Editor’s note: Startland News editors selected 10 Kansas City scaling businesses to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. Now in its ninth year, this feature recognizes founders and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest, most compelling news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2024’s companies.
Click here to view the full list of Startups to Watch — presented with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and independently produced by Startland News.
The underlying mission of Poshed On The Go — an on-demand stylist app — is supporting fellow women entrepreneurs, shared Ruth Shrauner.
“I think from the outside looking in, people look at what we’re doing and they think, ‘Oh, this cute little beauty business or this cute makeup and hair business,’” the startup’s founder and CEO explained. “But we know that it’s so much deeper than that. It’s so much deeper than skin level. We are really on a mission to create a technology company that revolutionizes — not just the professional beauty world — but also the way that the client experiences their beauty services and even their virtual reality beauty experience.”
Elevator pitch: We deliver salon services to your door while simultaneously offering an industry-disrupting business model to beauty professionals, allowing them more lucrative and sustainable careers.
- Founder(s): Ruth Shrauner
- Headquarters: Overland Park, Kansas
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 2 full-time, 4 part-time
- Funding to date: $47,500
- Noteworthy investors: Digital Sandbox KC, K-State Center for Entrepreneurship Accelerator
- Noteworthy programs completed: Digital Sandbox KC, K-State Center for Entrepreneurship Accelerator, NXTSTAGE Customer Traction Cohort, NXTUS Accessing Growth Capital Series, Dream Ventures Accelerator – NYC
Poshed On The Go — which officially launched its app in July — allows users to find and schedule salon providers to come to them, either on-demand or by appointment with services for hair, nails, skincare, massage, spray tans, and lashes. But it also empowers beauty professionals, who don’t have to rent a booth, split commissions, or follow a set schedule to serve clients through the platform.
“When the whole idea of Poshed came about, I walked away from it initially,” she said, “because risking everything for a blowout at home isn’t — to me — the cause that gets me out of bed every day. I’m not that desperate for a blowout.”
But when she saw that within the cosmetology industry 90 percent are women and 66 percent are people of color — and started looking at the industry standard for salary, their work life balance, and the sustainability of the businesses overall — Shrauner realized there must be a better way, she said.
“Thirty percent of cosmetologists leave by Year 3,” she noted. “When I saw that, I knew we could do better. We can build a technology and a community that gives the professionals a better way of life. That’s when I couldn’t stop thinking about this and turn away from it. That’s truly why we’re here doing what we’re doing,”
2023 was a big year for the Poshed On The Go team, Shrauner noted, which includes Kathleen Livingston, director of business operations. They launched the beta app in May and then hard launched in July. Since then, Poshed On The Go has seen nearly 700 downloads, more than 150 appointments booked, and brought in $20,000 in revenue.
“We feel really great about those numbers, especially since we really didn’t know what we were doing really,” she added. “The feedback thus far has been great.”
Related: On-demand stylist app brings the salon to your door, books gigs for beauty professionals
Shrauner and Livingston also participated in Digital Sandbox KC, the K-State Center for Entrepreneurship Accelerator program — where they won $23,500 in funding — Dolphin Tank, and the NTXSTAGE Customer Traction cohort.
“Each of those opportunities that’s been provided in Kansas City and Kansas has just been a wealth of knowledge and then also created connections in regards to meeting people to mentor us or support us or to introduce us to other people that we need to know,” Shrauner explained.
“It’s been an exciting year of learning and pivoting,” she added. “Because now we feel like we’ve learned so much and we’re teed up to go into 2024 in the best manner with the best foundation possible and really hit the ground running.
Ruth Shrauner and Kathleen Livingston, Poshed On The Go
In 2024, they expect to add five new team members — including a CTO — and expand into the Texas market, she noted.
“I think the first three months of 2024 will really show us a lot,” she continued. “But we are hoping to really do 10 times everything that we’ve done this year.”
Plus they plan to continue to show that women can disrupt the technology industry, Shrauner shared.
“As female leaders in this company, we want to grow a company and a company culture that really disrupts the status quo and shows that we can lead with our feminine energy and create a culture of respect and a great lifestyle/work balance,” she added.
Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2024
- Founder: JQ Sirls
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 2
- Amount raised to date: $20,000
- Founder: Jonathan Ruiz and Brendan Waters
- Founding year: 2015
- Current employee count: 5
- Amount raised to date: $64,000
- Founder: Dr. Perry Alexander, Jason Rogers, Dr. Wesley Peck, KU Innovation Park
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 6
- Amount raised to date: $2.5 million
- Founder: Mark Lukenbill
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 7
- Amount raised to date: $25,000
- Founder: Ruth Shrauner
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 2 (4 part-time)
- Amount raised to date: $47,500
- Founder: Neelima Parasker, Holly Andra Small
- Founding year: 2023
- Current employee count: 2
- Amount raised to date: $2 million bootstrapped
- Founder: Blake Herren, Ryan Cowdrey
- Founding year: 2020
- Current employee count: 2 (1 part-time)
- Amount raised to date: $1.5 million
- Founder: Nick Love, Bradley Hopper
- Founding year: 2021
- Current employee count: 2
- Amount raised to date: $1.2 million
- Founder: Kemet Coleman, Woodie Bonds Jr., Elliot Ivory
- Founding year: 2023
- Current employee count: 13
- Amount raised to date: $35,000
- Founder: Triumfia Houmbie Fulks and Sedric Hibler
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 2 full time; 6 contractors
- Amount raised to date: $100,000+
Startups to Watch is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
