GesturéHQ💅🏾
The AI manicurist chasing a $25B market
Before AI was ever called AI, Edmund Callis Berkeley wrote a book in 1949 called Giant Brains. In this book, his theory was that at some point, we’ll have machines that think. And even better, they’ll seep into every part of our lives – from business to science and healthcare.
It’s been 76 years, and Edmund was right. Machines that think are increasingly taking over systems. Chatgpt grew from 0 to 100 million users in a month. AI can now make videos, draw art, and draft business plans.
But there’s an unlikely industry getting an AI makeover - the beauty industry. This week’s edition is about GesturéHQ, an AI startup that’s making beauty routines simpler.
The Backdrop
On average, women spend 55 minutes a day on beauty routines. That’s 335 hours a year, or two full weeks.
A big chunk of this time is spent selecting “inspiration” and designs of clothes, makeup, lashes, hairstyles and sometimes…nails.
Over $25 billion a year is spent on nail care, yet miscommunication on design, shape or colour is the #1 complaint in nail salons.
This startup is building a solution to fix that problem…
Meet GesturéHQ
GesturéHQ turns a live photo of your hand into personalised nail looks based on your prompts—and it maps them to your finger shape and skin tone.
So you can say, “give me a Valentines-themed nail design” and you get this 👇
In simple terms, it’s…
A nail design generator and library
A place to connect with nail techs that can bring those designs to life
A marketplace to order press-on nails based on those designs
Think Pinterest + ChatGPT + eBay.
The Money Talk
Here’s how GesturéHQ plans to make money
They plan to sell coins that let users access the nail designer (Gesturé AI)
They make commissions off sales in the marketplace (Gesturé Store)
And they’re building a subscription tool that helps nail techs manage their business. (Gesturé Pro)
GesturéHQ is still pre-launch. But so far, they’ve built a waitlist of 40+ nail technicians for Gesturé Store and Gesturé Pro.
But what’s even more exciting is the market they’re going after.
The global beauty industry generates over $650 billion annually. Nail care alone is a $25 billion category. And it’s growing at 5% annually.
The average woman spends $16 per month on nail services, yet gets services she’s unsatisfied with.
The real problem isn’t a lack of skill among nail techs, but the diversity of designs. And thanks to AI, image generation is now possible, opening up the industry to the bounds of human imagination.
We think GesturéHQ could be a TAM-expanding product, and we’re excited for a number of reasons.
Why we’re excited
Gesturé is bringing gamification to the beauty routine experience and could quickly become a sticky product.
They’re focused on building a real moat - with the marketplace side of the business, which drives real value that makes people stay.
Nail care is a universal experience. So there’s a real potential for global expansion
They can upsell adjacent products like branded nail care products for big global manufacturers, further owning their niche
But what could go wrong?
Adoption: There’s a chance this doesn’t catch on
Competition: What happens when a global behemoth gets on the AI train? Could they take Gesturé’s launch?
Team
Building Gesturé is Anita Ojieh — a Product & Growth Marketing Manager. Ex-Traction.
What do you think of GesturéHQ?
PS: We’re putting them on our watchlist of promising African startups.
If you’d like to meet the team, shoot me a reply.
And if you’re building something cool we should know about, fill out this form 👇 https://shorturl.at/5E4Cn
PSS: Below is a cool demo video of Gesturé.
Till next week! 👋
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