Trips to barbershop inspired entrepreneur
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Brian Egeston of Stone Mountain grew up with a truck driver dad who was happy with what he had. Egeston grew into a man who was always looking for something better. An entrepreneur, a dreamer.
Someone crazy enough, in a bad economy and with a newborn son, to start a free local magazine about barbershops. Someone driven enough to load 20,000 copies of Barbershop Digest each month into a Chevy truck his dad gave him and deliver them to 600 shops all over metro Atlanta.
He and his pages celebrate the barbershop as a sanctuary from the societal message that African-American men aren’t valued. For Egeston, this is where life became vivid and full of possibility.
In 2005, he hatched the idea for a magazine. “I went to my barbershop and was listening to some barbers talk trash about jumping rope. They issued a challenge to anyone who could jump rope for three minutes without stopping. Someone bet me $100 I couldn’t do it,” he recalled.
“Three minutes later, I was a barbershop legend. I never got the money but instantly saw the camaraderie and the spirit of barbershops in a different light. I wanted to take the barbershop experience home.”
Egeston persuaded his co-worker and neighbor Travis Hudgons to design the magazine. College friend Angus Wilson takes pictures when he’s not working at UPS.
The ads haven’t sold well, and by March, the third issue, Egeston asked his wife to dip into her retirement account. She never considered no.
“My hustle is laying in my lap as I write this message … without a care in the world and without a clue that his daddy won’t be sleeping the next few days. Not because he keeps me up with diaper changes and feedings. But because I share a common trait with the kats holding clippers and the dudes selling wares and the activists fighting for change. That trait is, we all found our reason to hustle.”
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