January 31, 2023

This Teacher Is Creating A New Platform To Streamline Black Hair Care

Have you ever wanted to try a new hairstyle but can’t find the exact look or hairdresser you want? Growing Hands is the app that aims to streamline this process for all.

Teacher turned tech entrepreneur JerDrema “Dreme” Flynt is on a mission to make managing Black hair a more enjoyable experience.

Growing Hands allows users to personalize their hair mood to get the hairstyle they want. Once created, users can directly connect to different hairstylists to bring their vision to life.

Growing Hands can be described as a mixture of platforms such as Pinterest, Google Images, and Styleseat. Through the platform, Black women will have easy access to essential hair care tools without going through several different apps.

From teacher to tech founder

After working as a teacher for several years, Flynt decided to move into education administration and applied for Babson’s MBA program.  While at Babson, Flynt took a blockchain venture course decided she wanted to build a company that helped more Black people learn more about blockchain.

However, after some encouragement by her course lead Professor Steve Derezinski, Flynt decided to focus her business idea on something that affected Black people every day.

“I was like: Hair. Our hair is always talked about. It’s something that’s been talked about my entire life,” Flynt told Bostlnno.

After some time researching and interviewing people about their hair journeys, Flynt realized what she needed was a way to streamline the hair care process.

“Let’s make this process simpler for anybody who has Black hair, big hair, thick hair, curly hair.”

“Let’s give you the ability to design those pieces. Let’s give you the ability to connect to the hairstylist and the people you need. And then, be able to figure out where to buy the stuff. Let’s make this process simpler for anybody who has Black hair, big hair, thick hair, curly hair.”

“I’m an educator at the end of the day”

Growing Hands will provide users with the resources and tools needed for everyone to care for Black and Brown people’s natural hair, from parents in multiracial families to student stylists.

“I’m an educator at the end of the day. We still have all this space where we can really help different types of communities,” Flynt in an interview. “The platform is not just a platform. It’s a movement.”

Flynt is currently looking for beta testers for Growing Hands ahead of its prototype rollout this summer. 

Kumba Kpakima

Kumba Kpakima is a reporter at POCIT. A documentary about the knife crime epidemic in the UK got her a nomination for the UK's #30toWatch Young Journalists of the Year.