Are you balding? There’s an AI for that

For Cyriac Lefort, the thought for his new startup, MyHair AI, got here two years in the past.  The French native was sitting in a hair salon in New York getting a routine haircut when his hairdresser checked out him and stated, “You’re beginning to lose a little bit of hair,” Lefort, who’s 32, recollects being instructed.  

“He didn’t say that to my buddy sitting subsequent to me, simply to me,” Lefort continued. “In my thoughts, I wasn’t balding, and I nonetheless don’t suppose I’m. However when somebody tells you you’re dropping your hair, you purchase no matter they recommend.” 

So, he purchased the shampoo the hairdresser recommended and left considering that anybody might promote a person something by telling him that he’s dropping his hair. “Hair loss is such an emotional subject for women and men,” he stated.  

That interplay despatched him down a rabbit gap the place he found how complicated the hair loss trade is, with a lot misinformation and clinics with unverified evaluations. (He later went to a hair physician who instructed him he was, in reality, not balding.)

Lefort wished to create a product that, utilizing AI, would assist males diagnose hair loss.

Lefort is a serial entrepreneur, having exited one firm and presently working two others with Tilen Babnik, who’s 28. The duo determined to staff up and construct a 3rd firm: MyHair AI. They vibe coded the product in only a few weeks. It really works like this: Customers take photographs of their heads and add them to the MyHair app. The AI know-how analyzes these photographs to measure hair density and detect early indicators of hair loss.

Over time, as a consumer uploads extra photographs, the AI tracks the evolution of their hair loss, letting folks construct personalised hair loss-protection routines. Customers may discover specialists or uncover clinics by way of the platform and browse verified evaluations so they don’t get scammed. 

“Our AI tells you what’s actually taking place together with your hair, matches you with merchandise that truly make sense in your hair kind, and explains the science behind them, together with potential unwanted side effects,” Lefort stated. “By bringing transparency and medical accuracy to this $50 billion market, we imagine we are able to utterly reorganize how folks perceive, deal with, and store for hair well being.”  

It took round a 12 months of ideation, a couple of weeks of vibe coding on Cursor, a couple of months of scientific and medical validation, and some extra weeks of constructing a client app for the duo to be able to launch MyHair.AI. The corporate launched this summer season.  

“We didn’t rent anybody for the preliminary prototype; it was totally vibe coded,” he stated, including that now that the product has grown, their engineers deal with the code to make sure it’s stable and scalable. MyHair AI is without doubt one of the many examples of how briskly startups can construct lately with the rise of vibe-coding prototypes.

Lefort stated the product already has greater than 1,000 paying subscribers and 200,000 consumer accounts. The app has analyzed greater than 300,000 scalp photographs and has partnerships letting specialists and clinics have entry to MyHair AI to allow them to consider their very own sufferers sooner. On Wednesday, the corporate introduced that Dr. Tess, a famend dermatologist, is becoming a member of the corporate’s board.  

Others out there notably embrace Hims. Lefort stated MyHair is totally different than others as a result of the product is without doubt one of the few that’s constructed a devoted AI mannequin, skilled on greater than 300,000 hair photographs, to diagnose baldness — relatively than utilizing a extra generic LLM to take action.

Lefort stated the corporate is now targeted on growth. It needs to construct a reserving platform and associate with extra clinics. He’s hoping to construct AI that works within the “actual world.”

“Males fear about two issues of their well being, sexual dysfunction and hair loss,” Lefort stated. “We deal with one of many greatest day-to-day issues.”