It started on a saloon bench in Trincomalee.

One or two hours for a haircut

I grew up in Trincomalee. Lovely town, but it doesn't move at Colombo's speed, and the saloons I went to as a kid ran the way they always had. You walked in, looked at the bench and counted heads.

Four people ahead meant an hour. Sometimes two. You couldn't find out before leaving home, so you went and you waited. As a child you don't question it. That's just what a haircut costs: an afternoon.

Colombo had appointments. Sort of.

In 2022 I moved to Colombo to study for my HND in Computer Science, and to work. The salons there took appointments, which felt like a big step up. You rang, someone at the counter said "okay, come at 4", and wrote your name in a book.

Except the book wasn't much of a system. Sometimes the time never got written down. Sometimes it went in against the wrong hour. Then you were back to waiting, the exact thing the appointment was supposed to fix. I don't blame the staff. They were cutting hair and answering the phone at the same time, and an exercise book can't warn anyone when two people end up on the same 4 o'clock.

Looking for the software that should exist

I was studying computing, so my first thought was that somebody must have solved this already. I went looking.

Most of what I found was built for other countries. Dollar prices. English only. Reminders by email, which almost nobody here opens, or an app the customer has to download first. I couldn't find anything made for a small Sri Lankan salon: one or two chairs, customers paying cash, an owner who'd rather read Sinhala or Tamil, and a phone that gets SMS whether it has data or not.

So I started building one.

What SalonManager does today

The idea fits in one breath. The salon sticks a QR code on the door. A customer scans it, picks a service and a free time, and gets an SMS confirmation. The salon gets one too. That slot is now blocked, so the 4 o'clock can't be given away twice, and walk-ins go into the same schedule from the dashboard.

It works in Sinhala, Tamil and English, SMS messages included. Plans are in rupees and start at Rs 3,000 a month (see pricing), and you can try it free for 14 days without a card.

If one kid somewhere books a haircut instead of losing a Saturday afternoon on a bench, that's a decent start.

Where to find us

SalonManager is based at 454/15, Kandy Road, Trincomalee 31000. It all runs online, so a salon in Jaffna, Kandy or Galle gets exactly the same thing. Fastest way to reach us is WhatsApp on +94 78 427 6493, or email hello@salonmanager.lk. Write in whichever language is easiest for you.