He Cut Barack Obama and Tom Brady’s Hair. Now VicBlends Is Building a Men’s Grooming Empire.

Celebrity hairstylist Victor Fontanez, better known as VicBlends, has reached heights most barbers could only dream of. He’s amassed millions of followers across social media, styled cultural icons including President Barack Obama and football legend Tom Brady and built a personal brand by turning the traditional haircut into something closer to therapy.

“My best attribute as a barber is the way I connect with people,” Fontanez tells Entrepreneur. “There are a lot of barbers that may cut better than me, fade better than me. I’m great at what I do, but I know connecting with people is my gift. Everybody’s gonna remember how you made them feel, and not just how you made them look.”

Now, Fontanez is teaming up with industry veteran Joey Thomas to launch Betterdays, a new men’s grooming brand built around the idea that hair care is an essential part of modern self-care — and, ultimately, how men feel about themselves.

Cut from a different cloth 

Most 8th-grade boys dream of being athletes or astronauts. Fontanez wanted to be a motivational speaker.

“I used to run long-distance track,” he recalls. “I was told that if I came to race day mentally locked in, I could beat somebody faster than me.”

That night, he went on YouTube and searched “best motivational speeches,” eventually stumbling across Eric Thomas, a best-selling author, minister, and motivational speaker.

“I listened to him, and I was obsessed from that moment on,” Fontanez recalls. “How somebody can move you through their storytelling, their voice, their experiences. All through high school, I would listen to motivational speeches in my headphones. I just never thought that it would be something that I could give people.”

Like many teenagers, Fontanez struggled with anxiety. “I thought my voice was gonna sound weird, or I was gonna be awkward,” he says. “I was like, there’s no way this is gonna work for me.”

Instead, Fontanez focused on his other passion: barbering. He grew up going to Barber Kings, where he would watch the barbers work, then eventually learned the trade through YouTube tutorials and barber school at Fayetteville Technical Community College.

“In those early years of barbering, it was just about having the tightest fades, the tightest lineups, how many artists you could cut, how much you could scale your barber business,” Fontanez recalls.

He didn’t see a way to combine barbering with his passion for motivation until COVID hit, and he could no longer cut hair.

“Who are you if you can’t do the thing that you’re good at? That was a question I had to ask myself during COVID, and really ask, who is Victor Fontanez?” he says.

Fading his way to fame 

In search of an answer, Fontanez began posting on social media, trying to uplift others. When he eventually got the chance to cut hair again, he had an idea.

“I decided that I would go give a stranger a haircut, and this would be my stage to speak,” he says. “I was 21; nobody’s putting me on a TED Talk stage or flying me out to speak at Harvard. This was my stage.”

After that first video blew up, Fontanez watched the comment section shift from fire emojis for a fade to people thanking him for the inspiration. “Immediately I knew that there was going to be impact.”

Fontanez’s career jumped to another level when he got the chance to style his dream client: President Barack Obama. It came shortly after he cut Tom Brady at his first-ever red carpet appearance, when a journalist asked who his next dream guest would be.

“I sat there and thought about the craziest name I could think of, and I said, Barack Obama. I want to give Barack Obama the best bait of his life.”

The next morning, Fontanez tapped his network to find anyone connected to the 44th president. As it turned out, his friend Scott was a board member for one of Obama’s foundations. After a series of emails to various gatekeepers, including the Secret Service, Fontanez finally got his chance.

“The most nerve-wracking part about it was that there was no pre-meeting, there was no breaking the ice behind the camera,” he recalls. “They gave me 45 strict minutes, and said, ‘ Be ready to record because the moment he walks through the door, your timer starts.”

Then Fontanez heard Obama’s unmistakable voice before he even saw him.

“There’s only one person in the world that sounds like that,” he says. “I’m really getting nervous, because even though I’m there, you still don’t think it’s real. Like, there’s no way this is happening. I felt like I was on a roller coaster. Then, he came through the door and said, ‘Vic, my man!’”

For Fontanez, the moment represented more than a career milestone. Just a year earlier, he had gone through what he describes as the worst year of his life. Now, Barack Obama was sitting in his chair.

“I believe that if you are who you think you are, and who you believe God made you to be, when the lights come on, and it’s your moment, you show up,” Fontanez says. “There’s always a test before a promotion.”

From barbershop to boardroom

Fontanez’s previous business experience was limited to selling white-label products out of his Atlanta apartment. That changed in 2025, when he met fractional growth and e-commerce consultant Joey Thomas.

Thomas, who previously served as a VP at Dude Wipes and director of e-commerce at BIC, was exploring the men’s hair care space for his next business opportunity. He saw a major white space in retail.

“I think there’s a lot of brands that have gone super ’90s with their marketing messaging, and they’re still doing wood grain and musk,” Thomas explains. “It’s finally time for a brand that speaks directly to men and allows them to be their best selves and gives them the tools they need for the hair that they want.”

Together, the pair started Betterdays, bringing their philosophy of treating the barbershop chair as a safe space for culture, conversation, and personal transformation into the business. They’re channeling that same ethos into a product line designed to help men look good, feel good and show up as their best selves.

“We’re launching two products in August,” Thomas shares: “Rebound Cream and Grip Powder. Rebound Cream is a leave-in conditioner for curls and coils that adds hydration and moisture. Grip Powder, also known as texture powder, adds texture and volume to straight hair.”

Betterdays marked Fontanez’s first opportunity to build a company with a team, outside investment, and a more traditional startup structure.

“I had 100% of a grape when I first started,” Fontanez says. “But I can only manage so much. And if your goal is to eat, you have to bring on a team. With the team, you can split half a watermelon, which is way more food than a whole grape.”

That doesn’t mean you should partner with just anyone—a lesson Fontanez learned early in his career when he first tried to launch a hair care company.

“This lady got me in this crazy deal where I was stuck with this dude,” Fontanez explains. “He gave me no out clause, and it took me four years of working through that, getting the right team, right lawyers, to finally getting an opportunity to do this thing right. So I went through the worst experience possible.”

Still, Fontanez has no regrets. In hindsight, he believes he needed that experience to build Betterdays the right way.

“You’re always going to be on time, no matter what you’re building. You feel late sometimes. It feels like I could have started earlier, but no matter where it is that you’re starting at, you’re in perfect timing,” he says. “If I had done it any other way, I wouldn’t have an amazing CEO, I wouldn’t have an incredible team, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. So everything led up to this perfect moment.”

Betterdays ahead 

Fontanez’s struggles weren’t limited to business. 

In 2023, Fontanez was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder after experiencing an extreme manic episode followed by a deep depression. The experience caused him to question the authenticity of his online persona.

“For being a guy that pushes positivity for others and inspires, I never expected I would go through it myself,” he says. “And when you’re at rock bottom, it’s tough to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Fontanez describes a cloud of depression so thick that even basic tasks felt impossible. The dishes piled up, the laundry went unwashed, and his home began to feel more like a prison. His solution was to focus on one small thing each day that he could do for himself. Slowly, those small actions compounded, helping him dig his way out.

“Thank God I stayed planted and had amazing family, friends, and a team that didn’t leave me. I was able to build myself back day by day,” he says.

Betterdays is just getting started, but the team already has a product pipeline, with a sea salt spray and styling gel coming in November, followed by a clay, detox shampoo and hair-growth serum in 2027.

“I have a lot of integrity for things that I build in my brain,” Fontanez says. “Everything has to have intention behind it, especially when you’re co-signing it, not only as a creator, but as a professional licensed barber. I want the brand to stand alone. The product should stand alone as a great product, not only because I’m behind it, or Joey’s behind it, but because we made something that could stand the test of time.”

Fontanez doesn’t want Betterdays to live and die on TikTok. The products, he says, have to stand on their own.

“These aren’t white-label wholesale products from China. Our scent is crafted from scratch. We went through multiple rounds of scent testing. It’s called Scent Number 26, as an ode to my hometown and where I came from. So everything’s intentional.”

For generations, the barbershop has been a place where men can let their guard down, talk openly, and feel heard. Fontanez built his personal brand around that connection, turning the haircut into something closer to therapy. Now, he’s trying to bring that same feeling to Betterdays.

“It’s here to give men a chance to define themselves as an individual and not follow the norms of what they think a man needs to be, or what we’ve traditionally been taught a man needs to be,” Fontanez says. “You have to be tough; you can’t cry, like all the things that define masculinity that men have always been taught. Everybody’s looking for a personal identity now. Everybody’s so different, and everybody should have a chance to be themselves.”