Starting a small business can be one of the most rewarding risks you can take. Sabryn Flagler quickly realized that with her friends’ support and clientele that make it all worth it, starting a business was the best challenge that she could undertake.
Flagler, a 21-year-old Florida A&M University student, began doing hair at the tender age of 7. From doing hair on doll’s heads in her playroom when she was younger to doing her friends’ hair during the COVID quarantine, Flagler eventually built up the courage to start her own hair business, Styledbysae, specializing in braid styles and faux locs.
Flagler was hesitant at first to take her hair business seriously because she knew that there were so many other hair braiding businesses with established clientele in the Tallahassee area. However, after telling herself that “you can never have too much of one thing,” she is grateful that she put herself out there.
As a college student, Flagler doesn’t find it too hard to juggle both her schoolwork and her business. Making her own schedule allowed her to have Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays open to do hair.
So if being a student and an entrepreneur isn’t what makes her job hard, what is?
Flagler feels that the hardest part about running a business is having to continuously build her clientele.
“I’m not really that much of a social person anymore,” Flagler said. “So my friends help me by making sure my clientele is good and they help a lot by spreading the word out.”
Flagler says that what works best for her when it comes to attracting more clients is having her friends or previous clients repost her work on Instagram, because this brings more attention to her hair page.
As it turns out, her clients are what she loves most about her job.
Flagler finds that after sitting down with a client for long periods of time, she forges good relationships that easily turn into friendships just from having good conversation and getting to know each other.
“People want to sit down and vent, so me being able to be that person that someone wants to come sit down, get their hair done, and talk about what’s going on in their life, I really like,” Flagler said.
Jayda Miller, a third-year elementary education major at FAMU and former client, said that she and Flagler had a connection freshman year that made them click early on.
“She was always really friendly and easily approachable,” Miller said.
It is safe to say that Flagler’s clients appreciate her work equally as much as the conversation.
For Daija Nickerson, a third-year agribusiness student at FAMU and another client of Styledbysae, it was Flagler’s quality of work that stood out.
“I love that she not only braids fast, but her braids are neat and evenly parted,” Nickerson said.
Miller chose Flagler to do her birthday hairstyle and received faux locs that she fell in love with.
“They were literally beautiful,” Miller said. “The hair that she used was really, really soft so it looked so natural.”
Flagler wants to be able to do “everything hair” as her business grows. She recently bought an $800 lace class to learn how to apply wigs and hopefully one day make her own.
“I’m excited to see how my hair business grew this past year because I really want to challenge myself to do new styles,” Flagler said.