Selling Only the Cut

The founder had no experience of hairdressing at all. He asked for a cut and nothing else at his usual shop, was kept waiting endlessly, and thought: if it is only cutting, ten minutes should do it. His pre-launch research expected around five per cent to say they would try it; thirty per cent did. Instead of washing, he built a device that draws the cut hair away, spent a year and a half on how to route the hose, and settled on bringing it down from above after looking at the fuel hoses at a petrol station. Value made by subtraction rather than addition. Incidentally the nickname «the thousand-yen cut» no longer matches reality — after four revisions it has been 1,400 yen since 2025.