BY: JADE LEONARD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY: LEAHRAE MARTIN
PSA!!! Patting your head after getting braids isn’t supposed to be a thing! And Sha’Ron is here to spread the word. Wife and mother of 3, Sha’Ron is a Riverside, California native and has braided hair FOREVER. She’s someone who was in corporate America for 16 years and always knew she wanted to be an entrepreneur but was scared to step out because it’s not a guaranteed paycheck. She would braid a client every day after work and do hair on the weekends. People would ask if she was tired or if she needed a break, but doing hair was her break. When she’s braiding and creating, “I don’t feel like I’m working”. Being artistic, her mind was always flowing but always stuck with work. She would sell this and that on the side just to test the waters of entrepreneurship, but she was always scared to “just do it”. Finally, things came to a turning point, “My daughter was having a Christmas program at school and I had to work. I requested the time off and I was denied, so I called out and went to my daughter’s event. When I came back, I was called into the office. And I’m like yea, enough is enough. I can’t do this anymore.”
Eventually she realized something had to give. Leaving that comfortability was emotional, “I cried”, she laughs. Fast forward, the year before she left, she went out on leave then COVID hit, and her job was brow-beating her to come back because they were scrambling for employees. Constantly getting told we need you back, when are you coming back to work? She talked it over with her husband, “I was like you know what? I’m gonna dot it! And he said you know what? Go for it!”. She typed up the resignation letter and took 4 days to send it. “I was so scared because I’m giving up my 401k, I’m giving everything for this “dream”. As soon as she hit send she cried, “It was nerve-wracking but it was so worth it". Sha’Ron stepped out on faith and is now SO happy. Stepping out on faith and listening to God can take you a long way! What started as a concept in December 2019, became an official brand in November 2020… Precision Hair. She’s meticulous and her parts must be precise, so when she came out with the hairline, she wanted it to be precise. And it just hit her…
"I prayed saying, “God give me a sign… send me clientele if this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Clients started rolling in…. then I had to say, “Wait, no God, give me another sign. He was dropping hints everywhere and I kept ignoring them… I went from 50 clients to 440”.
Having Hubby’s support through it all:
"My husband is a paycheck, I need guaranteed money type of guy so, it meant a lot because, I thought he was gonna say no, we need this paycheck. I had already been so successful with my braiding clients, so he saw I had the clientele, saw I had the ball rolling. He was confident that my clientele would fall in line when it came to my product. So for his support, it was everything to me.”
The UpNext: How did you raise funding for your venture?
Sha'Ron Taft: “I didn’t… I used my savings. When I first got the idea in Dec 2019, I went to the store, bought a journal, and just wrote everything down, day in and day out. It was the pandemic, I was out on leave, I had time. So I told myself, on page 2, I would not stop until I made 2 to 3 major contacts a day, whether through email, DM, following a page, or researching. I told myself I’m going to take 20% of what I make from hair braiding and set it aside”.
The UN: Oh my lord! So where did you start to try and get a manufacturer?
ST: “Started google searching. I was so green; I had no clue. What I was doing; who to contact, but I figured it out quickly. With my clients, I noticed everyone’s itchy or breaking out, which is where the thought came from to do this. So I looked up kankelon hair; didn’t know what the process was like. I hit so many roadblocks. Thoughts of thinking maybe I bit off more than I could chew. I gave up after a couple of months. Thinking this is not something the average person can do, this is way above my pay grade; manufacturers would even say, “who are you?” or “we only deal with factories. We don’t deal with the public”.
Her full family had COVID. Her mother encountered a “near-death experience” with COVID, fighting for her life in the hospital on oxygen, as well as her husband that had complications with COVID. Her mother was hospitalizied for 20 days. All while still trying to answer emails & DMs; “with the new social media, you have to post every day, and I'm worrying, is my husband and mother going to live? and not neglect the business." It was a lot going on for 6 weeks. She had it but it was very mild, she was taking care of her husband and her kids. She slowed down but she didn’t let it stop her; she continued to get orders, and with orders came fulfillment. She disinfected her boxes, bagged them up, sat em’ on the porch and a family friend would take them to the post office.
The UN: What gave you the drive to push through with all the adverse situations surrounding you?
ST: "I feel like it was the idea that God gave me. My cousin said, “Wow, look at you, you’ve been practicing for this moment your whole life… This is your time”; “you’re shining”. It's always been in me to be an entrepreneur and start my own business. I’m very organized. Even when we used to play pretend as kids. I knew I couldn’t stop; it’s my baby; I put so much work into it. God gave me this little nugget, and I’m just seeing it blossom. I couldn’t let those flowers wither out that fast. After coming so far, I had to cross the finish line."
The UN: Why should more women buy your braiding hair?
ST: “Women should buy my hair because in this industry, products for African Americans are not dominated by us. We don’t have many black hair care products or black women with a haircare line. We have to outsource to [Asian] countries. My thought is, if it’s our market, our demographic, why not get it from one of us? Recycle our dollars. I’m big on supporting black businesses and women's businesses. Second, people are getting sores, their scalp is breaking down, blisters, and itching; people stopped wearing braids because of the hair. Precision hair is non-toxic, itch-free, and chemical-free; you don’t have to worry about the carcinogens that are so close to your brain. It's not too safe. Rock braids without itching and toxins.”
The UN: Why is chemical-free more expensive?
ST: “The coating that makes the hair shiny is what women have an allergy to. To strip the hair of the chemicals is an extra process that some manufacturers don’t want to deal with and they make us pay more for it.”
The UN: What’s the future of Precision Hair?
ST: “Readily available for black women from here to overseas. I want to be in all beauty supplies, and a name everyone knows. Especially for those who have a problem. I don’t want you to have to go online to purchase.”
In order to get the word out about the toxins in normal braiding hair, and switching to Precision Hair, is one of education. Even if you don’t have problems with itching or soring, the long-term side effects are unknown and potentially damaging, being it’s so close to the brain. People with problems should educate those without them and support a female black-owned business at the same time.
The UN: What do you want your daughters to learn through your experience as a black woman and a businesswoman?
ST: “I don’t want them to be pigeonholed in the “you have to's” like going to college, get a certain degree; the “steps we’ve been fed”. I want them to know if they don’t want to college, get a degree, or get a white-collar corporate job, it’s okay! You can start your business, follow your path in whatever makes you happy because being like us (their parents) and chasing the money, you’re not happy. I have no stress, no sitting in traffic, and no boss getting on my nerves.”
The UN: What’s something you know now you wish you knew then?
ST: “The reward is bigger than the fear... then I would’ve stepped out years ago. The freedom. The freedom to make my own schedule, be there for my children, being able to cook dinner for my husband at night, and it’s not just monetary. It’s bigger than questioning if people would buy it or like it at all.”
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