On a quintessential New England fall day, I met with Jaysen Dodge – owner of Momentum Barbershop in Portland, ME.
Located in the heart of the Old Port, Momentum has been delivering quality and reliable haircuts and razor finishes for over 7 years. Jay and his team have already set the standard for esteemed men’s grooming and are still achieving new goals.
We sat down in Post Office Park in the Old Port while leaves crunched and seagulls squawked to shared a few stories. After, we walked down a couple blocks to the shop and I got my hair cut.
Here’s how it went:
Erik Anson: So Jay, how did you get started cutting hair and separately, as a business owner?
Jaysen Dodge: I think the business owner piece definitely comes first. I did that the first 5 years and then started cutting hair. I kinda grew up poor and didn’t really have a lot. My whole family is very working class, laborer type people. Going to college and having that crazy $100,000 career really wasn’t in the cards for anyone in my family and so I learned work ethic. To me how to earn a dollar versus a degree was what I was groomed to do.
So I worked all through high school and had these jobs where I would do pretty well but always seemed to hit a cap in my earnings and where I could go without having an education. So I ended up putting myself through school while I was working a corporate job at Home Depot which I couldn’t stand. In school I did a bunch of papers on starting a business. On my off time I would just sit here at Bard Coffee and look out the window at people’s buying habits.
The whole idea for Momentum was as a sneaker and clothing store but I knew it couldn’t sustain itself being only that. To compliment what I was doing I decided to put a couple barber stations up front in hopes that one day I would attract a barber. I found someone through some mutual friends, he decided to come take a chance and work alongside me, and we created what I think is modern barbering here in Portland, Maine.
Sneakers and clothes were doing well and definitely have brought people in because it’s exciting to look at, but people don’t really invest a lot into clothing and sneakers in Maine but the barbering really blew up. We went from 1 part-time barber to 2 full-time barbers to 4 to 8 to 9 and now 10.
5 years in, it was always my goal to stabilize the business but at that point I decided to turn my back a little bit on retailing and get behind a chair myself so I started barbering by apprenticing behind someone at my shop. I apprenticed under him and now we’re almost 8 years in and I’ve been cutting for almost 3 years.
EA: I first saw you guys on Fore Street years back and you’re right, I was drawn in by the sneakers, streetwear, and the skate decks I could see through the windows. Later on when I started working closer, I came to get a haircut. How long have you been in this location on Exchange Street?
JD: This is our third and final location. We’ve finally found the right space, location, and landlord, the perfect storm of all things good. We’ll be here for 2 years on New Year’s Eve so it’s gone by quick.
EA: What are some good and not so good parts of your job?
JD: The good parts are that it can be really fun because you meet so many new people and you get to learn from their experiences. Everybody you meet could have traveled all over the world, they’ve been through so many different experiences, come from different backgrounds, have different jobs, different perspectives on what’s going on in the world so you can learn so much. And if you’re really clever you can kinda learn through their mistakes as well and troubleshoot what goes on in life and apply that to what you’re going through.
The down parts of owning the business are that sometimes you have to deal with some really challenging people. Whether they’re staff, an agency that governs you with licensing, a customer, a tenant or neighbor – you never know.
One thing I’ve learned this year with politics and a pandemic on top of everything else that goes on in life is that people have opinions, and people have opinions of other people’s opinions so things can alter quickly.
EA: But that shouldn’t really matter, right?
JD: Right! But unfortunately you have to learn how to navigate on being the most neutral you can be and still hold a conversation which can be tough.
EA: We touched on it earlier but there’s been a lot of stages with Momentum since 2013, what else can you tell me about the life cycle so far?
JD: We’ve gone through a ton of stages. I was talking to a friend last night and we’ve accomplished so much. If you want to talk about streetwear, we had all the brands that were very successful that Portland had never seen. With footwear, we blew that up. With modern barbering, no one had seen that.
Applying the 7-day work week for barbering, taking credit cards, having a blog – no one had really thought of that. We’ve produced more apprentices and licensed barbers than any other shop so there’s quite a bit. And myself in the next few years I’ll hopefully become a master barber.
I think as we creep up towards the 10 year anniversary we’ll have completed all the goals we set out to do. Both the original set of goals and the modified 2nd and 3rd sets of goals. Right now we’ve really cut away all the fat and we’re on a good path moving foward so it’s all about dialing it in and tightening things up and making sure what we’re doing is exactly what we set out to do and our story is being told the right way.
EA: It’s all about storytelling. I look around at your team and everyone is happy, focused, and doing excellent work. Is there anything you tell them whether it’s on a daily basis or during onboarding?
JD: We’ve always had a lack of “team meetings”. The bigger the staff you have, the harder it is to corral everyone. What I’ve noticed is you can say little things in the moment that will help keep people on the same page. I think what’s really cool is that positive reinforcement works the best, always.
When you point out the positives going on, I think people realize how well we do. I always tell people, if we’re not busy, probably no one else is really busy. If we’re slow and you look down the street and people are outside with bags in their hands, that would be unusual. When in-town is doing well, so are we.
When I look around the shop I see the vibe is good, people are smiling, wearing new clothes, and look lifted. I’ve employed people who’ve had kids, go on vacations, buy a new car or house, or get engaged or married. Those are all positive signs of success so I try to show those examples to new hires and say, ‘That’s what you should strive to become. That person accomplished all those things while working here so this is the right environment – you just need to apply your work to that. I’ll help you, you just need to nurture that environment.’
And I’ll remind them of that and try to push them in the right direction. When they start seeing the good things happening, they’re excited. Now they’re getting to work earlier, staying later, putting a little more effort into it. I think that’s the best way to do it.
EA: To switch gears for a minute, for someone who’s visiting or moving to Portland, what do you think are some key things to know about the city, the culture, or the people? Because I believe we live in a very special place.
JD: I agree. It’s a coastal town which everyone loves. You get really interesting weather changes. I think what’s different is that winters can be really pretty but also brutal, right? But what’s cool is we have very distinct seasons here. Though we might have a long, really tough winter, the summers here are incredible so it’s always something to look forward to.
Through various things like one of the 4 great fires we’ve had or these winters, there’s a reason why the city’s slogan in Latin that “we resurge” and we rise up like a phoenix. Our logo is a phoenix because we’re very resilient people. While we may have a tough shell because of that, I think people here are super friendly.
For a small town we’re pretty diverse, pretty tough. Our economy does well. Our median income is low but we still seem to make everything happen here. We as people here have this weird fluency where we work together like a fine tuned clock. Everyone does their part and the city steadily grows.
There’s a reason why people from New York or Canada or Europe or Japan love visiting here. Portland isn’t the capital of New England but it’s one of the original cities so it retains some of the original character of what New England is about. We’re a little rebellious, we’re a little resilient, we’re good people, and we have a hospitality about us.
EA: There’s not a ton of abrasion between the people you may find elsewhere.
JD: Nope, I always tell people you could be visiting or move here and know nothing about it, but if you walk down the street at 1 or 2 in the morning with money out of your back pocket, no one’s gonna take that. It’s completely safe here, no one wants to bother you at all.
EA: I remember us talking once, getting close to the winter months and we said it’s funny how everything changes. If you were going out on a Friday night during the summer you may hop around to a few places but if you’re out during the winter you may hunker down in one cozy, basement type spot and enjoy a couple warm drinks there. I loved this sentiment.
JD: Yeah I like that too. There’s a couple nice warm cozy places in town that you’ll go out in the middle of a blizzard just to stay warm somewhere else which is kind of an oxy-moron but it’s great at the same time. You experience that chilly trip to the car to go out, just to find a warm cozy place. There’s something good about that.
EA: If there’s any foundational advice you have to anyone who wants to be a small business owner, what would that be?
JD: The larger the network you have in your personal life or your professional life leading into being a business owner, the better. You’ll have so many more people supporting you. But really just do your research and be thorough. Don’t half-ass anything.
Opening a business can be tough in general, it can be tough in Portland – it’s election year, economics are a little messed up, this pandemic we’re not sure what the affect will be. You need to be very thorough but you need to believe in yourself. Don’t be blind to the reality that something might not work. You need to be realistic but definitely believe in yourself and move forward.
Whatever venture you’re doing, you gotta tell everyone about it, make sure they know at any given time exactly what you’re doing. When you finally launch, use every social media at all times to tell everyone about it.
Hand out every card, ask people to support it, invite them to come see it. Even if they’re not your typical customer, if they know about it, they’ll talk about it. And the more times people hear the name, the more apt they are to trust in that and come see you.