How to Start a Hair Business with No Money in 2025

Who thought you could start a business with no money as easily as getting a matcha drink to pamper yourself?

2025 is coming, and you better get on your feet because inflation shows no mercy except for the wicked.

For hair divas who know their hair products, bundles, extensions, and wigs. They can convert this knowledge to money with some discipline and consistency.

To provide for their families or grow their wealth. It can be a side hustle or a long-term retirement plan.

Whatever your goal, starting a hair business now that can be stable next year is an achievable goal that you can implement.

Ready to earn some bucks, get your name on a brand, and live your dreams before it's too late?

The Cons of Starting a Business with No Money

Before going into the details of starting a business without money.

You should know the cons of it. It definitely works but on account of other things rather than money.

YOUR TIME!

When I started my brand, Private Label, I used to work in real estate from 9 to 5 and maybe more.

But I managed to find some time for my new baby. Your time is valuable, and you’re going to do everything yourself before hiring anyone.

You won’t have the budget to pour money into Facebook’s pockets to run some ads. So, you will grow organically for a while.

And it took me two and half years before hiring anyone to help me.

You’re going to learn heavily, which will enable you to teach your soon to be your new employees.

It’s low risk, but if you have the luxury of time and you’re willing to learn a few things about everything. You should be good to go.

Inventory vs. Dropshipping

We’re going to keep it with zero money.

But if you’re into holding your own inventory, it can cost you around 10,000 dollars.

The unsold inventory is frozen cash that loses its value and keeps your money away from investing in more profitable areas like index funds and so on.

Ideally, you should start with dropshipping and then store inventory when you have the money, stability, and space for it.

You should pick a dropshipper based in the U.S. so you can get your products quickly and at a lower cost of shipping. It also enables you to handle any problems and verify your orders.

If you want to start a good, profitable hair business, you might want to sell human hair rather than synthetic hair.

Dropship Beauty, our dropshipping service, has been serving clients since 2016. We hold an inventory worth of 1 million dollars.

A diverse product portfolio that includes bundles, closures, frontals, tape-in extensions, clip-in extensions, ponytails, lashes, and all types of wigs, like glueless, closure, and lace frontal wigs.

100% human hair products at a low-cost point, ready to be shipped anytime from our warehouse in Atlanta.

One serious point in this debate is BRANDING. If you ship out your own products, you will need printers and branding materials.

You can’t take a vacation because you will need to process orders.

But if Dropship Beauty is combined with Private Label Branding, We will have your branding material in our warehouse, take care of the packaging, and take a picture of the shipment before it gets out.

How to Start Selling Hair Online

First things first, you will need to pick a good e-commerce platform to serve your goals.

There are many platforms out there, like Squarespace, WooCommerce, Wix, and GoDaddy. But my ultimate recommendation will be Shopify. If you want to switch your platform in the future, it can cost you tons of traffic and design work.

So, if you are going to be stuck, you better be stuck with an efficient platform. It has many free apps to integrate, like Shopify Email, Shopify Audience, and Shopify Bundles.

It’s going to save you tons of money in exchange for a small monthly subscription.

Without the fear of your platform crashing and ruining everything for you.

Just make sure you set up your business legally from the beginning and ask for any permits to sell online in your state.

Get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) and set up an LLC. You can sell on platforms like Facebook Shop, Instagram Shop, TikTok Shop, and Esty.

The problem, though, is that they’re not scalable. But if you’re going the cheap way, you can consider setting up payment methods like PayPal and Stripe.

And setting a contract with a shipping service like USPS, FedEx, or UPS if you handle your own inventory.

How to Work Around Photo Sessions

Photo sessions can cost up to 10K a day.

You would need to hire models, hairstylists, photographers, make-up artists, and a fashion stylist.

If you’re starting your own brand, maybe you need to be your own model. That means putting on the wig and acting all glamorous.

I did my photo sessions late in the business, and it cost me a lot. Maybe you can work your way around and even ask customers for their feedback and photos after they buy the product.

But in the era of AI, some accurate prompts can go a long way and save you a ton of money with professional photos tailored for your products and brand.

If you use Dropship Beauty, you get access to product photos and product descriptions that are neat!

How to Help the Business Growth

The oldest trick in the book is to invest money to get money.

And it’s true you need to feed the baby, like Kendall Ficklin once said. I didn’t pay myself any money for almost three years.

If you get money from your business, you can hire a virtual assistant to handle some of your work.

You can invest in your marketing budget or hire customer support agents. It will take time, but you will be doubling your profits every year.

How to Market Your Products

There are two ways to market your product with a very low budget: email marketing and SEO.

If you’re going to use Shopify, you might want to create campaigns with Shopify Email for free and to get the most out of your lists.

The second way is to get free traffic utilizing SEO combined with free tools like Google Search Console.

Writing blogs by carving out half an hour to 2 hours a day to educate your audience with keyword-rich blogs that serve your ranking goals.

You can also document your brand with videos to get people engaged and even make money from YouTube or any tools you choose.

You might need to reach out to a micro hair influencer and work some way of paying with hair products to get some videos going, building some kind of awareness to let people know your brand exists.

Should You Start a Hair Business Now?

The market is ready for your brand.

No market is over-saturated if you are approaching it right.

Especially if you’re on a thin budget, you will learn to get the most creative entrepreneur.

Enroll in one of our free courses and get your brand off the ground with a step-by-step guide, free tools, and a discount on our custom logos, website templates, and dropshipping services.

Also learn How to Build Trust for Better Sales!