QUEER HAWK

And Ciarán, how Queer Hawk came to be? What was the idea like-

Mm, yeah

... how that happened?

Yeah, so during the pandemic, I decided to do a marketing course.

I was doing this course online, I guess, out of boredom or want to do something, and, uh, had to make up a-

[coughs]

... kind of fake or fictitious company to do fake marketing for-

Mm

... during the, the course.

And the idea initially was, um, a gay barbershop.

Um, it was kind of that specific.

But then, um, Thiago, who founded Queer Hawk with me, who was, uh, my, my partner at the time, um, and is my business partner now, we, um, started talking about like what it would be like if that really existed.

Mm.

And the more we started to kind of research it, we realized, okay, it's actually a little, maybe a little bit bigger than the, the, k- our little kind of niche that we, where, where we were coming from.

Because-

Mm-hmm

... that initial idea was based just on our experience as-

Mm

... gay men in a barbershop, maybe feeling uncomfortable with certain questions.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, okay, if they ask you something, do you kind of out yourself or do you not? And, and it was kind of stemming from that.

But we started to kind of look into the need for something like that, and realized that it was much broader.

Mm-hmm.

That there was, um, people like not only gay men, but lesbians, there were people in the trans and non-binary community having similar and sometimes even worse experiences-

Yeah.

And Ciarán, how Queer Hawk came to be? What was the idea like-

Mm, yeah

... how that happened?

Yeah, so during the pandemic, I decided to do a marketing course.

I was doing this course online, I guess, out of boredom or want to do something, and, uh, had to make up a-

[coughs]

... kind of fake or fictitious company to do fake marketing for-

Mm

... during the, the course.

And the idea initially was, um, a gay barbershop.

Um, it was kind of that specific.

But then, um, Thiago, who founded Queer Hawk with me, who was, uh, my, my partner at the time, um, and is my business partner now, we, um, started talking about like what it would be like if that really existed.

Mm.

And the more we started to kind of research it, we realized, okay, it's actually a little, maybe a little bit bigger than the, the, k- our little kind of niche that we, where, where we were coming from.

Because-

Mm-hmm

... that initial idea was based just on our experience as-

Mm

... gay men in a barbershop, maybe feeling uncomfortable with certain questions.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, okay, if they ask you something, do you kind of out yourself or do you not? And, and it was kind of stemming from that.

But we started to kind of look into the need for something like that, and realized that it was much broader.

Mm-hmm.

That there was, um, people like not only gay men, but lesbians, there were people in the trans and non-binary community having similar and sometimes even worse experiences-

Yeah.