Drybar Founder Alli Webb @ Velocity 2019, UCLA Anderson's Women's Leadership Summit

February 1, 2019 was a day of inspiration, empowerment, warmth, laughter, cheers and sharing from an enthusiastic crowd gathered for UCLA Anderson’s 2019 Velocity Women’s Leadership Summit (https://bit.ly/2RXnUAd), presented by the Women’s Business Connection and Anderson Women. The afternoon’s first keynote speaker, Alli Webb, founder of Drybar, detailed for the women aspiring to become entrepreneurs how she built Drybar from a part-time mobile operation into a nationwide chain of more than 300 outlets. For the men in attendance, she answered the question, “What the hell is a blowout?” The latter query was just as relevant as the former, Webb said. It was what she heard when she explained her business idea to men as she was contemplating launching the company, which she founded in 2010 with her brother and her (now ex-) husband. Webb credited the success of Drybar to the intangibles. “The number one driver of our business is how we make women feel,” Webb said. “I see the way a woman walks in, all business, hair in a bun, and (when) we spin her around for the big reveal, she just lights up and checks herself out in every mirror on the way out.” Webb says she attributes her success to street smarts and determination. “I’ve always had this scrappiness about me and (a belief) that I could figure anything out,” Webb says. “You need that as an entrepreneur. You need to blindly believe in what you’re trying to do.”