How Stanislav Vrublevsky Built Profitable Barbershop Businesses. Over recent years there has been a striking trend in the men’s grooming industry.
Men are paying more attention to their looks — a conscious attention. This change is fueled by a new consumer mentality, the mass media, and a widespread availability of good grooming service. Men are redefining how they view personal style and self-care, per Pinterest Men’s Trend Report. In fact analysis from GWI (Global Web Index) find that almost 50% of Gen Z and millennial men regard appearance as being important to their identity. Searches for hair care have increased by 40% to 150% in various categories during the past 12 months, demonstrating a fundamental trend: Consistent self-care of the self and regard on the body care of the hair have become habit instead of exception.
And even the last handful of men show signs of getting better. “For most modern men, hair care is an essential need, too,” says Stanislav Vrublevsky, hair stylist and co-founder of multiple successful barbershop chains. “They’re not jumping right in to experiment. Most are sticking to their usual styles and products — sure, but they’re doing it regularly.”. Vrublevsky has been involved in the launch and scaling of several barber projects, assembling a team and training professionals. His ideas developed into multi-location networks with multiple players operating in some countries of the CIS region. He was among the first Eastern European businessmen to think of barbershops as a scalable chain model. In 2014, he launched 310 CUT, which quickly grew into one of the region’s most prosperous men’s grooming brands. He also co-founded the barbershop chain Luch. At an earlier stage in his career, Vrublevsky was also teaching at the Dolores Academy of Hairdressing Art, graduating with honors and later taking a position as a teacher at the academy. He has experience creating trend collections as well, judging professional competitions, training teams for other chain barbershops, and speaking at industry events as a master trainer and judge.
In recent years too, male customers changed quite a bit. “Men are willing to pay for professional grooming, not just services,” says Vrublevsky, writing. The global men’s grooming market, according to Global Market Insights, was worth about $61.6 billion in 2022 and is projected to continue growing. Georgia follows suit. According to Euromonitor International, in 2024, the men’s grooming sales grew among the country’s consumers as they made regular purchases of hair and skincare products, beard and shaving products and professional services — such as haircuts, treatments and barber trips.
The competition among the barbershops has heated up. Official Georgia numbers are scarce, but available public directories show that there are at least 50 barbershops in Tbilisi alone, not counting traditional salons that hire barbers. The picture is clearer in the United States, however. Some 78,000 barbers worked on a national scale in 2023, and demand is looking set to increase in the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand is outpacing supply of professionals: The business is currently facing an ongoing shortage. And to succeed, you have to be original. Vrublevsky began creating a differentiated service model tailored personalized care model in all his bar salons. Customers fill out a brief questionnaire before each haircut, enabling the barber to create a comprehensive profile. Clients receive a hair-care guide tailored to their lifestyle and interests post-visit. “To hit it to the core, you need to know the person,” Vrublevsky said. “How they live, what they worry about with their look and how they want to be perceived.” Using this method, client retention has increased by 40+% in the previous two years. Repeat visits regularly exceed 90% per internal metrics. “Not all owners use celebrity branding. Others transform barbershops into mobile retro vans,” he says. “I opted for results. Years in industry helped me identify what my clients were lacking — and once that gap was addressed, loyalty was the result of it.”
Vrublevsky kept the three core metrics (with his projects) in a single, concentrated focus: barber utilization, the average check, and return frequency. Prior to offering personalized service, barber chairs remained idle for up to one-third of working hours. Average checks increased 18–25% after the shift due to care processes and extra product sales. The barber utilization settled above 75%, through pre-booking and repeat visits. Generally within 10–14 months, new locations achieved operational profitability.
But some aspects of market growth have also made a big problem about staffing visible. In the UK, hairdressing program enrollment declined by 70 percent over the last decade — from 13,180 students in 2015 to 4,160 in 2023, The Guardian reported. It has happened in the U.S. too, where barber market analysts say the number of students coming to school to get a haircut has fallen. Georgia presents a similar problem: the service sector is expanding faster than supply of trained personnel, so it makes recruiting and retention more and more tough. Much of the barbershops depend heavily on advertising is a niche, but Vrublevsky had a different approach: people and management as his foundation for growth, not advertising. He himself became their CEO and oversaw important tasks — hiring and training barbers, improving service levels, consulting for a client. It’s this attitude that has made the business model sustainable, not requiring a single hotshot barber but also an approach that, in the face of all challenges, still maintains excellence. “When a salon relies on a strong master — even one who’s the owner — that’s a losing tactic,” he says. He has a multi-stage hiring process: interviews, portfolio reviews, test assignments and evaluation of client communication skills.
That critical ingredient, Vrublevsky says, is the synergy of technical work and personal style. He also thinks that successful barbers need interests beyond haircuts. Cultural sensitivity and life experience are key. During his own training he leaned toward cinema and street culture. “You can teach technique in six months,” he says. “But taste develops slowly. That is the reason our team is so great — professionals learn from each other and lift each other up.”
