Prete is a new blowout startup launching today in San Francisco and Los Angeles that wants to hook you up with unlimited hair styling. No cuts, color or anything else, just as many blowouts as you want for $129 a month.
Some of you may recall a story I wrote about a similar blowout service coming to SF called Treat that wanted to use established salon space for unlimited blowouts.
Treat gained a lot of inbound interest and I actually got to try it out before it was set to launch in the Bay but the startup remained in beta and never quite opened up to all those on the waiting list.
Prete is a pretty similar idea from the co-founder of Treat, Nina Ojeda.
Execution is everything and that didn’t seem to be happening with the other co-founder (even Treat’s website doesn’t seem to be working properly), so Ojeda split.
“When I briefly worked with Treat, it was clear we had very different visions about how the company should be structured and ultimately saw very different directions in the market,” Ojeda told TechCrunch.
Sometimes co-founders don’t work out.
Instead of giving up, Ojeda decided to start her own thing and she’s now launching that thing with a curated list of “animal cruelty-free” salons in both SF and LA today.
Prete also works on a membership basis. Not everyone can join, which Ojeda says allows Prete to “keep the integrity of the salons and our members.” So to get into this service, you’ll need to have a current member invite you.
The service helps salon owners by filling in appointment slots that are not being used, helps customers looking for appointments without the hassle of scheduling at Drybar or another pure blowout salon and helps Prete keep overhead low because the startup doesn’t have to build any store fronts.
There’s a lot of options to the pricing structure for Prete. Membership is free for $35 per blowout or you can choose to pay $129 a month for as many blowouts as you and the salon can handle. You may also choose to upgrade to the $49 annual fee to make blowouts $29 each time.
Compare that to Drybar’s $40 a pop, with additional for extras like a hair mask or certain style. There’s also a membership version for $75 for two blowouts a month, or $37.50 each.
Prete, like Treat, also plans to launch a mani/pedi service soon for $59/month unlimited.
No idea if this idea will take off but I did have quite a few friends asking me what was going on with the Treat beta launch. Prete also uses a similar model to Uber and Airbnb and the stylists I spoke with are hopeful it brings them some new customers.
In any case, it’s nice to know this startup can at least get itself up and running.