What we talked about
Most franchise operators come up through the industry they eventually own. Anirban Maiti came in from the outside, and he never left his first career to do it.
Anirban runs Great Clips and Deka Lash locations alongside a full time product leadership role, and the reason he started is more personal than most. We talk through how he chose beauty and wellness by ruling out everything else first, what it took to go from a single store to two brands, and how he fits it around a demanding day job. The most useful part is where AI actually helped him, which was not operations where he expected it, but customer acquisition, after print, Meta, Google and Yelp had all underdelivered. He also makes the case that you do not need to be technical to do any of this.
Watch the conversation
This conversation is recorded and not published yet. The written version is on this page in full.
Key takeaways
- The clearest path into franchising can start with elimination. Anirban chose beauty and wellness by first ruling out what he did not want, which was food and heavy retail, and then following the people-centered business that fit his life.
- AI's biggest unlock is not always operations. For Anirban it was customer acquisition, where an industry-specific AI partner outperformed years of print, Meta, Google, and Yelp spend.
- A payment method on file plus AI screening can quietly solve no-shows, turning bookings into genuine, committed appointments.
- You do not need to be technical to adopt AI. Be clear on the business problem, the use cases, and what success looks like, and let vendors bring the technical work.
- Retention is won on creativity, not just wages. Weekly pay, low-cost loans against pay, and real benefits helped a small operator hold a core team together.
About the guest
Anirban Maiti
Operator, Great Clips and Deka Lash
By day, Anirban is a product leader at a multinational engineering and technology company, a job he genuinely loves. On the side, he operates beauty and wellness franchises across two brands: Great Clips and Deka Lash. He is a techie by training and temperament, and he runs his stores the way a product manager would, by naming the problem clearly and then finding the right system to solve it.