The legendary phenomenon of hair
Value propositions. Get this right and your product is off to a great start. Naturally, it’s not easy to do but before you tear your hair out over it, pause for a moment. The ultimate answer might literally be sticking out!
Yes, this post is about that ultimate product — hair. It’s natural, ubiquitous and has economics eating out of its hand. Hair offers a fascinating lens through which to explore timeless product principles. Let’s dive into the tangled world of hair and uncover its secrets to product design mastery.
Naturally unnatural
Hair is a protein filament (mostly keratin) that grows from skin follicles. Hair is natural. Everyone has hair, in various parts of their body. It grows continually and importantly, can be cut relatively painlessly. Head hair of course can also be styled in various fashion.
In Jobs To Be Done parlance, hair has a functional, social and emotional dimensions. It’s a sensory interface and plays a part in thermal regulation. It’s emotional and social dimensions however are much more significant. Hair is a big part of our appearance and grooming. Having hair, or not, significantly alters our appearance, and, others perception of us. In the game of first impressions, hair can be a crowning glory or arch nemesis. Staying at a societal level, hair is also involved in several cultural and religious rituals and prescriptions.
Already we can detect 3 aspects of great value:
- Abundant supply
- Easy harvesting
- Delivering across functional, social and emotional dimensions
While impressive, these attributes are relatively prosaic compared to what makes hair the blockbuster, G.O.A.T. product: Perpetual dissatisfaction.
We are simply never satisfied with hair. It can always be longer, heavier, shinier, straighter whatever.
More importantly, hair is usually in places where you don’t want it, and usually not in places where you want it! 😧
Notice, I’ve used the term want* not need. In nature, nothing is ever superfluous. We have hair where we need them. The question is if we have hair where we want them!
Take men for example. They shave facial hair but their head starts to resemble a shiny bowling ball, they scramble for baldness remedies. Hair wields significant social and emotional power. A clean shave can make a man look sharp and dapper, while a thinning crown often leads to a frown. If the situation was reversed — head hair grew forever, but facial hair could disappear over time, there likely wouldn’t be many complaints.
Women will most likely have similar concerns. Men or women, one thing is clear: hair desirability is effectively a crusade against natural forces. We are continually going against the natural flow.
Perpetual dissatisfaction and desire. Desire of course is an unquenchable thirst. This means that the demand for the product (hair) is eternal, undying. Globally, the haircare industry is worth $100 billion. Although it’s a large amount, it most likely undervalues the vast latent ecosystem surrounding haircare.
Circular Business
Introduction. Growth. Maturity. Decline. This is the lifecycle of most products. Great products, and those that provide enduring value, eschew this linear lifecycle and aim for circular flow.
Today we talk about the circular economy, a model of production and consumption that keeps a product in the make-use-reuse cycle as long as possible before sustainable disposal (and ideally regeneration).
Hair is used in many products. Wigs are obvious destinations (technically a value-add product). Indeed, human hair is also to soak up oil spills. Besides, being a biological (by)product, hair, in its natural form, is also biodegradable. Of course this is just human hair we’re talking about. There’s also animal hair, a cognate product that humans have a long history of putting to good use.
Three other attributes identified: Mutable. Reusable. Recyclable.
Attributes
Examining hair from both a product and value standpoint can uncover the lasting qualities of iconic products:
- Have abundant supply
- Are easy to harvest
- Add value across functional, social and emotional dimensions
- Inspire perpetual dissatisfaction
- Re-purposable
- Reusable, Recyclable
Entirely co-incidentally (really!), these attributes conveniently form the acronym HAAIRR.
Hair is an amazing product. The only thing that comes close is probably oil. Petroleum has 6000 byproducts, and without it our life would not be imaginable. The key difference of course is that it’s a non-renewable source, whose use has considerable ecological ill-effects.
Hair provides a masterclass in creating enduring value propositions. Product managers will do well to emulate these (HAAIRR) attributes into their designs. They won’t get all of them. Hair is the unsurpassable G.O.A.T. product for a reason. But at least, they will know what utopia looks like and where the North Star is.
