Hairdressing may be resilient for some people, but my eyes were opened in Singapore when I went to "K-Cuts" - which is as close to an automated hair-cut as you can get. Full haircut, in 10 minutes for S$10. Nobody speaks english, so talking isn't an option. They use vacuums to collect your hair. I hold up three fingers, point to the top of my head, two fingers, point to the side. That's the sum total of guidance.

And these places are busy - my guess is there will be an automated haircut place in <10 years, and they will pick up 90% of the business within 5 years.

People will always go to custom hair cut places, but I bet there are a lot of people who will be keen to pay a small amount of money to get a reasonable hair cut.

Your anecdote is good to keep in mind, I learned something. While I don't think the US has any auto-cut places (oh the liability!), we certainly have had infomercials selling vacuum haircutting machines for a while[0]. I'm not sure they've made a huge dent in the beauty industry to date.

Beauty is not an industry that a bit of tech pixie dust will magically transform. Haircuts aren't just a utility, they're a personal statement and a piece of one's identity. And as a previous poster indicated, it's also social and cultural. Plus the variety of people's hair and variety of desired cuts make it an incredibly complex and fine motor skill, one that robots will suck at for a very long time. And people rarely know exactly what they want when they go into a hair salon, so there's a service component there too. Beauty just isn't ripe for disruption because people and culture are so involved.

I think this is similar to the soylent discussions. Food-as-utility people think its great, but food has cultural value far beyond calorie intake. So its found its niche among products that already existed (sans tech pixie dust) - the nutritional shake market.

90% is an order of magnitude off in my opinion. But I agree that a place that offers reasonable hair cut for cheap is what many people would want, so I do look forward to your future where that is offered!

[0] http://www.flowbee.com/ http://www.haircut.com/ http://www.aircut.com/

I'm really interested in finding out - at $10/haircut/10 minutes - It's the sort of thing you can do casually every couple weeks without even thinking about it.

Definitely agree that there will be some people who absolutely will want to go to a hair salon - and, honestly, my 90% was just a thumb-in-the-wind estimate. You're probably right that it's high, but, never underestimate the desire for people to get a good deal.

I think your Soylent comparison is excellent - and is exactly the one I would make. People who see food in a utilitarian perspective see the value offered from soylent. Likewise, people who consider haircuts as the process required to rid themselves of the excess hair, will get a lot of value out of an automated hair cut establishment.

There's probably a market for very cheap, simple silent haircuts.

There is most definitely a market, and these guys are killing it in East Asia: http://www.qbhouse.com/

A better link is http://www.qbhouse.com/sg/about/ which kind of explains what it is. And as far as I can see it's all about cheap, efficient haircuts. I can't see how this is a thing! Of course, I'm not sure how Krispy Kreme got to be such a phenomena here either, so what do I know. But, the duration of my haircut never struck me as something I really needed to optimize.

Makes me happy I learned the trade of barbering in my dad's barbershop as a teenager. There is still a part of me that some day would like to unglue myself from the computer and return to the shop.

I understand your feelings. A part of me wants to unglue from the computer and be a baker.

I would definitely buy a robot hair cut if it was fast, cheap, and worked well.