David Howe wants to do for haircuts what Uber did for transportation.

The CEO of Halifax-based Cribcut gets that it’s a bit of a cliché to say your startup can do what Uber did, but it conveys his message: he hopes that Cribcut can change the way that people crop their mops.

The year-old company offers an online platform where you can order a barber or hairstylist to come to your home or office and cut your hair their. It’s a convenient way for busy people to get a haircut, doing away with the inconvenience of traveling to a salon or barber shop, or waiting in line for a barber.

“We are the Uber of barbers,” said Howe at a recent pitching event in Halifax. “We’re a marketplace that connects barbers or stylists with customers for an in-house or in-office haircut.”

Howe is no stranger to online businesses. He formerly ran ToothbrushSubscriptions.com, which automatically mailed customers new toothbrushes every three months so people could change them as dentists recommend.

After selling that company, he spent some time in Silicon Valley, returning to Halifax last year. He teamed up with stylist Courtney Whynott to open Cribcut, and a huge market in which there are already several competitors.

North American pay a lot to have nice hair – like US$20 billion in the U.S. alone each year for haircuts or hairdos, and an additional US$13.4 billion in hair products. Some 400,000 barbers and stylists cut hair at 86,000 establishments.

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There is a movement to get these people to make house calls, or office calls. Companies like Shortcut, which operates in New York and San Francisco, and Shairdoo in Los Angeles, are developing networks of stylists who will go to their clients.

So Whynott and Howe are experimenting to figure out the best way to build the business and make money at it.

“We’re definitely in learning mode,” said Howe in an interview. “We’re still figuring out who that first core client is and we’re also looking at the business model.”

The pair experimented with different plans last year and really began to focus on the market full-time in January. At the beginning, they thought that their core market would be the busy executive who didn’t have time to go to retail outlets, but lately they’ve noticed another interesting market – seniors.

“We had a bunch of seniors trickling in without even reaching out to them and that’s when we started paying attention to this market,” said Howe. “We started to interview them at their homes and places where they meet. It’s a market we’re looking at.”

The company is also examining various pricing models. It’s now bringing in about $1,000 a month, mainly by Whynott providing hairstyles for customers. The revenue numbers are doubling each month, said Howe.

The long-term goal is to take Cribcut across North America, but for now they are looking for ways to increase their penetration in the Halifax area.

“The next step would be going to a bigger city like a Toronto,” said Howe. “If we kick a lot of the kinks out in Halifax then the business would make more sense in an even bigger city like Toronto.”