Tristan Miller started cutting hair in his parents’ garage at seventeen. A few years later he was a defensive back on a Yates Cup championship Laurier team, a U SPORTS East-West Bowl selection, and the reason a lot of professional athletes look sharp on game day.
The business grew out of the rooms he was already in. He became the team barber at Laurier, first for football, then basketball. A teammate who had also picked up the clippers and a coach with CFL ties opened the next doors, and Tristan became the barber for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Toronto Argonauts. From there it was an NFL rookie camp with the Packers, NBA Summer League chairs, and a client list that runs from the CFL into the NFL and NBA.
He built that into The Locker Room by TreyFadez, a mobile barbering brand serving pro athletes with a team of barbers across North America, backed by a sponsorship from BioSteel. While still playing varsity ball and studying sociology, he took it through Laurier’s StartUp Lab, reached the pitch competition’s final six, and won the Student Choice vote. Of mixed heritage, he names diversity, respect, and hard work as the things he builds on.
The part Miller cares about most is not the fade. It is what happens in the chair, the conversation, the reset, the small ceremony of being looked after before you go and perform. A haircut takes fifteen minutes. The way it makes you feel can carry a whole week.
For all the pro chairs and the client list, the point he keeps coming back to is smaller and more personal. The proof he cares about is quieter than any prize. It is a young athlete walking into an exam, or onto a field, feeling like the best version of themselves.
The takeaway: you do not always have to go find your first market. Tristan’s was the locker room he already lived in. Do the work in the network you are standing in, be the person teammates trust with something personal, and let those relationships carry the business outward.