She had her uh she was about five feet tall. Um, her hair was down to the ground. She had this like majestic chestnut hair that was just
Intro [00:17]
Shaan: Hey Zach, welcome back.
Sam: Hey Brad.
Shaan: Uh, so this week you have a really interesting piece about a a female entrepreneur who’s one of the pioneers of the franchising business model. Not many people have heard about her. Uh, how’d you find out about her?
Martha Matilda Harper [00:34]
Sam: So her name is Martha Matilda Harper. And um, she was kind of she she created this phenomenal business and long before Ray Kroc, McDonald’s and the whole franchising model took off, um, she was kind of one of the early pioneers in the space in the late 19th century. And her story was kind of forgotten and it’s for for many years it was a footnote in history until um this woman Jane Jane Plitt, a historian, resurfaced her story in the late 90s and early 2000s and really made a push to get her more into the spotlight. But even now today, I I think relatively few younger people know about her. Um, uh, and she she’s just got kind of a very interesting story.
Early Life and Career [01:22]
Shaan: So tell tell us a little bit about her business and and um how she found her niche.
Sam: Yeah, so she she started out her life um in the mid-1800s in Canada and she was uh kind of born into a a lower-class family. Um, at the age of seven, she was sent away to be a house servant by her family. Um, and for for 25 years she was a house servant and eventually she served um at the house of a physician who studied uh hair follicle um science and kind of some of the early science of hair hair treatments. And he bestowed upon her this this hair tonic and um she took that with her to Rochester, New York and eventually um found her way into certain circles, saved a little bit of money and launched a successful franchise of hair salons at a time when it was very difficult to even launch a single business as a female entrepreneur. Um, she ended up growing this into a chain of 500 stores and um was was an inspire and inspired many other um women to to follow in her path. A lot of the franchise owners she hired were were other uh women who who didn’t come from upper-class backgrounds. Um, she empowered a lot of people with similar backgrounds to her and and gave them some freedom to run their own franchises. Um,
Marketing and Legacy [03:00]
Shaan: She sounds like a really inspiring story. To any anything you want to share? Just any fun details about the business and in the in the hair salon industry that that she was was creative with?
Sam: Yeah, so she um she actually invented a number of things like the reclining shampoo chair, um a sink with a little hole cut out for the neck. Just little things you see in salons today that you don’t really give much thought to. Um, but unfortunately, she didn’t secure the patents um to a lot of these inventions. So um it was very difficult for for women at the time to get their name on a patent. Um, but the the other funny detail is um if you if you look at there there’s one old kind of iconic photograph of her that exists. She had her uh she was about five feet tall. Um, her hair was down to the ground. She had this like majestic chestnut hair that was just like a flowing mane, like some like nothing you’ve ever seen. And that was actually her greatest marketing asset um is that she’d serve for these high-class um women as a house servant and they would always ask her about how she how her hair was so nice. It was like this incredible um head of hair she had. And she used that to sell her tonic, to start her business. Um, and uh that was kind of one of her one of her chief marketing lessons is use what you have to your advantage. Um, and she certainly did that.
Shaan: Well, there’s a lot more to this story. You guys are going to love this one. Uh, please uh please make sure you open your emails on Sunday and uh thanks again for joining us, Zach.
Sam: Thanks.