Women like you Meet the Megababes!
These ladies are just three of the increasing number of women turning their inspiring ideas into a reality – and becoming their own bosses…
‘We’d sold out in 10 minutes!’
Sharon Rabi, 29, lives with her husband Kobi, 32, and their two children, Gabrielle, four, and Romi, two. She launched the Dafni hairbrush in early 2015. now she’s stocked online and in retailers around the world, including John Lewis and Harvey nichols.
Light-bulb moment
In summer 2011, I asked my hairdresser to cut my long brown hair into a short bob. But what I didn’t realise was that my usually frizzy locks would need to be straightened every day – it took over 20 minutes to style it! I thought there had to be an easier way, and when there wasn’t, I decided to create one myself.
First steps
My dad was an engineer and I studied the subject at university, so I talked to him about my ideas. I came up with a brush that heats up like straighteners, cutting your styling time in half. My parents were both so supportive. They put in around £1,500 to make a prototype in a local factory and we called it Dafni, after my little sister. It was slow going but after lots of testing, by early 2015, we had our finished product.
The launch
I’d gone to a few trade shows but it wasn’t until September 2015 that the business really took off.
I decided to create a Youtube video demonstrating my brush and within a day it had got 120 million views. It wasn’t long before I got a flurry of emails from retailers. QVC wanted to sell the brush in the UK and the US, and we'd sold out in 10 minutes – it was incredible. Our brushes cost £120 and last year we sold over 100,000!
Biggest challenge
The main task was thinking about how the brush would work and what materials and components we’d need. And, while we were coming up with the product, there were endless complications with overheating.
Sometimes I wanted to give up, but after extensive tests we made sure it was safe and worked the way we wanted. ✱ dafnihair.com