New Shanghai Barbershop
Brutally Honest Advice from 10 Year Barbershop Owners
Get Actionable Insights to Grow Your Business
Transcript
New Shanghai Barbershop: When I showed up there, I was literally like sweeping floors and doing laundry for people that were 10 years younger than me that didn’t give a shit about like where I’d come from or what I had been doing, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’ll be honest, I was licking my wounds at that point.
Andrew: What advice do you guys have for aspiring barbers?
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you find someone, like if you can dream it up, then go and find someone who’s doing something in that capacity.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My thing was just like, if you’re good at something at what you do, then you can earn whatever you want.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like the sky’s the limit.
Andrew: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew: Focus on the skills.
Andrew: Let’s talk numbers.
New Shanghai Barbershop: All right.
Andrew: Pull out your clipboard calculator.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I really run on a clipboard.
Andrew: All right guys, tell me a bit about the business.
Andrew: What’s New Shanghai Barbershop about?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We haven’t fact checked it, but we’re probably one of Vancouver’s oldest barbershops.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, man, founded in 1963, but it’s been on this street now for over four decades, and we’ve had it for eight and a half years now.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Pushing on to 10 here pretty quick by the time we’re done.
Andrew: What kind of hairstyles do you guys specialize in?
Andrew: We do a little bit of everything here, but our main thing is just trying to figure out what the issues are with the clients and then just tackling the problems directly.
Andrew: So just asking like, what kind of problems do you have on a day to day basis?
Andrew: That will kind of like design the haircut on its own.
Andrew: You know what I mean?
New Shanghai Barbershop: You guys specialize in the hairstyle that fits best for that unique person.
Andrew: I think that’s the best way to put it.
Andrew: Yeah, good haircuts only.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Good haircuts only.
New Shanghai Barbershop: and maybe one of the oldest barbershops here in Vancouver.
New Shanghai Barbershop: They have really unique story and also in a unique location.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’re gonna keep going and we’ll dive deeper into the story.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But before we get into it, I have a small favor to ask.
Andrew: What’s happening?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Since we are at a barbershop, can I get a cut as we continue to have this conversation?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hell yeah, let’s do it.
Andrew: Okay, so I have a weird confession to make.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Okay.
Andrew: You’re probably one of the three or four people who’s ever like cut my hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Man’s got a low body count.
Andrew: ‘Cause my mom usually cuts my hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: She does a pretty good job, I’ll be honest with you.
Andrew: This is a very foreign situation for me, to say the least.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, you’re here today, so we’re gonna figure it out.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Now let’s do it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s go give your hair a quick wash.
New Shanghai Barbershop: When’s the last time you actually got your hair cut by someone else other than your mom?
Andrew: I don’t even know, man, five years ago.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Oh wow, okay.
Andrew: Before COVID for sure.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Before COVID?
Andrew: Definitely before COVID.
Andrew: I guess what got you into barbering?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It kind of happened by accident.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Actually probably since the age 10, I thought I was gonna become a cook.
Andrew: Oh.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I was obsessed with the Food Channel.
Andrew: Oh wow, okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And I think just the creativity side of the food and cooking is where I kind of really like about it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: As I got older, I realized like Asian parents want you to go to school.
Andrew: Right, not culinary school.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Not culinary school.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I studied general sciences for a couple of years.
Andrew: Cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And so I started looking into it and figured maybe nursing’s where I want to take it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: One day I see my friend and he had a great haircut.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I was like, “Oh, who cuts your hair?” And he’s like, “Oh, I cut my own hair.” I’m like, “Oh, what?” I asked him if he has ever cut anyone else’s hair before.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We were at his place cutting hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Honestly, one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And so I said to him, I’m like, “Would you be down to just cut my hair “and I’ll just start paying you?
New Shanghai Barbershop: “Like, are you okay with that?” He’s like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll I’m not even shitting you, this is how I literally became a barber.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: On my second haircut, he goes, “So I cut better when I’m stoned.” Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Keep in mind, he’s a huge stoner at the time.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And he gets really high, and I’m waiting for him, and we go inside, and then we go into my bathroom, and start cutting away.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And within like one or two minutes, he cuts my ear.
Andrew: Shit.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s when I decided to cut my own hair.
Andrew: Tony became obsessed and started watching YouTube videos to learn giving haircuts to friends and family Making sure not to cut their ears.
Andrew: He kept learning, and eventually, through a friend started working for a barbershop.
Andrew: That’s where everything clicked.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean right after I got the job.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Working there for a week just like shadowing barbers. I was like, holy fuck. This is what I want to do the rest of my life.
Andrew: Really?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I got a click like it clicked like I knew this is what I wanted to do. And that’s when I realized like one I get to help people and two I get to be creative. This is like the best of both worlds. And three, I actually have a life outside of work cause I’m not tired. Like man, this is the best job ever and it’s super chill.
Andrew: Mm-hmm
Andrew: Tony finds himself loving this new career as a barber and as if by fate at this exact barbershop is where he meets Justin.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’m going to the barbershop, right where Tony turns into the apprentice and what I recognize is all of a sudden there’s this like mute dude hanging out. And lo and behold right like there’s a few months that come by in between him starting apprenticing there and then me eventually starting apprenticing there. But long story short like I remember Tony showing up on the scene at the barbershop that I was going to to get my haircuts before I started cutting haircuts as well and then so Tony and I were part of the same apprenticeship team, if you will.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Shout out Rex, shout Scotty you know what’s up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I remember the day Justin came in and tried out for his his apprenticeship and to get the job you have to do a haircut. See if it’s if it’s someone that worth training. Usually when people try out, haircuts are shit. Like really really-
Andrew: Understandable
New Shanghai Barbershop: And one day I see Justin and he pulls off this sick haircut. I’m like what on earth, like who the fuck is this guy
New Shanghai Barbershop: Justin’s a decade older than I am.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But, what’s that?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hey man, I don’t know what you wanna say.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With age comes wisdom.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With age comes fly ass haircuts when you don’t even know how to cut ’em.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I don’t know, you know, there’s, it happens, it happens.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And you got nothing to lose.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you got a family, man, you’re trying to feed a family and you’re gonna start something from scratch and someone gives you an opportunity to do it, man, there’s no backing out.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like, you gotta go.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You gotta make this thing happen.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You got a kid, a newborn, and he was starting a new career, like from scratch.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hey, note to everybody, for real.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re in your 30s and you think to yourself, this is too late, and this probably applies to people in their 40s and their 50s or whatever, but I mean, specifically in your 30s, it’s not too late.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The real world isn’t gonna take you seriously until you’re 30 anyway, you know?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s like now you get to choose the skill set that you’ve put together over your past decade of adulting and then focus into something that’s gonna work out for you, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’re in such a big hurry in our 20s to figure out what we’re trying to do, but really, you don’t know what you’re gonna do and no one knows or is willing to take you seriously anyway.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So when you start in your 30s, now you’ve got an idea as what’s worked for you, what you kind of see and feel about how you wanna lead your life, and then from there, you can really make an educated decision to throw all caution to the wind and become a barber.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Well, yeah, the one thing that I definitely noticed and related to Justin really quickly was he was quite passionate about being good at something.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whereas I found a lot of the apprentices that start off, they were more focused on just making money.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My thing was just like, if you’re good at something at what you do, then you can earn whatever you want.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like the sky’s the limit.
Andrew: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew: Focus on the skills.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And one day I just had this cheesy idea of just like, man, I came up to Justin one day and I was like, hey, you share the same interests as me of just being good at something, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whereas everyone else is just so focused on money.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Do you wanna be barber partners?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And he’s like, yeah, I do.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And we just shook on it, it was the weirdest thing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then the next day he’s like, “I found some barbershops.” I’m like, “We don’t even have a barbershop.”-
Andrew: Let me just wind back a bit.
Andrew: Can you walk me through that moment?
Andrew: Tony comes up to you, “Hey, let’s be barbershop partners.” What led up to, “Hey, let’s open up, let’s get to New Shanghai Barbers now and open this up.” What was the story of getting this place?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Barbershop one, we were fortunate enough to have a wonderful apprenticeship experience there and cut our teeth in the game, get our original group of clients.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s just say there was a little bit of a wobble from the top so there wasn’t really stable leadership as we were moving forward and we were still looking to progress, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think what Tony mentioned is that he could identify in me that I also wanted to be good at something, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s something that we even tell guys who have worked along the way with us.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s like, this applies to a lot of things in life.
New Shanghai Barbershop: People don’t just get cool, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: They get good at something and therefore they become cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right? Like we all admire people who are amazing at something and therefore we also recognize them as being cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You can’t go set out to be cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You have to go set out to be good.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then if you are good, you will get the respect of like, you know, your peers, other people, et cetera.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So we were honestly just looking for more.
Andrew: They were young barbers eager to learn more and get the most out of everything they do.
Andrew: Tony and Justin moved on to work at a different barbershop, But similar to the first one, they grew fast and quickly reached their potential.
Andrew: And they soon realized that if they wanted more, they couldn’t keep working at barbershops.
Andrew: They had to start their own.
Andrew: And that was their next move.
New Shanghai Barbershop: What we started to do in our off time independently, but as we were cruising around in various neighborhoods and things, we were just starting to look at storefronts.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That is literally how we stumbled across this place.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like stumbled across.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My son and I, Tony had known about it, But my son and I independently, when he was like three, we walked past this place, which was, as we mentioned, inhabited by two dudes in their 80s, still in here cutting haircuts.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the thought crossed my mind, like this cannot last forever, you know?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like respect to these guys, but like they’re not gonna be able to do it forever.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like they’re old as dirt.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So it was like, you just got to knock on the door and say, hey, not trying to take over or not trying to push you guys out, but like, what is the likelihood that this is gonna go on forever?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And if it’s not, what are your guys’ plans for the space?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s sort of what was the segue to us being able to take over the space.
Andrew: Did you guys always have that drive to be better?
Andrew: Is that just who you are?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think it’s part of it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, that’s one of the reasons why Andy’s one of our partners.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because Andy’s like that too?
New Shanghai Barbershop: He has more drive than all of us at times.
New Shanghai Barbershop: This guy’s just built different.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hi guys.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I finally started talking.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, no, Andy reached out to me one day on Instagram and he was interested in learning how to cut hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then one day he just started showing up to all of our Monday meetings, and I was just like, okay, I guess this guy wants to be part of this.
Andrew: Why are you built different, Andy?
Andrew: Where did that come from?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Oh man, you know, growing up in an immigrant family, you know how it is, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Parents are from Vietnam, they escaped during the war.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Mom worked really hard supporting me growing up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Dad too, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: But Dad had some other issues dealing with, but yeah, that was the biggest thing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think she really motivated me to wanting for me to have a better life.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That’s why they all escaped during the tough times and everything.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And for me, seeing her working so hard like such a young age, like it wants me to like work hard as well, make her wanna retire early, or try to, especially in an expensive city, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And yeah, I just get from her really, being honest with you, and just seeing how she nourished me so much as a kid.
Andrew: What advice do you guys have for aspiring barbers?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Huh?
Andrew: You know, a young barber watching this, they’re like, “These guys are cool.
Andrew: “I wanna be cool.”
New Shanghai Barbershop: You better get good before you get cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Don’t be lazy.
Andrew: How do you get good?
New Shanghai Barbershop: ‘Cause if you get good, you’ll be cool.
Andrew: How do I get good, Justin?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s how it works, you get good, you be cool.
Andrew: How do I get good?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Practice. – Reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Reps, nothing but reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because anything, that applies to anything.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You cannot get good at it unless you put in the reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the thing is, is like, I mean, whatever they say about 10,000 hours to become a master.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I didn’t make that up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Neither did you guys.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like that’s, that’s just what it is.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You got to put that time in, man.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Just put in the reps.
Andrew: Just reach out to people like Andy did and just keep cutting hair.
Andrew: Keep learning.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It helps to have good leadership too and good guidance.
Andrew: Right.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Absolutely.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That again, once applies to any field.
Andrew: Well, how do, I guess that’s, that’s another question.
Andrew: How do you find the right mentor and leader?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I would say, not only in barbering, but I would say find someone who does something in a capacity that you would dream of doing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you find someone, like if you can dream it up, then go and find someone who’s doing something in that capacity, and then align yourself with them at all costs, and that would sometimes be called free.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right, like just like, I mean, I will literally sweep the floor just so long I can be here and I can see what’s going on so I can get a sense as to whether or not this is going to work for me.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then commonly I think that three things happen when you spend time with someone who is working in a capacity that you wish you weren’t.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number one, you don’t like it and you quit.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But that’s great because now you’ve done what you’ve done and you’ve decided it isn’t for you.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number two, you align well with this person and you can learn a lot from them and you move together and you move forward and you become an amazing team at whatever it is you’re trying to do.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Or number three, the old student that surpasses the sensei, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because I mean, look, Andy’s going to cut me off at the knees, take my money and take my shop away.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because he aligned in an environment that worked well for him, but on a haircutting level for sure, put in way more work in the time that he’s been here than what I have when it comes to just technical haircutting, for sure.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So it’s like, I would say for anybody that’s going to get into something, just dream big about what it is you want to do and then try to find somebody that does that.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Align yourself with them at all costs and then one of three things will happen for you.
Andrew: You mentioned earlier how it’s like it’s never too late, but you were, you said 30?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, when I like, when I was shopping around to become a barber, I was 34.
Andrew: Like how did that feel for you?
Andrew: Because it’s like, you know, people, society, they go, “Oh, 30, you’re supposed to have it figured out and have a stable job already.” But at that time you were trying to re-carve this new path.
Andrew: Did you have moments of like, “Oh shit,” like doubting yourself?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I guess being in a position now where I’m older than people who we will work with, I just realized, I think in a lot of fields, it’s like, the world’s not really ready to take people serious until they’re 30.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You really don’t know enough about your skill set.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And it’s like, if someone works out under 30, amazing for them and also amazing for the people they’re aligned with because it’s like, “Whoa, we took a chance on this kid and he worked out great.” By the time you’re in your 30s, especially if you go ahead and start a family or something, but you really got to channel your focus and your energy into something and make something of it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And you just do it with so much different levels of intent.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And family stuff aside, if you just know more about yourself, you get a sense of what’s going to be able to work better for you.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the other thing is pride, man.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Don’t be scared to put that pride in your back pocket.
New Shanghai Barbershop: When I showed up there, I was literally sweeping floors and doing laundry for people that were for 10 years younger than me, that didn’t give a shit about where I had come from or what I had been doing, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’ll be honest, I was licking my wounds at that point.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Sometimes you just gotta slow down to speed up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s hard not to be impatient with your path in life and you’ll always hit setbacks, but so long as you just have that resolve to continue to move forward, you’d be surprised.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You look back two years, five years later, like yeah, you’ve moved it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You moved the needle, it happens.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You just gotta trust the process.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s such a line that we hear all the time.
New Shanghai Barbershop: As long as you have that resolve to problem solve on the fly and work hard and you don’t get pushed off easily, you’ll be all right.
Andrew: Let’s talk numbers quickly.
New Shanghai Barbershop: All right.
Andrew: Pull out your clipboard calculator.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I really run on a clipboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I run on a clipboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’m like a bookie.
Andrew: How much money did you invest in to get this barbershop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We invested nickels and dimes and sweat equity like crazy the first time around.
New Shanghai Barbershop: everything from literally chiseling tiles off the floor to like taking out the drop ceiling ourselves.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like I got a bit of a trades background.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With this one, because we were younger and broker and had more enthusiasm and energy at the time, we just went at it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My rule of thumb would be have $100,000 ready to go.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It didn’t cost us $100,000.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But I think when you move into a space and you’re looking at like, you know, making that work for your use.
New Shanghai Barbershop: A build out on a barber shop, if you’re thrifty, know a few people and don’t go overboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You can probably do in six figures.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The easiest one, guys, if anybody wants to set up a barber shop, find another barber shop.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Take over that barber shop because a lot of the use case is already in place with the city, so you’re gonna be able to jump through a few more hurdles.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That helped us tremendously here.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Long story short, get about $100,000 together If you want to make it easy on yourself, choose a property that’s already licensed for the same use that you intend, regardless of what business you’re getting into.
Andrew: What are monthly expenses like for a barbershop like yours or in general?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number one concern has got to be lease rate.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whatever it is you’re paying per month is the first thing that you’ve got to look at.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That and salaries, although every shop will do that differently.
New Shanghai Barbershop: In our situation, we do base plus commission, and then we just have tiers within our staffing structure so that for our staff members, number one, we wanna make sure that everybody’s covered.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you have a slow week, we don’t want you going on to the Kraft dinner diet.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Our mindset is that we’re taking care of the group, and that the group takes care of one another too.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So although it’s not a thick check, it’s important for us that you definitely have your baseline covered.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s important for people when they have their security covered, then they can start to push forward and explore and grow and chase down other things.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re simply worried about survival, your opportunity to move forward and work on other things and develop other things is so limited.
Andrew: If you have a number-wise, what kind of is that number for the monthly?
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you had a normal, very, very broad statement here, but if you had a smaller shop with an attractive lease rate and four barbers working pretty full tilt, you could probably have your baseline overhead running around $20,000 a month.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’ll see what happens in the comments, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: When people jump on and say like, yo, that’s not true.
Andrew: Revenue wise, what can you expect monthly for a barber shop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Again, maybe saying like four chairs, you should very, very easily be between, and this is a broad scope, but between $250,000 and $500,000 annually, depending on how you structured things.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The top number would be up there for the record, but you would easily clear through like a quarter mil if you were doing things properly, taking care of everybody, paying the government as you should if your lease rate wasn’t unbelievably tough to take.
Andrew: Profit margin, what can we roughly expect percentage-wise for a barbershop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: You’d always want to be gunning at like 20%.
Andrew: At least, yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like just as your stumble along number.
Andrew: Yeah, fair enough.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So what does that look like if you blow, let’s just say if we go back to our original total and we’re at $20,000 a month going out, you would probably hope to somehow find three to $5,000 a month sitting there waiting for you to reinvest or continue moving the business forward.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, as a baseline function, if you weren’t making your 20% margin, you’d wanna sharpen your pencil.
Andrew: Where do you see new Shanghai Barber Shop in the next five years?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, our dream has sort of always been to have three or four shops that operate in different corners of the city that operate, not necessarily under the same nameplate, but under the same umbrella for quality of service and standard of service and what you expect.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So, you know, it’s like maybe like not everybody wants to come all the way down to Chinatown, but when you find out that the same people, right, I mean, it’s like this with other restaurants and things like that, you find out that a group oversees this title or that title and you know that you’re going to get the same level of service or level of experience when you’re at those venues, but that each one of those venues really has a place in the community that they’re situated.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Instead of just being sort of like a franchise model that you put that in all these communities but under its own identity, I think what’s really important to us is that we’re really interwoven into what’s going on in those communities.
Andrew: All right, we’ll see in the next five years.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah.
Andrew: One last question to wrap up this show.
Andrew: I have a tradition where I will ask business owners the previous question that was asked by the-
New Shanghai Barbershop: The previous business owner.
Andrew: Exactly, there you go.
Andrew: So let me get my laptop and I’ll play that question for you guys right now.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s do it.
Andrew: All right, so this is the question from the previous business owner to you guys.
Andrew: Let’s play it for you here.
Andrew: What question do you have for the next business owner?
ClipCut: If the world was a perfect place for entrepreneurs, what do you think it would look like?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Damn, if the world was a perfect place for entrepreneurs, what would it look like?
Andrew: That’s the question.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s a place with a lot of problems.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The perfect place?
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: ‘Cause I mean, that’s what business is about, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Solving issues, solving problems.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: A lot of problems then yeah, it’d be a perfect place for an entrepreneur.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It might not look like 439 Columbia Street, I’ll tell you that much.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think it depends a little bit on what industry you’re in.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re selling a… the change to e-commerce has been somewhat detrimental to some elements of entrepreneurship, although obviously a really wide like access point for a lot.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I guess we’re sort of entrenched in something that because we just work with humans.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right. So that’s a little different capacity.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, hey, for us exclusively, if brick and mortar came back, that would be the ultimate for entrepreneurship, because if everybody still had to leave their homes to transact, that would be rad, as far as I can tell.
Andrew: What question do you guys have?
Andrew: For the next business owner on this show.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I wanna know if you were sitting on the seesaw and you were looking at possibly scaling your business and then you went for it, did that work out well and would you do it again or did you eat shit and you would stay put?
Andrew: There you go.
Andrew: That’s the question.
Andrew: And that’s the interview.
Andrew: Thank you, Tony.
Andrew: Thank you, Andy.
Andrew: Thank you, Justin.
Andrew: Huge pleasure.
Andrew: And there you go.
Andrew: That’s it.
Andrew: Look at this cut.
Andrew: Look at how clean it is.
Andrew: Thanks to Tony.
Andrew: So if you want clean cuts, come to, you know where it is.
Andrew: If you know, you know.
Andrew: New Shanghai Barbershop.
Andrew: This is where it is.
Andrew: If you found this video enjoyable and valuable, give it a like.
Andrew: Comment down below.
Andrew: Any questions you have for them or me.
Andrew: And you already know, but hit the subscribe button because we’ll have more interviews coming soon.
Andrew: See you in the next one.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That forearm must be strong.
Samson: Strong for other reasons.
(laughing)
Key Moments
Key Moments
Transcript
New Shanghai Barbershop: When I showed up there, I was literally like sweeping floors and doing laundry for people that were 10 years younger than me that didn’t give a shit about like where I’d come from or what I had been doing, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’ll be honest, I was licking my wounds at that point.
Andrew: What advice do you guys have for aspiring barbers?
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you find someone, like if you can dream it up, then go and find someone who’s doing something in that capacity.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My thing was just like, if you’re good at something at what you do, then you can earn whatever you want.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like the sky’s the limit.
Andrew: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew: Focus on the skills.
Andrew: Let’s talk numbers.
New Shanghai Barbershop: All right.
Andrew: Pull out your clipboard calculator.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I really run on a clipboard.
Andrew: All right guys, tell me a bit about the business.
Andrew: What’s New Shanghai Barbershop about?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We haven’t fact checked it, but we’re probably one of Vancouver’s oldest barbershops.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, man, founded in 1963, but it’s been on this street now for over four decades, and we’ve had it for eight and a half years now.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Pushing on to 10 here pretty quick by the time we’re done.
Andrew: What kind of hairstyles do you guys specialize in?
Andrew: We do a little bit of everything here, but our main thing is just trying to figure out what the issues are with the clients and then just tackling the problems directly.
Andrew: So just asking like, what kind of problems do you have on a day to day basis?
Andrew: That will kind of like design the haircut on its own.
Andrew: You know what I mean?
New Shanghai Barbershop: You guys specialize in the hairstyle that fits best for that unique person.
Andrew: I think that’s the best way to put it.
Andrew: Yeah, good haircuts only.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Good haircuts only.
New Shanghai Barbershop: and maybe one of the oldest barbershops here in Vancouver.
New Shanghai Barbershop: They have really unique story and also in a unique location.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’re gonna keep going and we’ll dive deeper into the story.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But before we get into it, I have a small favor to ask.
Andrew: What’s happening?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Since we are at a barbershop, can I get a cut as we continue to have this conversation?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hell yeah, let’s do it.
Andrew: Okay, so I have a weird confession to make.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Okay.
Andrew: You’re probably one of the three or four people who’s ever like cut my hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Man’s got a low body count.
Andrew: ‘Cause my mom usually cuts my hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: She does a pretty good job, I’ll be honest with you.
Andrew: This is a very foreign situation for me, to say the least.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, you’re here today, so we’re gonna figure it out.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Now let’s do it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s go give your hair a quick wash.
New Shanghai Barbershop: When’s the last time you actually got your hair cut by someone else other than your mom?
Andrew: I don’t even know, man, five years ago.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Oh wow, okay.
Andrew: Before COVID for sure.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Before COVID?
Andrew: Definitely before COVID.
Andrew: I guess what got you into barbering?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It kind of happened by accident.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Actually probably since the age 10, I thought I was gonna become a cook.
Andrew: Oh.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I was obsessed with the Food Channel.
Andrew: Oh wow, okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And I think just the creativity side of the food and cooking is where I kind of really like about it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: As I got older, I realized like Asian parents want you to go to school.
Andrew: Right, not culinary school.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Not culinary school.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I studied general sciences for a couple of years.
Andrew: Cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And so I started looking into it and figured maybe nursing’s where I want to take it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: One day I see my friend and he had a great haircut.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I was like, “Oh, who cuts your hair?” And he’s like, “Oh, I cut my own hair.” I’m like, “Oh, what?” I asked him if he has ever cut anyone else’s hair before.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We were at his place cutting hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Honestly, one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And so I said to him, I’m like, “Would you be down to just cut my hair “and I’ll just start paying you?
New Shanghai Barbershop: “Like, are you okay with that?” He’s like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll I’m not even shitting you, this is how I literally became a barber.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: On my second haircut, he goes, “So I cut better when I’m stoned.” Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Keep in mind, he’s a huge stoner at the time.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And he gets really high, and I’m waiting for him, and we go inside, and then we go into my bathroom, and start cutting away.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And within like one or two minutes, he cuts my ear.
Andrew: Shit.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s when I decided to cut my own hair.
Andrew: Tony became obsessed and started watching YouTube videos to learn giving haircuts to friends and family Making sure not to cut their ears.
Andrew: He kept learning, and eventually, through a friend started working for a barbershop.
Andrew: That’s where everything clicked.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean right after I got the job.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Working there for a week just like shadowing barbers. I was like, holy fuck. This is what I want to do the rest of my life.
Andrew: Really?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I got a click like it clicked like I knew this is what I wanted to do. And that’s when I realized like one I get to help people and two I get to be creative. This is like the best of both worlds. And three, I actually have a life outside of work cause I’m not tired. Like man, this is the best job ever and it’s super chill.
Andrew: Mm-hmm
Andrew: Tony finds himself loving this new career as a barber and as if by fate at this exact barbershop is where he meets Justin.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’m going to the barbershop, right where Tony turns into the apprentice and what I recognize is all of a sudden there’s this like mute dude hanging out. And lo and behold right like there’s a few months that come by in between him starting apprenticing there and then me eventually starting apprenticing there. But long story short like I remember Tony showing up on the scene at the barbershop that I was going to to get my haircuts before I started cutting haircuts as well and then so Tony and I were part of the same apprenticeship team, if you will.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Shout out Rex, shout Scotty you know what’s up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I remember the day Justin came in and tried out for his his apprenticeship and to get the job you have to do a haircut. See if it’s if it’s someone that worth training. Usually when people try out, haircuts are shit. Like really really-
Andrew: Understandable
New Shanghai Barbershop: And one day I see Justin and he pulls off this sick haircut. I’m like what on earth, like who the fuck is this guy
New Shanghai Barbershop: Justin’s a decade older than I am.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But, what’s that?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hey man, I don’t know what you wanna say.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With age comes wisdom.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With age comes fly ass haircuts when you don’t even know how to cut ’em.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I don’t know, you know, there’s, it happens, it happens.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And you got nothing to lose.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you got a family, man, you’re trying to feed a family and you’re gonna start something from scratch and someone gives you an opportunity to do it, man, there’s no backing out.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like, you gotta go.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You gotta make this thing happen.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You got a kid, a newborn, and he was starting a new career, like from scratch.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hey, note to everybody, for real.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re in your 30s and you think to yourself, this is too late, and this probably applies to people in their 40s and their 50s or whatever, but I mean, specifically in your 30s, it’s not too late.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The real world isn’t gonna take you seriously until you’re 30 anyway, you know?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s like now you get to choose the skill set that you’ve put together over your past decade of adulting and then focus into something that’s gonna work out for you, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’re in such a big hurry in our 20s to figure out what we’re trying to do, but really, you don’t know what you’re gonna do and no one knows or is willing to take you seriously anyway.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So when you start in your 30s, now you’ve got an idea as what’s worked for you, what you kind of see and feel about how you wanna lead your life, and then from there, you can really make an educated decision to throw all caution to the wind and become a barber.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Well, yeah, the one thing that I definitely noticed and related to Justin really quickly was he was quite passionate about being good at something.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whereas I found a lot of the apprentices that start off, they were more focused on just making money.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My thing was just like, if you’re good at something at what you do, then you can earn whatever you want.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like the sky’s the limit.
Andrew: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew: Focus on the skills.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And one day I just had this cheesy idea of just like, man, I came up to Justin one day and I was like, hey, you share the same interests as me of just being good at something, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whereas everyone else is just so focused on money.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Do you wanna be barber partners?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And he’s like, yeah, I do.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And we just shook on it, it was the weirdest thing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then the next day he’s like, “I found some barbershops.” I’m like, “We don’t even have a barbershop.”-
Andrew: Let me just wind back a bit.
Andrew: Can you walk me through that moment?
Andrew: Tony comes up to you, “Hey, let’s be barbershop partners.” What led up to, “Hey, let’s open up, let’s get to New Shanghai Barbers now and open this up.” What was the story of getting this place?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Barbershop one, we were fortunate enough to have a wonderful apprenticeship experience there and cut our teeth in the game, get our original group of clients.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s just say there was a little bit of a wobble from the top so there wasn’t really stable leadership as we were moving forward and we were still looking to progress, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think what Tony mentioned is that he could identify in me that I also wanted to be good at something, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s something that we even tell guys who have worked along the way with us.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s like, this applies to a lot of things in life.
New Shanghai Barbershop: People don’t just get cool, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: They get good at something and therefore they become cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right? Like we all admire people who are amazing at something and therefore we also recognize them as being cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You can’t go set out to be cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You have to go set out to be good.
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then if you are good, you will get the respect of like, you know, your peers, other people, et cetera.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So we were honestly just looking for more.
Andrew: They were young barbers eager to learn more and get the most out of everything they do.
Andrew: Tony and Justin moved on to work at a different barbershop, But similar to the first one, they grew fast and quickly reached their potential.
Andrew: And they soon realized that if they wanted more, they couldn’t keep working at barbershops.
Andrew: They had to start their own.
Andrew: And that was their next move.
New Shanghai Barbershop: What we started to do in our off time independently, but as we were cruising around in various neighborhoods and things, we were just starting to look at storefronts.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That is literally how we stumbled across this place.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like stumbled across.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My son and I, Tony had known about it, But my son and I independently, when he was like three, we walked past this place, which was, as we mentioned, inhabited by two dudes in their 80s, still in here cutting haircuts.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the thought crossed my mind, like this cannot last forever, you know?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like respect to these guys, but like they’re not gonna be able to do it forever.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like they’re old as dirt.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So it was like, you just got to knock on the door and say, hey, not trying to take over or not trying to push you guys out, but like, what is the likelihood that this is gonna go on forever?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And if it’s not, what are your guys’ plans for the space?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And that’s sort of what was the segue to us being able to take over the space.
Andrew: Did you guys always have that drive to be better?
Andrew: Is that just who you are?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think it’s part of it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, that’s one of the reasons why Andy’s one of our partners.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because Andy’s like that too?
New Shanghai Barbershop: He has more drive than all of us at times.
New Shanghai Barbershop: This guy’s just built different.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Hi guys.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I finally started talking.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, no, Andy reached out to me one day on Instagram and he was interested in learning how to cut hair.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then one day he just started showing up to all of our Monday meetings, and I was just like, okay, I guess this guy wants to be part of this.
Andrew: Why are you built different, Andy?
Andrew: Where did that come from?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Oh man, you know, growing up in an immigrant family, you know how it is, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Parents are from Vietnam, they escaped during the war.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Mom worked really hard supporting me growing up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Dad too, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: But Dad had some other issues dealing with, but yeah, that was the biggest thing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think she really motivated me to wanting for me to have a better life.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That’s why they all escaped during the tough times and everything.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And for me, seeing her working so hard like such a young age, like it wants me to like work hard as well, make her wanna retire early, or try to, especially in an expensive city, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And yeah, I just get from her really, being honest with you, and just seeing how she nourished me so much as a kid.
Andrew: What advice do you guys have for aspiring barbers?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Huh?
Andrew: You know, a young barber watching this, they’re like, “These guys are cool.
Andrew: “I wanna be cool.”
New Shanghai Barbershop: You better get good before you get cool.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Don’t be lazy.
Andrew: How do you get good?
New Shanghai Barbershop: ‘Cause if you get good, you’ll be cool.
Andrew: How do I get good, Justin?
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s how it works, you get good, you be cool.
Andrew: How do I get good?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Practice. – Reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Reps, nothing but reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because anything, that applies to anything.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You cannot get good at it unless you put in the reps.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the thing is, is like, I mean, whatever they say about 10,000 hours to become a master.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I didn’t make that up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Neither did you guys.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like that’s, that’s just what it is.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You got to put that time in, man.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Just put in the reps.
Andrew: Just reach out to people like Andy did and just keep cutting hair.
Andrew: Keep learning.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It helps to have good leadership too and good guidance.
Andrew: Right.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Absolutely.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That again, once applies to any field.
Andrew: Well, how do, I guess that’s, that’s another question.
Andrew: How do you find the right mentor and leader?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I would say, not only in barbering, but I would say find someone who does something in a capacity that you would dream of doing.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you find someone, like if you can dream it up, then go and find someone who’s doing something in that capacity, and then align yourself with them at all costs, and that would sometimes be called free.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right, like just like, I mean, I will literally sweep the floor just so long I can be here and I can see what’s going on so I can get a sense as to whether or not this is going to work for me.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And then commonly I think that three things happen when you spend time with someone who is working in a capacity that you wish you weren’t.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number one, you don’t like it and you quit.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But that’s great because now you’ve done what you’ve done and you’ve decided it isn’t for you.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number two, you align well with this person and you can learn a lot from them and you move together and you move forward and you become an amazing team at whatever it is you’re trying to do.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Or number three, the old student that surpasses the sensei, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because I mean, look, Andy’s going to cut me off at the knees, take my money and take my shop away.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Because he aligned in an environment that worked well for him, but on a haircutting level for sure, put in way more work in the time that he’s been here than what I have when it comes to just technical haircutting, for sure.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So it’s like, I would say for anybody that’s going to get into something, just dream big about what it is you want to do and then try to find somebody that does that.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Align yourself with them at all costs and then one of three things will happen for you.
Andrew: You mentioned earlier how it’s like it’s never too late, but you were, you said 30?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah, when I like, when I was shopping around to become a barber, I was 34.
Andrew: Like how did that feel for you?
Andrew: Because it’s like, you know, people, society, they go, “Oh, 30, you’re supposed to have it figured out and have a stable job already.” But at that time you were trying to re-carve this new path.
Andrew: Did you have moments of like, “Oh shit,” like doubting yourself?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I guess being in a position now where I’m older than people who we will work with, I just realized, I think in a lot of fields, it’s like, the world’s not really ready to take people serious until they’re 30.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You really don’t know enough about your skill set.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And it’s like, if someone works out under 30, amazing for them and also amazing for the people they’re aligned with because it’s like, “Whoa, we took a chance on this kid and he worked out great.” By the time you’re in your 30s, especially if you go ahead and start a family or something, but you really got to channel your focus and your energy into something and make something of it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And you just do it with so much different levels of intent.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And family stuff aside, if you just know more about yourself, you get a sense of what’s going to be able to work better for you.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And the other thing is pride, man.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Don’t be scared to put that pride in your back pocket.
New Shanghai Barbershop: When I showed up there, I was literally sweeping floors and doing laundry for people that were for 10 years younger than me, that didn’t give a shit about where I had come from or what I had been doing, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’ll be honest, I was licking my wounds at that point.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Sometimes you just gotta slow down to speed up.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s hard not to be impatient with your path in life and you’ll always hit setbacks, but so long as you just have that resolve to continue to move forward, you’d be surprised.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You look back two years, five years later, like yeah, you’ve moved it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You moved the needle, it happens.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You just gotta trust the process.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s such a line that we hear all the time.
New Shanghai Barbershop: As long as you have that resolve to problem solve on the fly and work hard and you don’t get pushed off easily, you’ll be all right.
Andrew: Let’s talk numbers quickly.
New Shanghai Barbershop: All right.
Andrew: Pull out your clipboard calculator.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I really run on a clipboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I run on a clipboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I’m like a bookie.
Andrew: How much money did you invest in to get this barbershop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: We invested nickels and dimes and sweat equity like crazy the first time around.
New Shanghai Barbershop: everything from literally chiseling tiles off the floor to like taking out the drop ceiling ourselves.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like I got a bit of a trades background.
New Shanghai Barbershop: With this one, because we were younger and broker and had more enthusiasm and energy at the time, we just went at it.
New Shanghai Barbershop: My rule of thumb would be have $100,000 ready to go.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It didn’t cost us $100,000.
New Shanghai Barbershop: But I think when you move into a space and you’re looking at like, you know, making that work for your use.
New Shanghai Barbershop: A build out on a barber shop, if you’re thrifty, know a few people and don’t go overboard.
New Shanghai Barbershop: You can probably do in six figures.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The easiest one, guys, if anybody wants to set up a barber shop, find another barber shop.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Take over that barber shop because a lot of the use case is already in place with the city, so you’re gonna be able to jump through a few more hurdles.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That helped us tremendously here.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Long story short, get about $100,000 together If you want to make it easy on yourself, choose a property that’s already licensed for the same use that you intend, regardless of what business you’re getting into.
Andrew: What are monthly expenses like for a barbershop like yours or in general?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Number one concern has got to be lease rate.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Whatever it is you’re paying per month is the first thing that you’ve got to look at.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That and salaries, although every shop will do that differently.
New Shanghai Barbershop: In our situation, we do base plus commission, and then we just have tiers within our staffing structure so that for our staff members, number one, we wanna make sure that everybody’s covered.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you have a slow week, we don’t want you going on to the Kraft dinner diet.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Our mindset is that we’re taking care of the group, and that the group takes care of one another too.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So although it’s not a thick check, it’s important for us that you definitely have your baseline covered.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s important for people when they have their security covered, then they can start to push forward and explore and grow and chase down other things.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re simply worried about survival, your opportunity to move forward and work on other things and develop other things is so limited.
Andrew: If you have a number-wise, what kind of is that number for the monthly?
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you had a normal, very, very broad statement here, but if you had a smaller shop with an attractive lease rate and four barbers working pretty full tilt, you could probably have your baseline overhead running around $20,000 a month.
Andrew: Okay.
New Shanghai Barbershop: We’ll see what happens in the comments, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: When people jump on and say like, yo, that’s not true.
Andrew: Revenue wise, what can you expect monthly for a barber shop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Again, maybe saying like four chairs, you should very, very easily be between, and this is a broad scope, but between $250,000 and $500,000 annually, depending on how you structured things.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The top number would be up there for the record, but you would easily clear through like a quarter mil if you were doing things properly, taking care of everybody, paying the government as you should if your lease rate wasn’t unbelievably tough to take.
Andrew: Profit margin, what can we roughly expect percentage-wise for a barbershop?
New Shanghai Barbershop: You’d always want to be gunning at like 20%.
Andrew: At least, yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Like just as your stumble along number.
Andrew: Yeah, fair enough.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So what does that look like if you blow, let’s just say if we go back to our original total and we’re at $20,000 a month going out, you would probably hope to somehow find three to $5,000 a month sitting there waiting for you to reinvest or continue moving the business forward.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, as a baseline function, if you weren’t making your 20% margin, you’d wanna sharpen your pencil.
Andrew: Where do you see new Shanghai Barber Shop in the next five years?
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, our dream has sort of always been to have three or four shops that operate in different corners of the city that operate, not necessarily under the same nameplate, but under the same umbrella for quality of service and standard of service and what you expect.
New Shanghai Barbershop: So, you know, it’s like maybe like not everybody wants to come all the way down to Chinatown, but when you find out that the same people, right, I mean, it’s like this with other restaurants and things like that, you find out that a group oversees this title or that title and you know that you’re going to get the same level of service or level of experience when you’re at those venues, but that each one of those venues really has a place in the community that they’re situated.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Instead of just being sort of like a franchise model that you put that in all these communities but under its own identity, I think what’s really important to us is that we’re really interwoven into what’s going on in those communities.
Andrew: All right, we’ll see in the next five years.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Yeah.
Andrew: One last question to wrap up this show.
Andrew: I have a tradition where I will ask business owners the previous question that was asked by the-
New Shanghai Barbershop: The previous business owner.
Andrew: Exactly, there you go.
Andrew: So let me get my laptop and I’ll play that question for you guys right now.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Let’s do it.
Andrew: All right, so this is the question from the previous business owner to you guys.
Andrew: Let’s play it for you here.
Andrew: What question do you have for the next business owner?
ClipCut: If the world was a perfect place for entrepreneurs, what do you think it would look like?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Damn, if the world was a perfect place for entrepreneurs, what would it look like?
Andrew: That’s the question.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It’s a place with a lot of problems.
New Shanghai Barbershop: The perfect place?
Andrew: Yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: ‘Cause I mean, that’s what business is about, right?
New Shanghai Barbershop: Solving issues, solving problems.
New Shanghai Barbershop: And yeah.
New Shanghai Barbershop: A lot of problems then yeah, it’d be a perfect place for an entrepreneur.
New Shanghai Barbershop: It might not look like 439 Columbia Street, I’ll tell you that much.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I think it depends a little bit on what industry you’re in.
New Shanghai Barbershop: If you’re selling a… the change to e-commerce has been somewhat detrimental to some elements of entrepreneurship, although obviously a really wide like access point for a lot.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I guess we’re sort of entrenched in something that because we just work with humans.
New Shanghai Barbershop: Right. So that’s a little different capacity.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I mean, hey, for us exclusively, if brick and mortar came back, that would be the ultimate for entrepreneurship, because if everybody still had to leave their homes to transact, that would be rad, as far as I can tell.
Andrew: What question do you guys have?
Andrew: For the next business owner on this show.
New Shanghai Barbershop: I wanna know if you were sitting on the seesaw and you were looking at possibly scaling your business and then you went for it, did that work out well and would you do it again or did you eat shit and you would stay put?
Andrew: There you go.
Andrew: That’s the question.
Andrew: And that’s the interview.
Andrew: Thank you, Tony.
Andrew: Thank you, Andy.
Andrew: Thank you, Justin.
Andrew: Huge pleasure.
Andrew: And there you go.
Andrew: That’s it.
Andrew: Look at this cut.
Andrew: Look at how clean it is.
Andrew: Thanks to Tony.
Andrew: So if you want clean cuts, come to, you know where it is.
Andrew: If you know, you know.
Andrew: New Shanghai Barbershop.
Andrew: This is where it is.
Andrew: If you found this video enjoyable and valuable, give it a like.
Andrew: Comment down below.
Andrew: Any questions you have for them or me.
Andrew: And you already know, but hit the subscribe button because we’ll have more interviews coming soon.
Andrew: See you in the next one.
New Shanghai Barbershop: That forearm must be strong.
Samson: Strong for other reasons.
(laughing)