Johannesburg – Sheldon Tatchell, founder of the Legends Barbershop franchise, can hardly believe the success he has seen with his business concept that was born ten years ago.
Born and bred in Eldorado Park, south of Joburg, he left his banking call centre job to fulfill his passion of transforming gents’ hair and opened a makeshift store in his neighbourhood in 2011.
On Friday, on their tenth anniversary, he will opens his 50th store, in the Southgate Mall.
Having started out using only a scooter packed with his equipment, to do house calls – Tatchell also added a niche offering to his top clients, including celebrities. The bus which comes to you is of opulent luxury comprising ofbarber shops basics: mirror, chairs, clippers, scissors and blades as well as expensive alcoholic drinks plus entertainment.
With barbershops all over the country, he also has twenty training centres to upskill those passionate about haircuts.
“We are training 250 young men and women currently and have employed 400,” said Tatchell.
He said involving women in the business was also relatively a first as he believes in women empowerment.
“We have women franchise store owners and we have employed over 20 women barbers too. Our women clients are very important to us and at Legends we seek to empower everyone with confidence through our legendary haircuts.”
Tatchell said the concept of giving back is embedded deep within the values of the business and they often use profits to plough back into community projects.
“The month of Mandela Day was just one of the many examples of how we engage with the community by giving free haircuts to different communities and linking up and supporting smaller NGO organizations within the community to help their causes. We also are in the process of opening our “cut one hair for hope foundation” that we are developing with our NGO partners.
He said although the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted and affected the brand and the business in a negative way, they decided to be proactive and double initiatives. “We feel that creating more employment in these harsh times would help us grow against the curve. It also helped us to do the new smaller seated stores so we could engage in different LSM areas.”
The first fifty clients will get free haircuts and the rest of the country will have 50 percent off at any Legends Barbershop.
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