardless of that, you are all still human and can do something. Always remember to see the value in building and maintaining genuine relationships with people. As Aileen has gotten older, she’s seen the importance of the relationships she’s forged with team members, family and friends.

If you’re interested in joining BeBlended to offer your services, check out https://www.beblended.ca/pages/sign-up!

SoGal Waterloo will be hosting our end-of-term event on April 15th! Come hang out and meet the organising team!

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