Darren Tenkorang is the founder and CEO of Trim-IT, one of the first app-powered mobile Barber Shops in the UK. The idea for the business came to Darren whilst he was still at University. He entered his business plan into a competition and much to his surprise he won. The subsequent £10,000 award ended up forming the base to launch the business that we see today.
The South London native sat down with Riding Unicorns to discuss how his dyslexia diagnosis fuelled his desire to become an entrepreneur, the pros and cons to operating a franchise model and why you should never work with your close friends. Darren closes by opening up on his future plans for the business and what he perceives to be the challenges towards achieving continued growth.
Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.
Darren Tenkorang is the founder and CEO of Trim-IT, one of the first app-powered mobile Barber Shops in the UK. The idea for the business came to Darren whilst he was still at University. He entered his business plan into a competition and much to his surprise he won. The subsequent £10,000 award ended up forming the base to launch the business that we see today.
The South London native sat down with Riding Unicorns to discuss how his dyslexia diagnosis fuelled his desire to become an entrepreneur, the pros and cons to operating a franchise model and why you should never work with your close friends. Darren closes by opening up on his future plans for the business and what he perceives to be the challenges towards achieving continued growth.
Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.
[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to riding unicorns. The podcast about growth startups. On James Pringle and my co-host is hat to Mason from episode one ventures. This week's episode is with Darren Tenkorang, founder of TRIM-IT.
[00:00:23] Darren story is one of great resilience. He started the business as a kind of software as a service booking platform for barbers. But realise that to really make a success of it. They needed to go full stack. And actually provide, their own barber shops on wheels. So now they have a franchise model where they kit out vans with a barber shop in the back and barbers can register and service that entire city
[00:00:49] from a single van.
[00:00:50] The company has gone from strength to strength and Darren covers. Exactly how much revenue they're making in the podcast. It's a really great lesson for anyone. Starting out who wants [00:01:00] a bit of inspiration? Let's get started
[00:01:05] Hector: Welcome to riding unicorns. this week we have Darren Tenkorang on the show. Welcome Darren.
[00:01:11] Darren Tenkorang: Thank you I'm excited to speak to you guys
[00:01:13] Hector: So as always, we'd love to start off with, Your journey so far and what's led you to TRIM-IT?
[00:01:19] Darren Tenkorang: Yeah, my journey it starts off fun enough in university. so when people ask me that, okay, how did you come about if I'm going to be brutally honest with you? It came as a result of fear. So I did a stint, working in the corporate sector. So I was working at an insurance firm. I love this for this for the first six months, you know what you're going to see if you didn't up going into the big city and then office six months, I quote pretty scared because, for me, the environment was pretty great. and I think it was my manager at the time. He was like to me, Darren, like that as a joke, because I was struggling with certain things. He's like, ah, as a joke, you could be dyslexic. it would be small stuff. if I'm doing like a late shift, I couldn't concentrate properly or [00:02:00] words kind of move look a bit fuzzy on the screen. if I'm writing an email, instead of saying Darren went to the shop, I'll say that Darren went to the, it was, it was crazy. I went back to university to finish my fourth year. So I was in a placement yet. or we do need to take my destiny by the wounds and this really it's used something, where I can create an environment that would be most used for me. And that's kind of how its remit with entrepreneurship came about. So, fortunately for us, I had several business ideas at this point. When we first started, we were a pure software company. So we created like a, a booking platform for barbers. so Bob was built in essence have except bookends. The problem that we were trying to solve at the time was the fact that, You could go to a barbershop on a Friday or a Saturday and wait. I was. Yeah. And, I suppose I'm not like my father and my father's generation. He goes to the barber shop in the Fridays at eight with a pint of Guinness to come to the boys. talking about women politics football, so we wouldn't as a kind of redefine the customer journey, [00:03:00] and just make that process a lot more slick. so we created this bookend platform for Bob, as we onboarded the within about 2000 bookings. and that was with the 10 KW raised. So we were a very lean team. we've got, uh, we've got a bit of traction, but if I'm going to be honest, Bob is that we hadn't looked out for when using our software the way it was intended. So you'd book an appointment. I need to have to wait three hours. so every day our brand was getting hammered and we had a complaints will that we couldn't control the experience. And I'm very, very experienced. I want to control the experience. I want the experience to be amazing. So by this point we had raised, about 40 K. Can we, the last 15 K that I had in the bank, I had this weird idea. You know, this is very weird. I did, it was like a really dark day in the office because i was actually close to pulling the plug on Trim-IT and one of my friends, he came to the office and I told him about the fact that I wanted to put a barber shop in the back of a van and through an app book said, van to your location. and what he said to me, [00:04:00] bear in mind, this is like four and a half years ago he's like Darren this idea is nuts. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but you're the only guy crazy enough. that I know that could potentially make it work. So the last 15K that I had I bought a crappy van for like 5k. I built the interior myself or not really myself. It was a bunch of. I kind of like told them what to do if I didn't know what I was doing. We'd watch YouTube videos in the morning. and we went about creating this van, this mobile barber shop. And, we created it the design looked absolutely terrible, but it did what it needed to do. And like, that's how I suppose the Trim-IT journey as the mobile barbershop, the tech infused mobile barbershop really, really started So, we went from a booking platform then to a tech enabled mobile barbershop. and then we gone on to the last several rounds after that. So we did about two 50 K and that's like that pre-seed but then we did, 750 K and an in-between that we did a bridge round, So that's, that's the story in a, in it's [00:05:00] kind of short, long bull.
[00:05:02] Hector: It's also, it's like the perfect scrappy startup story and almost game and by a crappy van did up yourself. which by the way, it sounds really fun. And I'm quite envious of your van conversion. I've seen many of them on YouTube and they don't really. so you found yourself hitting some success with the new van led model. what sort of happened then? has it just been plain sailing since then? I know that now you guys run franchises. so just talk a bit about the journey post, van, shall we call that?
[00:05:37] Darren Tenkorang: Sure. So we had, the one van So we've got to the point where our band is fully booked, six months in a row. and that's when we took on that, pre-seed so that's two 50. Cause when we first had the van, the one van, it was actually, when I say tech infused, in reality, you didn't things in. Yeah. So it was very, very manual. So we needed to make sure that we could automate [00:06:00] the manual things that we had. embedded 10, 19 12 platform lakes, actually previous world at one bank would generate a monthly profit. And so we knew that the actual Banyan economics that you made. I never found them. we changed from it being an owned and operated model then to the front. And that was post COVID. So after COVID things went a bit nuts on our end and we went from seven vans and now we're in the process of actually building 17. So, yeah, it's, it's going to be crazy.
[00:06:27] James: Awesome. How did you learn about franchising and how to do that process of replicating a model that was successful?
[00:06:37] Darren Tenkorang: It's similar to the fact that I built a van outside my mom's house. I did it on the fly. I'm going to be honest with you. when I say a franchise model, it's more like a hybrid you have aspects of like the gig economy. In reality, if you look at like an Uber model, it's a franchise model someone that basically taken stenting of the kind of law that single individual to act as their own entity. so I've [00:07:00] studied like the McDonald's model And if I had to study other models enough, put them all together, but it just makes sense. Right. When I say friends has motor sister, if it is the thing that's closest to, the model that would then buy squat hyperdiploid is a different thing.
[00:07:12] Hector: Yeah. I'm really interested in the franchise model because I guess it great for scaling. but potentially you lose out on some of the margins. So how did you kind of think about which, route to go down and is it scale? That's the most important thing at the moment or. Margin. And does, do you think that changes over time?
[00:07:33] Darren Tenkorang: Initially the goal was to get to, 500 back. So 500 bands needs a thousand boxes to Bob's program. Would you do like a day shift and an evening shift. So when I speak into Liam, he's the guy that like handles the logistics and the bank conversions and whatnot. How's that? Are you comfortable building 500 back? If that, yeah, that's fine. Then I suppose with piano's like, will our tech be able to hold out and will it be able to facilitate. A fleet of 500. Is that, yeah, [00:08:00] that's fine. Don't worry. I've got that covered. Then I spoke to myself and I was like, kind of, I manage a thousand boxes and I said, hell no, that's impossible. managing Employees is very, very difficult. Yeah. and operational cost associated with that is quite extreme. And one thing going wrong in a month could eradicate your margin or your profit for the month. so we wanted to offload the operational complexity and the operational financial burden onto the business. and it's proven to allow us to scale without having the complications of actually managing a thousand individuals. So for us in the space of six months, Seven bands to 70 events. And by the end of December, we'll probably get to 105 hundred and five. It just goes to show how easy now operation is. We beat our tech, handles it. We have the processes to basically enable a, as it become an entrepreneur and to be able to operate on their own. So Truman now is a tool, for all Bob has to use to get to that next level with the infrastructure.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] James: Darren, you've done really well find that product market fit and really understand the problem and how you're actually going to solve it in a scalable way. You've also done very well with fundraising. For idea, that may be on the surface, doesn't seem sort of venture backable. So how did you manage that process and what was the kind of tipping point where you thought I've got something now that investors are really interested? And what advice might you give to other founders that are raising with similar concepts that maybe on the staffing point don't seem venture backable, but actually over time they can be
[00:09:34] Darren Tenkorang: we've always known that trim it. it's always been about kind of time. It's our technology that allows us to be great. It's our technology. That is actually the crux of, the business without it. getting from a to B it's just so difficult. It's so, so difficult. Getting from ACB and also generating demand for a particular location is super, super difficult. So we've been able to automate all of that. and what we believe is that with our model and with our [00:10:00] infrastructure, we'll be able to apply it to actually different industries. Like some of our investors know that I'm looking at potentially acquiring a dog group that does exactly the same thing that we do, but just has no tech. We wouldn't be able to apply the infrastructure and they sell in that vision, sell in the how, how scalable and how quick. So for founders that, have, I suppose maybe asset heavy businesses, or businesses that look like they could be potentially brick and mortar. it's about making sure that you're selling. that you're much bigger than that, that singular product to FEMA. I went into think it's simple. I want them to think, look, this is the box in the back of the van and that fine, but in the back end of doing the lows really, really cool stuff.
[00:10:37] James: I think that's a really good point for founders to take on board. When we interviewed him from Fiverr and season one, he just said, it's a gateway model, fundraising and gate number one that you have to get through for anyone to consider the other. Yeah. Is, this is going to be massive. So selling that vision up front is really important.
[00:10:55] Hector: without wanting to make this podcast seem like a strategy session, I do think it's really exciting [00:11:00] what you're, what you're doing. So what are the things that you're thinking about over the next five years? I mean, some of the things that strike me, as possibilities would be like, you know, your own range of hair creams or whatever, that you sell as part of the. package to your franchisees, have you already started doing that kind of thing or what are the opportunities that, uh, staring back at you?
[00:11:21] Darren Tenkorang: So, so right now, we're very much in a land grab situation typically. Basically what the UK market and what our ultimate strategy is, is actually to go to a different geographical location. So where I end up places that Paris, or not places like San Fran, so that we can start having basis there
[00:11:37] Hector: that's super exciting. and how have you guys gone about growing? Where do you get new customers from? Where do you get new? head dresses from, what's been your kind of your acquisition strategy for those two things.
[00:11:53] Darren Tenkorang: So when we talk about customers, we talk about them into two ways. So our customers will ask you about Bob, is that the people that [00:12:00] generate us our money, they're also our franchisees, they're our partners. but ultimately they at the, our customer, the end user is the person that gets there. so the way in which we find our customers to Bob is, typically for, paid social. We'll get acquisition of barbers for about 20 years. Or 20 pounds a lead. So it's really, really cheap considering the fact that like over the five-year agreement that they make up about what night you pay. So that's how we find the Bob is in terms of finding them the, end user. again, it's through paid social billboard marketing, but that is relatively easy for us. So, when we have spoken to investors previously, the Mon was never really getting a Baba to be 40 books, which is 208 customers for us in a month. What we found difficult historically was finding the bobbers was since then, we've been able to ask suppose so that as a result of bringing this franchise model in,
[00:12:51] James: and today, have you found that you're being pulled into new geographies or are you pushing into new geographies? Like, are you targeting new barbers? Claus go. Or [00:13:00] you is a barber from Glasgow saying I've seen your advert. I want to set up here. How does that work? And then how do you manage something where you're based in London? So how do you manage something that's geographically quite far away? Do you go there yourself? Like how does it all work?
[00:13:15] Darren Tenkorang: Yeah, so it would definitely be important and new locations. So, a hypothesis, is that any area with over 50,000 people in OPC thousand, right? we would be comfortable marketing in that area and generating demand for that particular bubble. so when we do not have to do another request, you can basically, if you have a bias, we will potentially build your van in that area. how we then onboard and launch a Barbra in a particular area. we attend speeds generated a month. and then subsequently pushing them through the funnel and then, and get them bookings. so we have like a front has open day where they come in. we basically find out if they will be coming to us, if they like what we see in the infrastructure that we do around our bobbers. Then I need to be thinking, you know, this person is the right man. [00:14:00] I'm mad about him in Manchester or in Glasgow and Wells weapon. then we would put them through like a training training program and also that screening program. Do that then,
[00:14:12] Hector: that's really cool. what you built clearly serves a real need, which is why you've been successful with it. what is it that motivates you?
[00:14:21] Darren Tenkorang: I suppose this piece is building a business and having fun in law school in it. so today my baseline at 6:00 PM. Yeah. And I'm so comfortable that they will start at 6:00 AM. this is not necessarily a good thing. it will probably end at like 10, 11. it could be later. and I'm so calm. I'm so comfortable with that.
[00:14:42] James: So Don, I'm really interested to learn a bit more about the strategy around like looking at other businesses to acquire, to fit the model. And use your tech to kind of scale a business that maybe at the moment is kind of carved out a niche, but hasn't really cracked the [00:15:00] scalability factor. So what other company you mentioned dog grooming.
[00:15:04] Darren Tenkorang: We haven't, gotten much for, into it. If I'm going to be brutally honest, this opportunity kind of landed itself on my lap. The founder of that company. So we're doing sort of seminaries and without, wow, this is really, really cool. So I'll just speak into, uh, understand that she's kind of like a motivated seller that she's tired of operating her business and economics are amazing. They're so, so good. So that I'm sure I can add a bit of magic to this and then great to a bigger stage that is now.
[00:15:37] James: I feel like unit economics has come up a couple of times. I think it's again really important for other founders, potentially listening to understand that know, why that's so important. So like, obviously at the beginning you might not have known some of those numbers, but over time you've learned them and you know, worked out how the business is operated. What are the [00:16:00] kind of key unit economics that you measure? How do you measure them and what, what does good look like for maybe other founders that are trying to work out? Whether that business is kind of viable in the long run?
[00:16:13] Darren Tenkorang: I'm not going to actually speak for what are good unit economics for other founders, because obviously I need to know the context of the business, but for our kids. And when we say, we say like van in economics, so to put things into perspective, a vehicle for us, we generate us approximately about 1,400, um, per month. for this mobile dog grooming business. It generates closer to 2,100. So I can already see that the jump and the reason why there's a jump is because as opposed to use us. So the person with their dog, are spending more on the haircut, on the groom. whereas we're spending about 25 pounds per cup. so I'm taking into consideration. How much does it cost to get to a user, sort of traveling aspects of things I'm taking into consideration, the insurance, the public liability and all of [00:17:00] that factors in a particular type of cost associated with, cutting a particular user, whether it's a human being or a dog and those things, the wild wild west.
[00:17:09] James: and what kind of tools do you use if any, to measure analytics using Google analytics or Mixpanel or something? Yeah.
[00:17:17] Darren Tenkorang: to be brutally honest with you, I don't know. So that's actually all of our marketing team. Stripe is fairly robust in terms of telling us how much money we're generating from a subscriber, and the Chan, and then the last time value of a customer. and then there under like a marking guide. So. I know that he's one of those math words is that plus everything in Excel sheets. So, in terms of understanding, I suppose how much a particular user is costing us. I probably have to ask him questions about how he actually does that.
[00:17:42] James: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you're delegating well then, which is one thing some founders struggle with, which is good.
[00:17:48] Hector: You touched earlier on what sounds like a really hard I think to go through with the business where you got to the point where you thought you were going to have to, to wrap it up and close shop. I can assume that that is one of the [00:18:00] hardest, points you've been through with it, but have there been any other times, more recently when, you know, you've been really challenged when things have gone wrong and you weren't sure whether you could put it back.
[00:18:09] Darren Tenkorang: the there's two things I can think of the hardest thing at the beginning was I hired a team or I gathered a team. it wasn't a hire appropriately. Anyway, a team of mates, one of the mains being that one of my very, very close. This is someone that I grew up with when I was like tiny. and unfortunately we had to go our separate ways. and it was difficult being the CEO of that company. my job is to make sure that I'm placing chairman in the best position for success, and having to make tough decisions based on that. hard data and not taken into consideration too much when God's like friendship and whatnot was quite difficult. but after, doing that, it Flip the switch in my head where now I'm completely. And my job is just to make sure that I'm safeguard in the business. So that was a difficult decision to make. and that was maybe about like three years [00:19:00] ago. it wasn't fairly recent as oppose. One of the recent things, was slowly raising our first like significant round. and that was difficult. Of the concept of having runway and knowing that if I don't raise it by a particular point, there's, there's no cash in the business. So, that was relatively difficult and they, and they applied a lot of pressure on to me. I'm the sole person that goes out and raises. and I knew that I had to deliver.
[00:19:26] Hector: that's really interesting because the founder of the business is the person who knows that. The best, and also has kind of, uh, uh, well, I dunno how you feel about protecting annual sort of employees from, that knowledge and the knowledge that your company faces an existential threat. If you don't raise more money, which puts you in kind of a lonely place potentially, or did you take the view that, you know, you should be open with employees and potentially scare them? which could lead them go and finding jobs [00:20:00] elsewhere. What was your sort of approach with that? Did you find it a lonely place?
[00:20:04] Darren Tenkorang: It's definitely for me to take the burdens. So yes, there's a learning place, but fortunately for me, like, I have some really, really cool investors, that have been there to kind of support me through that journey as well as, having support networks of entrepreneurs that are going through the exact same thing. so I'm definitely this Lance whereby it's not my employees. Burden to take it is my burden to take. And, unfortunate enough that he'd put me in the position where they trust me to lead, and subsequently means that I should take on that burden and not let them have to worry about the potential cashflow issues that we might have.
[00:20:36] Hector: Yeah, that's interesting. And I think, it's probably the better option because the last thing you want is for all of your employees to be scouring the jobs market, looking for new jobs, and then you're left with an empty shell of a company. but it's super interesting to hear about all of this stuff. And before we, before we move on to kind of the next section yeah. Shots to, to talk about the sort of biggest breakthroughs, rather than things [00:21:00] that, big, huge problems have there been moments where you've thought kind of aha moments and, when you suddenly felt the business is really hitting it straight.
[00:21:09] Darren Tenkorang: Yeah. I think it's his sister, the franchise motors. I mean, to put things into perspective about a year ago, we were doing about 45 K monthly recurring revenue. This month, we did 300. So the jump is, a lot. and when you really do get put on market fit, you see it all over the company from a place of things that are getting chaotic to also plays from looking at your bottom line, and then you're making a lot more money kind of thing. So, a hurricane moment I suppose, was where. We started to see such an influx of barbers, one in our product. and that, that was pretty cool.
[00:21:44] Hector: Yeah. I can imagine that must be a brilliant moment. so the, the final part of the podcast, which we always like to do is ask our guests who they would invite to a business lunch. We would love to hear who you'd have.
[00:21:58] Darren Tenkorang: so there's two [00:22:00] particular people that if I was to sit right in front of them, I'd be an absolute, or I'll be straight. so you got, JZ and you got Peter D as well. I think there's like a famous, a famous bar from JZ and he said something along the lines of, I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man. and this guy's like Daisy to me, he's, he's, he's incredible. He, in his own respect as an individual, he is a business. He's a, and he's been able to find that sweet connection between being commercially driven, having corporate, cultural relevance, and being really financially literate. so he's a massive inspiration and I think PDD as well, like he, again, both of them in the music and yeah. and they're the same type of vibe. and then I suppose the third person would have to then be my mother because she needs to hold my hand while I'm talking to these guys as well. So, I think those, those three people would, create an environment, which, I'd drive in or potentially not even driving, but at least I'll be in all comfortably.
[00:22:56] Hector: That would be a, an amazing, an amazing dinner or lunch. [00:23:00] And, I'm sure your mum is very grateful for being invited along. Yeah.
[00:23:03] Darren Tenkorang: I mean, she's just there to support.
[00:23:07] Hector: Awesome. Well, we've loved having you on the show. It's been absolutely brilliant to hear about, your journey and the difficulty is, you know, a really scrappy start to what's now a, a really exciting and successful business. that feels like it's kind of just at the start of that. and even more exciting journey over the next few years. so I can't wait to track it and I'm sure my listeners have loved hearing your story and we'll hopefully go off and book themselves a haircut, by the way, what's the quickest and easiest way to do that.
[00:23:37] Darren Tenkorang: Quickest way to book ahead is to download that. So you can do that on the app store or the Google play, literally booking the heck up, going your location, and we will come directly to you.
[00:23:48] Hector: before we go, the other thing is, are you hiring? Cause this could be a useful time to, um, yeah.
[00:23:54] Darren Tenkorang: we are hiring in fact, so we're hiring, several operations executives. so those are people that will [00:24:00] essentially help manage our, franchise fleet. Also, we, uh, potentially hiring a COO and a CFO. and this is a head of RA. So we, we plan on closing our res roughly in about like the end of October, and that's when we're going to go into quite a big hire and spree, we're still hiring rather puts as well. So, irrespective of, the raise we were hiring the better.
[00:24:23] Hector: Awesome. Darren, thanks so much and stay in touch.
[00:24:27] Darren Tenkorang: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:24:29] James: Thanks, Darren.
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