“I was 28 years old, living in the
U.S. and feeling very contented
about my life: I had a good job,
was moving into a house with my
fiancée, Jamie,” he said. “She really
got mad at me one day because I
was being lazy and didn’t complete
a simple house chore. She was
upset and pointed at me and said:
‘You never finish what you start!”
He took what she was telling him
to heart: it was as if there was
something deeper in what she said.
He told me that he had never really
completed anything, including
going after his dreams of being an
inventor. Feeling embarrassed at
Jamie’s reprimand, he went to his
green notebook in which he had
written many questions, answers
and designs. On the first page of
that notebook was the first design
for The Cut Buddy.
“Right there, I decided that it
was time for me to do something
practical about my designs,” Joshua
explained. “I didn’t have much
money on my credit card but I
decided to invest it in myself. I
went to a lawyer to get my design
for The Cut Buddy patented. I
also contacted a CAD engineer,
who turned the design into a 3-D
rendering.”
He used up his last few dollars to
order 3,000 units of the products
and stacked them away them in his
garage. His new problem was how
to sell them. He started shooting
videos of himself cutting his hair
and posted them on YouTube and
sales began to pick up. However,
there came a point when he was
going bald.
He began seeing harsh comments
on Facebook and YouTube.
Some people were comparing
his hairstyle to that of LeBron
James, the Mc Donald’s arch and
Vegeta from Dragonball Z. They
were roasting him so much that
he was ready to give up. That
mood changed when he got an
email from a disabled war veteran
who explained that due to the
medication he took, his hands
shook whenever he tried to cut his
hair.
“With The Cut Buddy, he said he
was able to keep his hands steady
and cut his hair perfectly. When I
read that, I realized that although
people were making fun of my
haircut, I was actually helping
people. College students, single
mothers and barbers in training
were using my product. That’s
when I learned that I had a mission
in life: to help people who couldn’t
afford the professional services of a
barber,” Joshua told me.
Joshua began receiving reviews
from a wide cross-section of people
-- veterans, single mothers, college
students, barbers. They were his
target market. He went on YouTube
and found disabled veterans, single
mothers, college students and
barbers to do videos about The Cut
Buddy.
He sent them the product for
free in exchange for their honest
reviews. They also received a
discount code that entitled anyone
who ordered products from them
or via their videos 10% off. He also
paid 10% to people from whose
page a sale was made – via what
is called affiliate marketing. Sales
went up exponentially.
On March 5, 2016 -- three and a
half months after he launched the
business -- Joshua was inundated
with notifications via Facebook
www.slyoumag.com | July-August 2019
and Gmail. The fire had started
and The Cut Buddy had gone viral.
His product had 10 million views
on one of his affiliates’ YouTube
videos. He ended up selling 4,000
products within two hours but had
only 300 units in his garage.
The product became a bestseller
on Amazon and was featured in
GQ Magazine, Black Enterprise and
Forbes. The publicity also landed
him on Shark Tank, one of the
biggest television shows in the U.S.,
where he got to pitch his product
to celebrity investors. He ended
up getting an investor, Daymond
John, his idol, and now works
with him. Today, Joshua is also a
highly-sought-after entrepreneur,
businessman, motivational speaker
and consultant.
In the first three years of operation,
The Cut Buddy grossed over US$2
million in sales. The product is now
licensed under different brand
names by major corporations and
Joshua gets a US$30,000 every
three months for his invention. All
this for the thirteen-year-old kid
from Entrepot who dared to dream.
SL-YOU | Business, People & Lifestyle 75