Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Hafid Of Daniel Alain On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Build slowly to set your foundation strong. Avoid failure from trying to be too big, too quick. It’s essential to figure out the formula, then scale up from there.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Alain Hafid.
Entrepreneurism runs deep within Daniel Alain Hafid, whose father, René, was the renowned Parisian hair stylist and creator of René of Paris Wigs — the epitome of fashionable, synthetic wigs in the 80’s and 90’s.
Working alongside his father for 30 years, Daniel learned the detailed craftsmanship of making extraordinary alternative hair solutions for women. He also gained empathy towards women’s emotional connection to their hair and the undeniable truth — whether maximizing the health and beauty of their natural hair or wearing added hair, women undeniably desire extraordinary hair.
A visionary, not content with the look and feel of synthetic hair, Daniel set out to create his own legacy, pouring his heart and soul into fashioning the world’s most beautifully crafted human hair wigs and hair pieces. Daniel launched Follea® International in 2004, setting the highest standard for exclusive 100% European human hair alternative hair solutions. Today Follea holds the reputation as the epitome of luxury, added hair.
The success of Follea and impact his luxury human hair pieces had on women with alopecia or those affected by hair loss from chemotherapy propelled Daniel’s sense of purpose in a new direction — helping women throughout all stages of life attain beautiful hair with an emphasis on hair thinning and hair loss solutions. Daniel invested heavily into research and development in the areas of hair loss diagnosis, treatment response and preventative care.
In 2018, after years of investing and working with leading academics, dermatologists and scientists at the forefront of hair loss research, Daniel brought to market the first and only clinically-proven and patented hair loss technology designed to reduce excessive hair shedding and control hair loss. The science of INTACT provides a proven treatment to take preventative measures against hair loss by retaining and protecting hair.
Today, Daniel is at the helm of Daniel Alain championing women’s hair wellness and hair loss solutions through assiduous research and development projects. Daniel’s passion for beautiful hair and inherent understanding of how hair makes women feel continues to push innovation, artistry, craftsmanship and unmatched quality throughout his portfolio of DA 360 products.
Daniel has touched the lives of many and ardently continues his pursuit to help transform women’s lives by providing exceptional beauty solutions for extraordinary hair no matter where she is in her journey.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
It’s a bit in my blood, but I took the concept further. My father was a hairdresser who became prolific in the 60’s working with high fashion women’s wigs as the Creative Director of Fashion Tress. He later started working with synthetic wigs and founded René of Paris. I started working alongside my father when I was 19 and learned the business from the ground up. Unfortunately, I hated synthetic wigs — I thought they didn’t look natural or glam enough and didn’t do the woman justice. I left the industry when we sold to the Japanese company Aderan’s. Years later, a friend of mine was working making extensions in Hollywood for big name celebrities and sought my help. Long story short, I ended up with a suitcase of 10K and headed to China to nail down the manufacturing at scale. I built the company from 3 employees, to 10, to 600 — along the way finessing all aspects of working with human hair for extensions and wigs. I built an OEM business and eventually expanded to making high quality European human hair wigs under my own brand FOLLEA — sourcing the best hair across Europe and creating processes to maintain consistent, efficient, premium product output. I had a devastating event at the factory with a fire and we lost just about everything. Fortunately, not the hair! We rebuilt stronger, leaner and survived, but the lesson I learned was the need to diversify. That’s when I started to heavily invest in R&D for hair loss in women which led me to where the company stands today as a 360 solution to hair loss.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Hair loss is a hard and complex topic for most men and women. For many years, there has been little to no new developments in the category. It’s really been quite stagnant. Daniel Alain is changing the landscape and disrupting how to approach the very common issue of losing your hair. Our new hair loss diagnostics offer piece of mind whereas before there was a lot of unknowns and trial and error. We are taking away the guesswork and going personal — introducing tests that are based off your DNA and unique chemistry to determine the best course of treatment to hold onto more hair and get ahead of the problem sooner.
As an example,
There is only one FDA-approved treatment for hair loss in women — Minoxidil — but most people don’t know that it does not work for everyone. The Minoxidil Response Test takes the guessing out of the equation. Our research on Minoxidil is disruptive in the sense that we are educating women to make choices based on their personal chemistry. Don’t blindly take Minoxidil and play the “wait and see” game. Find out if it is likely to work for you, then make choices on a treatment plan that will yield results.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Three come immediately to mind. My German grandfather was the CEO of Hella, a high-performance vehicle lighting company with a strong heritage of success and perseverance. I used to spend summers in Germany and was highly influenced by his strong work ethic, love of process and running the factory. My French father had a love of life — he faced each day with a smile, positivity, and sense of humor. He had a natural way to make women feel special and beautiful. Lastly Jack Welch — although not a personal mentor. I’m a lifetime learner and I love reading books. His book Winning highly influenced my approach in building my factory and my team, and many of his core philosophies have influenced my personal approach to life.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Reminds me a bit of the “if isn’t broken, don’t fix it” but that’s far from my philosophy in life. I believe there is always room for improvement and to try for the best. Simply being content with “the way things are” in my opinion does not allow for advances in life — be it new technologies, new therapies, new approaches to make things more efficient, perform better and at a higher level. I am a believer in striving to be number 1 or number 2 in everything in life, or don’t do it. Before DA, there was no European wig products produced at larger scale but still a with luxury craftmanship core. The product on the market was incredibly inferior, fake-looking, “wiggy” and did not do a women justice to walk down the street feeling her best, confident and beautiful. I set out to change that, developing a completely new manufacturing process that had never been imagined before. The result is our hair pieces look and feel so natural they are virtually undetectable and for that, we change women’s lives.
From a business owner perspective, to be disruptive — which oftentimes means to be first to market — comes along with an enormous investment of time and money. It takes patience to go little by little to perfect things, then it typically takes a lot of money to educate and build awareness. That’s if you are looking for the long play and not being a one-time sensation.
All in all, I believe disruption is positive and leads to evolution, which ultimately benefits society.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Diversify your company — don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- Build people up and create a family. This creates loyalty and leads to success for the entire team — everyone prospers.
- Be true and genuine. This attracts the right people, builds a strong foundation and leads to having a strong team that feels secure and shares ideas. From there comes innovation.
- Give back to society. People will be drawn to the positive things you do. Provide education, give to the community, make your workplace positive. This gives you a strong support of people who will ultimately be there for you in a time of need.
- Build slowly to set your foundation strong. Avoid failure from trying to be too big, too quick. It’s essential to figure out the formula, then scale up from there.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Hair loss takes an immense emotional toll on people. It can happen at any age, and often it’s a result of health issues. It is a stressful experience and overwhelming to figure out. Even though hair loss can be managed, or hair can grow back after health issues are overcome, hair loss makes a big impact on confidence and happiness. My mission over the past 10 years with expanding my portfolio of offerings is to provide clinically-proven, patented and first-to-market solutions to help men and women at any stage of their hair loss, and to provide trusted, truthful and unbiased education along the way. Combining science and beauty with a true 360 approach in the category of hair loss has never been done and no one is in a better position to make it happen. We have solutions from the early stage of diagnostics all the way to the last stages of needing/choosing to wear a wig. It’s exciting what we are set out to accomplish.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
Winning by Jack Welch. Be number 1 or number 2 in everything you do, if you can’t you…don’t do it.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Always have a “Plan A, B and C in Life”. Although I learned this the hard way when my factory burned down, it taught me the importance of preparing for anything with multiple, well thought out back-up plans. In all aspects of life, prepare yourself if things go left or right unexpectedly. This lets you think on your toes and builds self-confidence knowing you can navigate uncertainty and change without skipping a beat. Even if Plan A or B goes out from underneath you — you still have Plan C.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’ve been fortunate in my life and career to have an incredible team around me — but that was not by happenstance. Early in building my company, I was guided by a personal philosophy to build people up. When I started the factory, the workers were coming into the city from the countryside. Most were alone and away from family, not educated — could not even write their name. I built a school, a bright and cheerful dormitory, a best-in-class canteen with an amazing chefs. We had movie nights, took the team on trips, many perks to make them feel happy and secure and that their experiences were building them up as people and contributing individuals. After close to 24 years, I have over 130 employees still with me from the very start of the company. We are a family. Building people up has a ripple effect. It can start small, but over time it builds a community, gives back to society. It also makes you — the individual helping to build people up — a stronger, better person because of the loyalty and positivity that is given back and reflects on you. It’s an incredible feeling.
How can our readers follow you online?
Instagram: @follea
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Hafid Of Daniel Alain On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
