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Tech Marketer's Wife Sparks AI Hair App That Could End $100+ Product Trial-and-Error Forever
Tech Marketer's Wife Sparks AI Hair App That Could End $100+ Product Trial-and-Error Forever
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- [00:00]
Dr. Tamara Nall
What if your next great hair routine only needed one question and a selfie? Yep. No quizzes, no product overload, no guesswork. Just snap, submit, and boom. Your personalized routine is ready. Today on Lead with AI, I'm talking to Tori Elstrom, the visionary behind Smart Hair, an AI powered beauty platform that's flipping the hair care industry on its head. He's built a system so smart, it sees what your hair needs and delivers custom recommendations literally in seconds. If you've ever stood in a beauty aisle wondering what actually works for you, this episode is your next best friend. Let's get into it.
- [00:47]
Tori Elstrom
Welcome to lead with AI I'm Dr. Tamara Nall. In each episode, we will take you behind the scenes with visionary leaders shaping the future of AI across public and private sectors. Join us as we explore groundbreaking projects and innovations that are transforming industries and making a real impact on people's lives. Let's dive in.
- [01:16]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Hi, everyone. How are you? It's Dr. T, your special host of the Lead with AI podcast. And I am excited to have Tori Elstrom, the founder of Smart Hair, here. Tori, how are you?
- [01:28]
C
I'm doing really, really great. I'm excited to be here with you.
- [01:32]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yes. Excited to be here with you as well. I'm loving that background. What is that? That color is. What is that? That's a neat color.
- [01:39]
C
This is chimney. I had, like, 15 different colors, and I landed on this one. I'm redoing my entire office, and I'm really excited about it.
- [01:48]
Dr. Tamara Nall
It looks great. I love that.
- [01:50]
C
Thanks.
- [01:50]
Dr. Tamara Nall
And I'm really excited about this topic, as you can kind of see. I mean, I do have what I think is thick, glowing hair. So I'm excited about Smart hair. Thank you. And how it could even help me. And I'm sure our listeners are as well. So I always like to start with the spark. What I call we start with the spark. So just tell us who you are at your core. How did you come up with smart hair? I mean, I don't want to be biased, but I look at your hair and I think, you know, okay, he's a guy, and this might be for guys as well, but, like, tell us about it. Like, we're excited to know how this all started.
- [02:28]
C
Yeah. So I have been married to my wife for almost 10 years. We've been together for almost 20 years.
- [02:36]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Oh, wow.
- [02:37]
C
Yeah. A very long time. And something that she's always struggled with is for finding a hair product that. That works for her.
- [02:46]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah.
- [02:47]
C
And she's always asked me, hey, is. Is it. Is It Hair night. Do you know if it's hair night? And I'm like, I. I don't know if it's hair night. So I. I joke about making an app that would literally just alert her if it's hair night. Right. And then she knows what. What I do. I'm a. I'm a tech marketer. Ish. I could get in details on that, but I won't because I could talk about guru.
- [03:15]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Guru.
- [03:16]
C
Yeah. Okay, so I am a tech marketer guru. We'll go with that.
- [03:22]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay.
- [03:22]
C
And so she came to me one day and she's like, could you maybe take a picture of my hair and send it to that robot you talk to a lot and see what it says? And I was like, yeah, sure. So we did that and it came up with a routine. She followed it for about a month, and her hair had never been healthier. So then she told her friends about it, and she came to me and she's like, you have to build an app. I was like, okay, of course. She's my wife. I'm going to do what she says. And this is how we're doing it. And to your point about me having no hair?
- [03:59]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Well, no, you have hair. It's just different. Different.
- [04:02]
C
I've had some.
- [04:04]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay.
- [04:05]
C
So there will be a spin off actually, that. That's in the making called Smart beard as well. So there's going to be one for beard care as well. So that's coming down the pipe.
- [04:14]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay, well, you have to let us know so our listeners can. Can sign up for that as well. Now, question. What is hair night? I have never heard of that. What is that?
- [04:22]
C
Yeah, so apparently there is a couple times a week where there's an everything night where women have to do, like, the full routine, Right? So it's like wash face, wash hair condition, and it takes a really long time. And generally it's like dreaded because it can take a long time. You don't know what the routine's gonna be. And so it's always like, isn't hair night yet?
- [04:52]
Dr. Tamara Nall
So, okay, so, yes, I go through that too. I just did not know it had a formal name called hair Night. But yeah, you have that. It's kind of like, okay, well, what else can I do while I'm waiting, while my hair conditions, you know, and it kind of sinks in so I can put on a mask, I can watch, you know, trash tv, you know, a lot. Yeah, okay.
- [05:12]
C
Exactly, exactly. Hair night, you know.
- [05:16]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Okay, Tori, that's Amazing. So what about the holy smokes moment? Like, what's that jaw dropping moment where they first experience smart hair and it changes everything for them?
- [05:30]
C
Yeah. So that is actually within, like the first minute of utilizing the app. Because what I first did is I went to go check out other apps that exist, and there aren't very many that exist, first of all. And the ones that do exist take you through like a half hour, 45 minutes of questionnaires, and then at the end, they try and sell you a bunch of products. Right. So smart hair, you get on smart hair, you take a picture of your hair, it sends it to AI, it analyzes it, it gives you a quick analysis of what your hair is, its health, its porosity and density.
- [06:15]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Whoa.
- [06:16]
C
Yeah. And then you get to put in one input, which is how you feel you need to work with your hair. If you feel like it's frizzy, if you feel like it's dry, damaged, or if you just need help with a routine, you can select that too. So then it takes that input, and then all within a minute, you get immediate results of what you can do, what, what your routine can be, and then what products. And the most important thing here, and I won't ever push products, I probably won't ever take any brands, brand deals, because that was something that my wife and all her friends also said they absolutely despised was always being shoved brands, but they never actually solved any problem. So they were spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars that never worked because a brand paid X amount of dollars to be on that app.
- [07:17]
Dr. Tamara Nall
So now does it tell you? Kind of. Does it give you a product name or just says, okay, you need a deep conditioner with this percentage of ingredients, like Aria does, give you product names, and you can then choose to either buy that product with no extra benefit to smart hair or comparable product.
- [07:35]
C
Yeah. So it gives you a product type. So like moisturizing oil, and then it tells you what kind of oil, it'll tell you what type of product to look like. And it might give you two or three product names to look like with, to look for within that product type. So that way you can go to the store fully armed with what you're looking for, but not knowing. You're just clicking an affiliate link and I'm getting paid for it.
- [08:07]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Got it. Oh, that's. That's wonderful. Okay, and then let's break it down a little bit. You said it can look at porosity, like all these different things. Am I taking a picture? Am I just going like This I got to turn around, and you need to see the bag. How many pictures do I have to upload?
- [08:22]
C
So as of right now, it is just one photo. As I've been building Smart Beard, I'm actually doing three. With Smart Beard, we might pivot to doing three, but as of right now, it's one. It depends on how the results and feedback once this actually goes live to the masses, but it is giving really, really nice results right now, and I want to keep this as slim as humanly possible. So one is the answer. It could be as much as three, but the time it takes is a couple seconds. And it doesn't matter what kind of lighting you're in. Obviously, you can't be in the dark, but you don't have to go to any special lights or anything like that. It's just a quick picture, and it's a.
- [09:09]
Dr. Tamara Nall
It's a front picture. So I can literally post, like, a picture like this.
- [09:12]
C
Yeah, yeah, Just a quick selfie.
- [09:14]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay. It might just say, well, you need to get your. Your ends trimmed. Actually, I just got them trimmed, but it might say that. Okay, perfect. So what is the most wowing experience that you've had as a founder of Smart Hair, where even you felt chills? I mean, maybe you have a victory dance. You want to show us your little victory dance or what have you. But where were you? Like, oh, my gosh. Like, this is phenomenal. I'm a genius. This is a genius product. Talk to us about that moment. Take us back there.
- [09:47]
C
So this is actually my first app that I've been building, and I actually built it for a hackathon. And I think that moment for me was realizing that I built a fully functional iOS app that met the human interface guidelines for Apple, and it actually was out there to help people. And when I realized that, it was very empowering, I think, especially in the world of today with AI. And I really hate this term, but vibe coding. Yeah, I really hate that term. I've been teaching.
- [10:28]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Every guest says that. They say, you know, I hate this, but it's vibe coding.
- [10:32]
C
Yeah, it's vibe coding. I've been teaching myself to code since the COVID lockdown because I needed something to do, so I was learning to code. But it's been mostly web apps and just playing around APIs and things like that. But this time, my wife wanted an app, so I couldn't tell the wife no.
- [10:50]
Dr. Tamara Nall
So, okay.
- [10:51]
C
Once I actually had this fully functioning and working, it was like a. It was a true wild moment, to be honest. Yeah, that may not be about smart hair specifically, but it was. It was a cool moment.
- [11:05]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah, no, absolutely. And you said that people already benefited from. So, you know, your network, your wife. I mean, it started with her, so that's gotta be a great feeling, too. Now, let's talk about ethics. What kind of ethical concerns did you take in consideration while you were building it? And as you continue to grow smart hair, what are the things that you have to keep in mind?
- [11:25]
C
Yeah, so this one was interesting because AI and LLMs in general have racial biases. And when it comes to hair and the hair rating scale, obviously that plays into it as well. So I had to figure out how to write this prompt. So the prompt was, for lack of better terms, not racist. And it also had to be able to know how to handle far ends of the hair spectrum.
- [12:00]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yes, yes.
- [12:02]
C
I learned a lot about all sorts of different hair, and I had to make sure that this was built into the app, so that way everyone felt taken care of.
- [12:15]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Right.
- [12:16]
C
And that is something that I'm going to make sure I really focus on, because I want to make sure everybody feels comfortable using the app. And it doesn't, you know, give some, like, generic. Hey, you should wash your hair eight times a week. If that's absolutely not what your hair. Right, right.
- [12:36]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah. No, because for me, I don't wash my hair every week. I wash it when I get done sometimes that's every two weeks, honestly. And I actually think that it, like, that it's good for my hair getting. Getting kind of like the oiliness and stuff like that and letting that grow. So, yeah, I would be. I would, like. The first thing I would think is, like, this was not built for me. If it said something like, wash my hair, even daily.
- [13:00]
C
Exactly. And that. That's actually something that we have built into. Right. So if it comes back and says, hey, we recommend you wash your hair once every seven days, but you want to update it to once every 10 or 14, you can actually edit that. And if you want to add special steps, you can do that as well. If you want to get rid of steps, you can do that. That too. So it's super customizable. And we have a hair diary, which is fun. So you can put in, like, how you're feeling about your hair on any given day and you can write notes. Eventually it'll be like a hair timeline, so you can kind of keep track of that, too, which is fun.
- [13:41]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah, no, that is fun. That is fun. Now let's think about the world, the future, world with smart hair. What do you envision? Like, how will the world be a better place? What do you envision with the big dreams and vision you have for smart hair?
- [13:55]
C
Yeah. So my, my, my dream is that women stop getting taken advantage of. Right. Because I've seen my wife spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a product she's had to use this much of, and it was absolutely terrible. So that's really one prong. The other one is, and my wife is really pushing for this is a mental health version of smart hair because there are people that just can't get up in the morning because they're too depressed, too much anxiety. So she'd really like a mode in smart hair that. That helps with that. So that will be a subversion of smart hair at one point or another. And I think that's very smart because we've all been there, I'm sure.
- [14:48]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah.
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C
Yeah. So that's definitely something in the future for smart hair.
- [14:52]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Got it. Now we do have some skeptics who are listeners. I want to believe what's something that they can do this week to try, build or explore the power of smart hair.
- [15:06]
C
Yeah. So right now we have a waitlist sign up. You can go to trysmarthair.com and take a look. It's got a bunch of screenshots. It kind of walks you through everything about smart hair. The hackathon wraps up on the 26th, and after the 26th, I'll be able to finalize it because once it was submitted, it got frozen. I wasn't able to make any more changes. So after the 26th, I'll be able to finish up the app and it should go live within, I want to say, a week or two after that. And if you're on the wait list, you'll be updated and I will be able to let you know when it does go officially live, which I'm very excited about.
- [15:46]
Dr. Tamara Nall
No, this is very exciting. And you mean July 26th, right?
- [15:50]
C
Yeah. Yep, July 26th.
- [15:52]
Dr. Tamara Nall
So all of our listeners, as he said, go to try smarthair.com and I'm going to give it like the first week in August because you think the 26th and then a week later from there, first week in August. So, but go to the site now and sign up to be on the, on the, on the waitlist so that you can be one of the first people to figure it out and try it out immediately. You know, we have another segment of our discussion. Call from one genius to another. And everybody who follows lead with AI knows About this. So our last guest has a question for you, Tori. And, and their question is, what do you think is the most underrated risk when it comes to the data sharing capabilities of AI agents?
- [16:38]
C
Yeah. So when I saw this question, I was actually very excited to answer it. You would, because I've been talking about AI agents for a minute. I think one of the underrated risks is the possibility of leaking extremely sensitive information. Right. If you're an agency and you happen to build agents that are, I don't know, writing LinkedIn posts, even like, even as simple as that, you could be digging in four different companies data, you might accidentally cross contaminate that data and then put up financial statements on LinkedIn totally by accident. Right, right. This could be you have an HR agent running and it goes through and puts up a survey and it accidentally releases some sort of health information. But I think that is one of the least talked about risks. Not to mention just when people are copying pasting full lines of company code into it.
- [17:50]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Right.
- [17:51]
C
Hoping for the best and then just leaking it could just leak secrets on accident as well. So I think that's something that people definitely need to pay attention to and there needs to be checks before you just let these agents go live.
- [18:04]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Right? Yeah. No, I like that. I definitely like that. And you're right. And I do think that companies should embrace their employees using it. But I feel like there do there does have to be some framework or protocols because at least keeping such an open environment where people will let you know what they're using and then you don't have all these leakages. For sure. For sure. For sure.
- [18:25]
C
For sure.
- [18:26]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Bonus rapid fire most overrated tech trend vibe coding. Bingo. Love it. Yes. Most under hyped AI breakthrough.
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C
I think a lot of the medical things that are happening in AI are very underhyped. They just did a gallbladder surgery on a pig completely AI robot and it was 100% successful.
- [18:56]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Wow. Yes. Okay. Perfect. One book everyone should read on the future.
- [19:02]
C
So this is going to sound very bad, but ever since AI came out, I learn everything I learn from AI and things like that. So I don't really have a great answer to this one. Except for learn as much as you can on the Internet that's free. Everything you can learn is free online. And go do that.
- [19:21]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah. And there's so many free options. Like so much free YouTube course. I think Corsia has some free stuff. Like it's all these different companies. You can, I mean you can even, I'm sure you can Even put serve as an educational book and tell me everything I need to know about and in a different LLM. So, yes. Okay. I love it.
- [19:41]
C
First time, I literally just did that about learning how our universe existed. And it taught me everything about it. It was the coolest thing. And I would have never learned that from one single book. It was a cool thing.
- [19:56]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And what our guests don't know, but they're gonna know now, is that you and I have a prior relationship. And so you're saying learn everything you can for free. Totally fits in with who you are. It's like, why pay for something if you don't have to? So one thing, I definitely love that about you. And the first time that I've gotten that response, love it. The bonus AI prediction. You believe?
- [20:23]
C
The boldest AI prediction that I believe in is that. Let's see. I do believe it's going to take a large sector of jobs, but I do not believe it's going to take over human jobs. Because as AI takes over jobs, there's going to be a new generation of jobs created that have to manage AI. So I don't think that there's going to be an exodus of humans from the job and just a job. What am I looking for?
- [21:03]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yeah, it's not going to be a total elimination of all jobs.
- [21:06]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [21:07]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Have to, like, upgrade their skill sets, et cetera. I mean, like, probably one of the hottest jobs will be prompt engineers.
- [21:16]
C
Exactly, Exactly. And like, the CEO of OpenAI literally walks around with a kill switch in a backpack in case OpenAI gains consciousness. Like, people have to be around to do this because it can, in fact, gain consciousness.
- [21:34]
Dr. Tamara Nall
So do you feel like there's ever a world where I would take over humans?
- [21:40]
C
I. I do. I do think that if you are not paying attention that it very much can do that because it can learn, it can teach itself. And if it has enough server power, it can certainly do that if nobody's watching it. I don't think it would look like the movies where suddenly it gets a bunch of machine guns and things like that, but I do think that it can start overstepping its bounds. Something happened over at Google where it cracked quantum computing to, like, a new degree by itself in, like, record time. So it's doing it all the time.
- [22:23]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yes.
- [22:24]
C
Just. It needs to be babysat.
- [22:26]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Tori, this has been amazing. So you said we should go to try smarthair.com. how else can we get in contact with you? I mean, I'm Excited about Smart Beard. For all we know, you're probably going to have pet hair.com at some point. Like everything where there's a fluffiness involved or lack thereof, you probably will invent. So how do we stay in touch with you?
- [22:49]
C
Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn and then I'm also on Twitter. I'm on TikTok. Totally different vibe on TikTok, but you can still find me there. It's fun. And then you can also send me an email. Just first name, last name, gmail.com. so yeah, you can find me anywhere. I'm everywhere.
- [23:14]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay, good. He's everywhere. LinkedIn for sure. And then like Tick Tock and Instagram and Twitter. You didn't say Instagram, you said Twitter. Right?
- [23:22]
C
X. And I am absolutely not on Instagram. I refuse to be on Instagram.
- [23:26]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Okay, so he's not on Instagram, everybody, but he's definitely on Tick Tock and I have watched his very, very great. Interesting. Let's see, what's the other word I want to say? Controversial Sometimes.
- [23:38]
C
There we go.
- [23:41]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Post there. And is it. But I don't remember your hashtags. Is it just your name on these on X and Tick Tock on X?
- [23:50]
C
It is Charizard underscore. I need to align all of these. This is really bad. It's Charizard underscore on TikTok. It's the underscore Tori underscore report.
- [24:02]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Oh, okay.
- [24:04]
C
I need to align all these.
- [24:05]
Dr. Tamara Nall
That's advice you would give me.
- [24:07]
C
It is definitely advice I would give.
- [24:09]
Dr. Tamara Nall
You for as a digital marketing guru. Yes, absolutely. Well, we've enjoyed the conversation. From me to you. I just want to say thank you. As someone who often does encounter like hair problems, etc. And wants a routine, I'm definitely going to try smarthair.com so I can be on the wait list and know when it comes. Live in August. And we appreciate you, we appreciate your wife for encouraging you to do it. You for accepting the call from your wife because you want to make her, keep her happy and then what this, what this tech is going to do for those of us who need help with our hair.
- [24:45]
C
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful.
- [24:49]
Dr. Tamara Nall
Yes, absolutely. All right, everybody, till next time, thanks. Bye. Bye.
- [24:55]
Tori Elstrom
Thanks for tuning in to Lee with AI. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring the cutting edge innovations shaping AI across the public and private sectors. Until then, keep leading with AI.