Meet the Rutgers senior who’s launching his own haircut app

If you’re a student at Rutgers, you’ve probably heard about Ajay Puri – the food science major who all of your friends recommend for a great haircut. With the price of a good shape up being so expensive at every salon within a five-mile radius of campus, Puri is taking matters into his own hands.

Probably having first met him in the kitchen or living room of your dorm, off-campus house or apartment, Puri has become notorious for bringing the barbershop to you. Since, he’s been cutting hair since before his freshman year at Rutgers, and has gained a reputation around campus for his amazing shape up skills.

Now, in his senior year, Puri is taking his knowledge and talent of styling hair and turning it into an app called “ShapeMeUp” that’ll enable people to do their own hair grooming at home.

What is ‘ShapeMeUp’?

ShapeMeUp uses smart mirror technology similar to Snapchat’s face filters that map out how a hairstyle will look on someone’s face, and includes outlines to help people do their own facial trimming themselves.

“I just wanted to figure out a way I could help people out without actually cutting their hair,” said Puri. “So, I thought of this app that allows people to do their own shape-ups that basically gives you a guideline of where your beard could be and then you could just do it yourself.”

The app will include several different filters to appeal to one’s hair grooming needs, but it does not stop at just men and their beards.

“We’re also helping out women as well, doing eyebrow shapes, so you can see outlines of eyebrows too,” said Puri.

Puri said the goal of ShapeMeUp is to help people look their best at all times.

“You can use this app wherever you go or whenever you just need to look a bit more professional – you can just shape yourself up by this app,” Puri explained. “You know where the lines are, it’s just using your own razor and you can do it yourself. They don’t have to go out and pay somebody, they can save money, save time, and always look fresh.”

Where did the idea come from? Why hair?

“People would always ask me because I’m a barber. ‘Yo Ajay. Can you shape me up before a party?’ So I thought about it and I was like, it’s convenient for them, but it’s inconvenient for me because I’m trying to go to the library or trying to do other stuff,” Puri said.

“So, I was figuring out a way where I could help them out without actually being there myself. That was kind of where the idea for the app came from,” he said.

Puri started cutting his own hair when he was just nine-years-old after receiving one too many “bowl-cuts” from his father. He said he would mess up his own hair a lot when he first started cutting it, but only until he became good enough to style his hair just about any way he wanted.

His newly refined skills quickly transitioned to him cutting some of his friend’s hair in high school when right before entering college, he realized just how valued his haircuts were.

“When I got to college I started cutting some of my roommate’s hair in the dorms, then more people started hearing about me and I’ve had steady clientele from there.”

At one point, Puri said he had over 400 clients, explaining all the people he met along the way included athletes, fraternity members, and even some of the members of the development team for ShapeMeUp.

What does this mean for barbershops?

Puri and his development team are also taking the technology of the app and turning it into a “smart mirror” to sell to barbershops and salons.

“What we’re doing is, we’re making a way that someone can see what they are getting, like their haircut, before they actually get it.”

The technology will not only serve as an innovative way for customers to choose hairstyles but will also change pricing models at barbershops and salons.

“We’re also introducing a new variable pricing model, where you are paying based upon what you are getting,” he explained. “So, say you go into a barbershop and you want a simple haircut. Instead of paying that standard $25 or whatever it is per haircut, you pay maybe $15 or something, depending on the skill set that is required.”

The future of ShapeMeUp

Puri said he wants the idea of his app to go even further than just hair, including an idea called DressMeUp, which would be a subsidiary of his original app and would thus utilize the original technology, helping people make their clothing purchases using the same smart mirror technology.

“The main goal of it all is to just help people right now,” Puri said. “It’s just figuring out how to take an idea that’s out there and make something of it.”