For Cozy Friedman, cofounder of SoCozy and chief executive officer of Cozy’s Cuts For Kids, building authentic relationships has been her top priority throughout her 22-year-old business.
“Although the brand has evolved and technology has evolved, the one thing that has not changed is that we have never stopped building relationships,” she said on how her children’s hair salon business evolved from her close relationships with customers.
While her success comes from filling white space in the hair-care industry, Friedman stressed that the anatomy of the big idea is made up from small ideas, which is how her salon business expanded into a hair-care line.
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“So how did we do it?” she asked the crowd when talking about the launch. “We knew our customers. We knew who they were, what they wanted, where they shopped and how they engaged with brands.”
To maintain these relationships, Friedman shifted her focus to digital in order to thoroughly engage her customer, who is the Millennial mom.
“Today, social media is the modern-day park bench,” she said, explaining that social media platforms are now where moms are talking and sharing advice. “We needed to make the decision to commit time, resources and energy to building a network of influencers.”
Through social media came another “small” idea: Real Men Braid Class. Because men are becoming more involved, Friedman noticed a growing number of men who wanted to learn how to style their daughters’ hair. Filling another white space, Friedman set up classes for these men and collaborated with others around the nation to expand the initiative.
When talking about thinking up the big idea, Friedman said: “you really can’t plan the big idea, instead what we do is you have a lot of small ideas, you see what actually works and you go for it and build from there.”