Rosie Awori – Local Journalism Initiative
For Natasha Iyamah, entrepreneurship did not begin with a business plan, a storefront or even the certainty that braiding could become a full-time career. It began with dolls, packets of braiding hair and Saturdays spent inside her father’s beauty supply store.
Iyamah, who is of Nigerian origin and moved to Montreal with her mother at age seven, grew up around the beauty industry almost by accident. Her father had operated a beauty supply store before moving to Montreal and later opened one in the Verdun area.
As a child, she was not particularly thrilled about spending her Saturdays there. In retrospect, however, those hours quietly planted a seed.
“I have pictures of me at the age of like seven or eight with my dolls,” she recalled to the CONTACT. “I would always use braiding hair and figure it out as I went.”
Later, when a braider began working from the back of her father’s store, Iyamah asked if she could assist her. The experience helped sharpen skills she had largely taught herself.
By high school, those skills became an opportunity. Around 2013 or 2014, while trying to raise money for a school trip, Iyamah offered to braid classmates’ hair. It was the first time she had been paid for her craft.
For several years, however, braiding remained a modest side hustle. At one point, she had only one regular client.
In 2018, while in university, Iyamah was also working retail and braiding hair. Realizing she could not juggle all three, she quit what would become her first and only traditional job and decided to take braiding more seriously. That March, she opened an Instagram page and slowly began building a clientele.
The business grew from her bedroom to her parents’ guest room, which she transformed into a small salon. By 2021, demand had increased enough for Iyamah to hire her first assistant. She also began selling branded hair extensions and products.
After graduating from university in 2022, she opened her first commercial space near Queen Mary Road in the Snowdon area and hired another staff member. The team quickly outgrew its roughly 500-square-foot room and moved into a larger space.
For Iyamah, expansion has never simply been about getting bigger. It is tied to her vision of what the Black hair-care experience can and should be.
“I never want to bite off more than I can chew,” she said. “But at the same time, I’ve always had this desire to provide the best possible service under the best possible circumstances.”
She wanted clients to associate braiding not with pain, long waits or disorganization, but with trust, comfort and ease.
At Nattes Hair Studio, that translates into responsiveness, punctuality, a clean and organized environment and convenience including providing the braiding hair needed for appointments.
“I believe we deserve it,” Iyamah said. “I don’t see why, as Black women, we can’t say we’re going to get braids done and there’s a positive connotation to it.”
That commitment to improvement has become one of her strongest business principles. Some clients have followed Iyamah since her bedroom days, and she wants each visit to feel better than the last.
In 2024, after getting married the previous year and welcoming a child, Iyamah experienced something every founder eventually confronts: what happens when the business has to function without you?
She stepped away from doing hair for about six months. The experience showed her that she had built a capable team, but it also exposed operational gaps that would eventually spark her next entrepreneurial venture.
While travelling with her husband, Iyamah found herself repeatedly on her phone managing communications between staff and clients. The scheduling platform she used meant that giving staff more access could also expose clients’ personal information. To protect that privacy, Iyamah remained the middleman even while on vacation.
Her husband, a senior software developer, saw the problem too.
Together, they co-founded Syncwell, an operations platform initially designed for salons and aesthetic businesses. Officially launched in March 2026, the software allows team members to communicate with clients without seeing their private contact information. It also integrates booking information, calculates commission-based payroll and allows staff to submit their availability.
Iyamah compares the communication function to Uber: driver and passenger can connect without having access to each other’s private details.
The couple has been testing the platform with early adopters while pursuing funding, partnerships and broader exposure.
It is a natural extension of how Iyamah has built Nattes Hair Studio: identify a friction point, create a better experience and keep moving.
Her salon has also expanded beyond appointments. During her maternity period, Iyamah launched beginner braiding classes and says she has since taught more than 100 people. She hopes to eventually offer more advanced professional training, expand into natural hair care and reintroduce more of her branded products.
In 2025, Nattes Hair Studio moved into its current storefront on Saint-Denis Street in the Plateau.The opening carried special meaning for Iyamah. Her father eventually had to close his own beauty supply business, and seeing her parents at the grand opening felt like a full-circle moment.
“It was just so nice to see my parents’ reaction,” she said. “Seeing sort of like his dream come to fruition through me was really touching.”
There have been other milestones: a collaboration with hair brand Sensationnel, work featured in a Browns campaign and a magazine feature. But the road has demanded grit. When Iyamah was preparing to open her first location, her mother was battling cancer. At the same time, she was finishing university, studying for final exams, helping care for her father and setting up the business.
Some questioned whether it was the right time. Iyamah moved forward anyway. Today, she leads a team of five, including four stylists, and says the responsibility of supporting other people’s livelihoods pushes her rather than paralyzes her.
“I’m responsible for the livelihoods of four people,” she laughed. “So, I better get to work.”
That pressure, alongside her faith in God, ambition and desire to continually improve, has become the fuel that keeps her going.
To learn more about Nattes Hair Studio or book an appointment visit: https://www.natteshair.com/en
