Did Alli Really Build a $255 Million Brand on Only Word-of-Mouth? (Yes, and Here's How)

Alli Webb didn’t set out to be a revolutionary entrepreneur, but necessity being the mother of invention and all that, that is exactly what happened.

Check it out:

Alli was a single mom hair stylist who needed more work.

One day she had an insight, and to test whether there really was a market for her Big Idea, she went onto a Facebook group for moms in L.A. where she posted this:

The Single Post That Changed Everything

“I’m a longtime L.A. stylist,” she wrote. “I'm thinking about starting a mobile blow-dry business where I'd charge$35 or $40. Would anybody out there be interested?”

As she told Guy Raz in “How I Built This”, “Moms were more than interested! I was flooded with emails.”

Those emails quickly turned into bookings, which then turned into trusted referrals that extended outside the online mommy community.

"I got really busy really fast, and it was very word-of- mouth," she said. "I’d go and do one mom, and then she would tell like six of her friends. And all of a sudden, they would call me. I got to the point where I was saying no more than I was saying yes."

The Power of Word of Mouth

Let me (Steve) interrupt here for a moment because my dad grew his single Southern California carpet store to a huge chain of 21 stores, mostly with word-of-mouth.

Indeed, after 20 years in business, TV ads, sidewalk sales, and radio jingles, Carpet World had a single banner at the entrance of its main warehouse that bellowed:

“Our Word-of-Mouth Advertising Starts With You!”

This is exactly what happened with Alli Webb and her new business, Drybar.

She hung out a shingle, built buzz, and set in motion a word-of-mouth marketing machine.

Next!

Soon, Alli opened a brick-and-mortar Drybar in Los Angeles. Then another. Then dozens. All with no big marketing budget. Just word-of-mouth buzz.

By 2019, Drybar was acquired for $255 million.

And it all started with word of mouth.