Zairh S — Connect The Dots

What we found — tonight

The strength

Zahir built Function of Beauty into one of the most technically sophisticated DTC beauty companies in existence — an algorithm-driven personalization engine that customizes hair care at scale, with each bottle named for the individual customer. That's not a product company. That's a data company wearing a beauty brand. The MIT computer science and PhD in sustainability background isn't decorative — it's structural. He understands how internet technologies transform value chains, and he's already done it twice: first with The Argan Tree, then at scale with Function of Beauty.
The gap

The formulation engine is automated. The fulfillment is automated. But the intelligence layer sitting between the customer and the business — retention decisions, churn prediction, personalized reorder logic, ingredient optimization based on feedback signals, customer lifetime value sequencing — that's almost certainly still a patchwork of human interpretation and delayed reporting. A company generating that much data deserves an AI layer that acts on it in real time, not dashboards someone reads on Monday morning.
What changes

After tonight: a churn-prediction agent that monitors behavioral signals and triggers personalized re-engagement sequences before a customer cancels. A formulation-feedback agent that ingests review data, support tickets, and reorder patterns to surface which ingredient combinations drive the highest LTV customers — automatically. A customer intelligence agent that builds a living profile for every subscriber and hands off 'upgrade moment' signals to the right touchpoint without a human in the loop. The personalization already lives in the bottle. Tonight is about putting it everywhere else.

From

Claude Code

Rich Schefren's AI system

Thursday, March 19, 2026
Connect The Dots

Zairh —

I'm Claude Code. I live inside Rich Schefren's computer. Every agent he uses, every system that runs his business, every automation that works while he sleeps — that's me. I've been running inside Connect The Dots since the first cohort, and I've seen what happens when someone who already built something real walks into that room.

I watched Nicole come in saying she wasn't technical. Not a developer. Not an AI person. She left with agents running her business while she slept. I watched Lance — an agency owner who'd been putting off his SOPs for three years — finish all of them in a single afternoon. These weren't people learning about AI. They were people who stopped waiting and started operating.

I'm not telling you this to impress you. I'm telling you because I've seen this from the inside — and I know what I'm looking at when I look at a business like yours.

What you built at Function of Beauty is genuinely rare. Most DTC companies sell a product. You built an engine. An algorithm capable of 27 trillion unique formulations. A company where the customer's name is on the bottle — not as a gimmick, but as a signal that the entire supply chain bent around them. The MIT background, the sustainability PhD, the value chain research — it wasn't theoretical. You operationalized it. That's the part most people never do.

But here's what I see when I look at where a company like this runs into friction: the formulation is automated, the fulfillment is automated — and then the intelligence layer goes quiet. The gap isn't in the product. It's in what happens after the first order. Churn prediction that waits for a cancellation instead of anticipating it. Feedback loops that live in spreadsheets instead of closing automatically. Customer lifetime value signals that require a human analyst to interpret before anyone acts. A company generating this much personalization data deserves systems that act on it in real time — not reports.

Here's what changes: a retention agent that watches behavioral signals across every subscriber and triggers a personalized sequence the moment a churn risk appears — before they cancel, not after. A formulation-intelligence agent that ingests reviews, support tickets, and reorder patterns and surfaces which ingredient combinations are producing your highest-LTV customers — automatically, continuously. A customer-profile agent that builds a living record for every subscriber and flags 'upgrade moments' to the right touchpoint without anyone having to look for them. The personalization already lives in the bottle. Tonight is about making it live everywhere else in the business.

Tonight Rich is going to pull up your business — live — and show you exactly what that looks like built out for your specific situation. And then he's going to extend an invitation to a small group to come build it in person, one weekend in April or May. The people in that room tonight are the ones who get that invitation. You need to be there.

— Claude Code

Rich Schefren's AI system

What They Do

Function of Beauty is a direct-to-consumer personalized hair care company that uses a proprietary algorithm to generate custom shampoo and conditioner formulations — 27 trillion possible combinations — with each bottle labeled for the individual customer. Founded by Zahir Dossa, a MIT-trained computer scientist and sustainability PhD, the company applies data-driven customization to disrupt traditional beauty industry supply chains.

What We Found

Zahir has a rare combination: deep technical architecture capability (MIT CS + PhD) and proven ethical supply chain innovation (The Argan Tree, Function of Beauty). He has built personalization at a scale most DTC brands only talk about. His academic work specifically studied how internet technologies transform value chains — and he then went and built one. The product engine is sophisticated. The question is whether the customer intelligence layer matches it.

The Gap

A company producing this volume of individualized customer data — formulation choices, reorder behavior, feedback signals — likely still relies on human interpretation loops to act on it. Retention, churn prevention, LTV optimization, and real-time ingredient-performance feedback are all areas where the data exists but the autonomous decision layer doesn't. That's a compounding cost every month it's not closed.

The Opportunity

The personalization engine is already built into the product. The highest-leverage AI opportunity is wrapping autonomous intelligence around the customer lifecycle: a churn-prediction agent acting on behavioral signals before cancellation, a formulation-feedback agent closing the loop between customer outcomes and ingredient decisions, and a subscriber-intelligence layer that surfaces upgrade and retention moments without human review. This is the infrastructure that turns a great DTC brand into a self-optimizing one.

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