Want Perfect Hair? Just Send This Startup Your Selfie

When Amy Errett set out to create Madison Reed, an online shop for hair coloring products, she and her team thought a 12-question, quiz-based algorithm was all they needed to determine the right dye for each customer's hair. But from the moment the San Francisco startup launched in 2014, women began sending in their selfies--they wanted a more visually-based assessment. Madison Reed, which prides itself on customer service, was happy to have its representatives review the selfies and assist customers, but the key to success for any tech business is the ability to scale. That's why in 2016, Madison Reed began experimenting with computer vision, a technology that applies artificial intelligence to interpret and act on visual data. Errett and her team were hoping to create photo-recognition technology that could analyze women's selfies, identify their hair, determine the color, and match it to one of the company's 46 available shades.