Elizabeth Cline Reza couldn’t tell you the last time she went to a grocery store.

With two daughters under 2 and a corporate job in sales, the Lake Highlands resident has relied on the convenience of grocery delivery like many others on the go.

While the variety of on-demand options has grown, there was still one service Reza couldn’t find — hairstyling by professionals who can meet you at home, the office, the gym, or wherever else you may need a quick do.

The Birdie Beauty App, which held its launch party Thursday, fills that gap. The on-demand hairstyling service coming soon to Dallas will offer blowouts “on the fly.” Users can select from styles ranging from the voluminous Mockingbird to the Flamingo’s beachy waves. 

Reza, her sister, Gabrielle Cline Muzel, mom, MaryElaine Cline, and Lauren Scott all teamed up to co-found the beauty startup.  

The inspiration for the fledgling company dates back about two years ago, when Reza had just welcomed her first child.

“At the end of the day, we feel like if we’re taking care of our stylists, then they’re going to take care of our clients.”

Elizabeth Reza

Juggling life with a newborn and working in corporate health insurance sales, she “was feeling the pressure of still trying to maintain a certain look, but also being a mom.”

“It’s very normal to walk around with throw up in your hair all the time,” Reza said of motherhood with an infant.

In a conversation with her husband, she daydreamed about the notion of having someone come to her house and check hairstyling off the infinite to-do list. He quipped about scheduling a stylist just like you would an Uber.

“For the next six months, everytime I would get out of the shower and need to blow dry my hair I was thinking ‘man, this would be so good,’” Reza recalls.

Eventually, she finally decided to quell that nagging thought by jumping full force into creating Birdie.

Birdie was founded to provide convenient blowouts, especially for young professionals and moms, but Reza said as they begin building the app it became clear it could be a more flexible solution for hair professionals, too.

With Birdie, stylists can choose when and where to work. Birdie also doesn’t require them to pay rent for a station at a salon or take a chunk of their earnings for purchasing styling products. And, there’s a generous 80 percent stylist commission.

“At the end of the day, we feel like if we’re taking care of our stylists, then they’re going to take care of our clients,” Reza said.

At its headquarters it calls The Nest east of downtown Dallas, stylists (aka Birdies) will receive training on the Birdie hair experience. Reza said they’ve snagged a former Drybar employee who led training efforts there to build out the Birdie program.

The startup will focus on Dallas first, but in 2019 it expects to be in 44 cities around the country.

The Nest also includes an open work haven for those in the beauty and adjacent industries such as event planning and spaces for holding events.

Up to this point, the venture has been self-funded, but Reza hasn’t ruled out the possibility of investors in the future. Eventually, she’d also like to add makeup and other beauty services.

The startup will focus on Dallas first, but in 2019 it expects to be in 44 cities around the country. In each market, it plans to recruit between 50-60 stylists.

“The goal is to scale quickly, but we also want to be strategic in how we do that. At the end of the day, we want to make sure the product is up to par. We don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that,” Reza said.

GALLERY

Photos of launch party courtesy of Birdie.