Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Dietiker.
Hi Ryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m Ryan Dietiker, a barber and entrepreneur out of metro Detroit. I own Forefathers Grooming, a barbershop in Sterling Heights, and I’m the founder of Noble Product Co., a men’s grooming brand focused on skin-first beard and skin care in Ferndale Michigan.
I got into hair because of my wife. She left college at 19 to chase it, and I watched her build something out of nothing. I started my own journey at 24, bartending at night to pay for school during the day, and what stuck with me was how much this work is really about connecting with people. in 2017 That turned into Forefathers, one of the most reviewed barbershops in Michigan.
Noble started in 2023 and came straight out of the chair. Every day I heard the same complaints. Dry skin, itchy beards, products that just sat on top and did nothing. I got tired of not having anything real to hand people, so I built it myself. Skin-first grooming, made to absorb instead of coat. Today it’s in the hands of more than 25,000 customers, with product in 90+ retail locations nationwide.
I don’t cut much anymore, but the chair is still the engine. It’s where I learned to listen, and everything I build still has to pass that test first.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No road worth traveling is smooth, and mine definitely wasn’t.
Building a clientele from scratch humbles you fast. I handed out business cards that mostly ended up in the trash. Nobody tells you that this career is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not about how many people you can fit in a day. It’s about the craft and the relationships you build over years, and that takes patience most people run out of.
But those early struggles are exactly what we built the shop on. Behind the chair at Forefathers, we developed a bulletproof system for our barbers. A way to turn a chair into a real, stable career instead of a gamble. Every lesson I learned the hard way became part of it, so the people who came after me wouldn’t have to learn it the same way.
Noble taught me a different kind of hard lesson. Building a product company is a completely different animal than running a chair. I’ve learned more from what went wrong than from what went right. You spend money you shouldn’t. You trust the wrong people sometimes. But every one of those mistakes taught me the business in a way no shortcut ever could.
What I’ve held onto through all of it is something I learned early: failure isn’t the enemy. It’s the teacher. Every setback has pointed me toward a better version of what I was building.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
At the core of it, I build relationships. Both companies do. Whether it’s the experience in the chair or the products people take home, everything we do is about building trust with people over time.
My biggest flex is that we run our barbershop a little differently. We treat our staff as creative partners. They have input and real autonomy over their own journey behind the chair, instead of being told exactly how to work. We’re big on systems, the kind that let us succeed with our clients over and over instead of getting lucky once, and we educate people on everything: maintenance, product, technique, styling. We’re an appointment-preferred shop, and over the years that approach built us one of the most reviewed shops in Michigan.
Noble came out of those same years behind the chair. We took the problems we heard from clients every day and built formulations that actually solved them. Honestly, we did it because we couldn’t find brands we were proud of, in quality, in customer service, or in the wholesale opportunity for shops like ours. So we made our own beard care, hair care, and skin care. It’s in the hands of more than 25,000 people now.
None of this is a solo act. My brother Brett joined me in 2024, right after we launched our product company online, and he’s our COO. He’s been an incredible partner and I couldn’t do it without him. Our family is in every part of these businesses. My wife Heather and Brett’s husband Brad have been invaluable.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
That you can’t win for everyone, and you shouldn’t try to.
For a long time I thought good leadership meant being the perfect fit for every client and every team member. It’s not. Not everyone is right for you, and you’re not right for everyone, and the sooner you make peace with that, the better you lead. Chasing everyone waters down what makes you good for the people you’re actually meant to serve.
The other half of it is learning to lead instead of manage. Managing is hovering and controlling and protecting people from every mistake. Leading is giving them room, even when it means letting them fail. My dad taught me that, mostly by example. He never sat me down and lectured me about it. He just showed me, through his own life, that failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s part of it. Every real lesson I’ve learned came from something going wrong, and I’d be robbing my team if I never let them have those lessons too.
So that’s the thing I come back to. Lead, don’t manage. Serve the right people well instead of chasing everyone. And let people fail, because that’s where the growth actually lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://usenoble.com / https://forefathersgrooming.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/usenobleproduct and instagram.com/forefathersgrooming
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-dietiker-b312b396/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nobleproductco
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/nobleproductco
