Courtney Caldwell is the COO and co-founder of ShearShare, a “Hairbnb” startup that helps salon owners rent out their spaces to beauty industry professionals. Courtney talks about how she and her husband, who owns a successful salon, came up with the idea for the business after he started renting out empty space in a salon to make extra money. She talks about how she used the platform to build a network of salon owners. She now works in over 10 countries.

In our conversation with Courtney, we talk about:

• Space as a service, and how ShearShare works
• Why beauty industry professionals are increasingly becoming solopreneurs
• Other industries where ShearShare model applies
• How the idea for ShearShare was born
• Bias against married co-founders in the VC community
• Bootstrapping Shearshare
• Going through 500 Startups batch 19, and getting the first check from an investor
• Racial and gender inequities in venture capital
• In’s and out’s of the salon and barbershop business
• Next steps for ShearShare
• Future of the beauty industry
• Interesting companies to watch in the space
• What is ShearShare looking at when hiring new employees

Follow Courtney 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/cdcaldwell/

ShearShare 👉 https://shearshare.com/

Follow Greg 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/miaskiewicz/

Subscribe to our YouTube channel 👉 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmPH9V1NmTSFa0pYotiPVKQ