Meet RUKA: The Hair Brand Creating Personalised Extensions To Match Black Women’s Hair Textures

Though Harper received requests to open up salons in other cities, she refused to expand until a certain number of women in that community signed a petition. A shrewd operator, she was keenly aware of market testing.

Rather than digitally native, our belief is that today’s customers demand that brands reach them where they are — whether it is a hunter buying a Yeti cooler at Cabela’s, an Allbirds customer shopping at an outdoor mall, a Dolls Kill customer going to Coachella, or a college student buying Kylie Cosmetics on her phone between classes.

There's the potential for a community-driven, media-savvy insurgent to build an iconic brand and business off of these changes. Phluid is an interesting player right now, as is Machine A. I think there's room for plenty of others.