SILS graduate creates HairMatch

Alycea Adams has always been curious. That drive to understand, ask questions and solve problems has been a constant thread in her life.

It’s what led her to UNC-Chapel Hill, where she thought she’d go on to medical school. When her premed plans shifted, Adams called her software developer brother for advice. He encouraged her to explore the information field.

She decided to enroll in INLS 161: Tools for Information Literacy with Ron Bergquist. In that class, she realized how information science tools and methods could be applied across industries and disciplines. She saw that it could support her goal of solving problems on her own terms.

One of those problems was hair care. Like many others with natural hair, the Tar Heel cheerleader had to guess which products would work best with her hair based on several factors, including curl pattern, porosity and density. She accumulated a “shelf of shame,” a collection of expensive hair products that turned out to be not suited for her hair.

Then one day she saw her grandmother using a plant-identification app and had a lightbulb moment: What if there was an app that could analyze hair type and texture?

There wasn’t, so the idea for HairMatch was born.

From information literacy to the app store

In the summer of 2023, Adams completed a business strategy internship with Delta Airlines. That’s where she met Matt Steele, a Georgia Tech student interning on the software side. Though their hair care experiences were vastly different, Matt — who swam competitively —understood the challenge of trying to restore damaged hair.

When Adams began seriously imagining HairMatch, she reached out to Matt, knowing he could help bring her vision to life. Together, they built the app, using his coding and user interface/user experience design skills, and incorporated a vision-language model to analyze hair types.

In her entrepreneurship class, Adams thought deeply about her users, developing key personas — like moms with daughters who have different hair textures. The app’s design evolved to include step-by-step style guides, explanations for tricky ingredients like sulfates and insight into how treatments like highlights or heat styling affect different hair types.

Matt and Adams officially launched HairMatch in November 2024. Since launch, HairMatch has seen over 4,000 downloads, 500+ paying users and active engagement from people in 29 countries.

Much of this success was built on Adams’ powerful online presence. A Sephora Squad member, she shares beauty, branding and hair care insights with over 1.3 million followers across platforms — including 345,000 on Instagram and 882,000 on TikTok. She also credits skills she honed in the classroom and an Innovate Carolina’s 1789 Student Venture Fund grant that helped propel her idea from prototype to app store.

Now HairMatch is a finalist in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup, a global competition for student developers tackling real-world problems through tech. Finalists will present their work May 19 on a global stage at Microsoft Build in Seattle, competing for prizes up to $100,000 and an exclusive mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Watch the Imagine Cup World Championship and keynote from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on May 19 starting at 8:45 a.m. at build.microsoft.com

Alycea Adams met HairMatch co-founder Matt Steele during an internship with Delta Airlines.

What’s next

Adams graduated May 10 with a Bachelor of Science in information science and minors in entrepreneurship and urban planning. This summer, she’s heading to Atlanta to join IBM as a brand specialist in the technology sales department.

She is excited to continue learning from others: “I look to people who bring different insights and experiences. They might not confirm what I already know, but they can challenge me and serve as a sounding board.”

Alycea Adams was a member of the cheerleading team at Carolina. (Submitted photo)