Scott “Matchmaker” Michaels has spent much of his career looking in places where others may not see obvious commercial potential. From his beginnings as a hairdresser in Lancashire and the creation of Hairbond, through the revival of Stylo Matchmakers and his latest attempt to bring the Los Angeles Aztecs back into the spotlight, Michaels has repeatedly pursued the same principle: identify value that has been overlooked, connect the right pieces and see whether it can be turned into something commercially real.
Michaels did not start out with an investment thesis. His early career was spent behind the chair in Lancashire.
Originally from Morecambe, Michaels worked as a stylist before operating The Cutting Room in Lancaster. Working with professional products every day gave him an opportunity to notice something that larger consumer companies often spend heavily trying to understand. Customers would see their finished haircut and frequently ask what product had been used.
For Michaels, those questions represented more than casual curiosity. They were direct evidence that a product was creating an effect customers wanted to understand and potentially replicate.
In 2008, that observation helped lead to the creation of Hairbond.
Building Hairbond From the Salon Out
Michaels positioned the British styling brand around professional hairdressers and barbers instead of relying primarily on supermarket distribution. The thinking was simple: if professionals trusted a product and used it successfully with clients, that credibility could provide a stronger foundation for consumer demand.
The timing proved significant. Men’s hair and personal care were undergoing a period of rapid change. By 2025, Euromonitor estimated the broader UK men’s grooming market, including fragrances, shaving and toiletries, at £2.3 billion, representing 6% value growth in one year. Hair styling is only part of that market, but Hairbond had entered the sector years earlier as men’s grooming was moving beyond inexpensive supermarket gels towards clays, waxes, pomades and professional formulations.
Hairbond says it has since sold millions of products internationally. The business expanded well beyond Lancashire, with established overseas relationships including more than a decade of distribution in the Netherlands and sales in markets such as the United States.
Sport became another important part of the brand’s development.
Professional footballers and other athletes used and promoted Hairbond, helping strengthen its links with football culture. England cricketer Jimmy Anderson became an ambassador, while footballers and professional stylists helped introduce the products to dressing rooms, barbershops and entertainment circles.
Michaels’ position has remained consistent: celebrity may attract attention, but sustained sales ultimately depend on whether the product delivers.
That philosophy is relevant again as Hairbond prepares its first major styling-product expansion in five years.
Drifter Professional Hair Crème, Forger Putty and Vector Hair Gum took around two years to develop. Each has been created for a different styling requirement rather than simply presenting variations of one formula.
Drifter is designed for softer control, movement and natural texture, including longer and curlier hair. Forger offers stronger hold, matte texture and structure without the extremely dry finish associated with many contemporary clays. Vector takes a different approach, providing glide, separation and natural shine for longer or more polished styles.
The formulations are paraben-free and sulphate-free, with a UK supplier responsible for filling and final production. That allows Hairbond to describe the products in those terms, although broader claims around being completely British manufactured would require the entire supply chain to support them.
There is another, less visible side to maintaining a product portfolio.
Independent brands cannot always leave successful formulas untouched. Ingredients become unavailable, suppliers change and minimum production requirements move. Hairbond has previously replaced products when important raw materials could no longer be sourced rather than reducing the formula’s quality while keeping the same product name.
That is part of the reality of long-term brand building. Success involves balancing product performance, manufacturing constraints and commercial sustainability over time.
The Football Brand That Lost Its Place
By 2017, Michaels had turned his attention towards another form of overlooked value: football heritage.
Football had become increasingly wealthy, international and commercial, yet numerous historic British sporting brands had disappeared while a relatively small group of global manufacturers gained increasing control of the market.
One name caught his attention.
Stylo Matchmakers.
Stylo had been connected with some of football’s most recognisable figures, including Pelé, George Best, Kevin Keegan, Billy Bremner, Bobby Moore and Denis Law.
The George Best connection was especially powerful.
Best had become a football celebrity long before modern personal branding had developed into the sophisticated industry it is today. At Manchester United, he occupied the worlds of football, fashion, nightlife and celebrity at the same time. Stylo was not simply borrowing his image decades later. Best genuinely wore the company’s boots and appeared in its advertising.
Then Stylo disappeared from mainstream football.
For Michaels, the obvious question was why a British sporting name with such a strong association with players of that calibre had lost its commercial relevance.
In 2017, he became involved in bringing Stylo Matchmakers back.
Rather than treating the brand purely as a retro clothing opportunity, Michaels took a more demanding approach. If Stylo was going to return as a football brand, it needed to make football boots.
That meant dealing with factories, samples, tooling, soleplates, materials, packaging, trademarks, inventory and distribution. The reality was considerably more complicated than simply placing an archive image of George Best on social media.
The revived Heirship range offered several approaches to the modern football boot. The Heirship Seventeen used microfibre, the Sixty Eight used leather while drawing deliberately on the Best era, and the Seventy Four moved towards a softer premium-leather construction.
The pricing was also intended to sit well below the top end of today’s elite football boot market.
The Heirship Seventeen initially retailed at £129, the Seventy Four at £109 and the Sixty Eight at £99. Stylo subsequently moved the range to a £59 direct-to-consumer price, while premium boots from major manufacturers can now cost more than £200.
Professional footballers returned to Stylo, and Michaels says the revival sold more than 10,000 pairs.
That sales figure helped illustrate an important distinction.
Nostalgia can make people pay attention.
A product that works gives them a reason to purchase.
When Football Became the Matchmaking Business
Michaels’ involvement in football eventually expanded beyond products.
He became an FA-registered football intermediary, working with players, clubs, agents and transfer opportunities.
At one point, he says he held mandates covering more than $100 million in football talent, as well as club-side mandates involving Boavista and Central Coast Mariners.
The experience changed the way he viewed value.
Supporters generally see the final stage of a transfer. A player signs, photographs are taken, the fee is reported and the transaction appears complete.
Behind that moment can be months of discussions involving agents, recruitment teams, managers, owners, families, budgets, work permits, competing clubs and timing.
Having a good player does not guarantee a deal.
Having a club with a need does not guarantee one either.
A transaction only happens when enough of the individual pieces come together.
That is where the name “Matchmaker” became more than a nickname.
Michaels increasingly identified the same pattern across different areas. Value can exist without being realised simply because the right people, rights, capital or opportunities have not yet been connected.
Players were one example.
Brands were another.
Football clubs could potentially become another.
From George Best to Los Angeles
That thinking now sits behind Michaels’ most ambitious project: the attempted revival of the Los Angeles Aztecs.
The original NASL club featured Johan Cruyff and George Best, creating a remarkable historical connection between the Stylo story and Michaels’ current work in California.
The present project is not yet an operating professional football club, and that distinction is important.
Its Wefunder campaign currently shows $8,850 towards a $50,000 target. The stated investment structure uses future equity with a $2 million valuation cap, while the first $100,000 is offered under early-bird terms at a $1.5 million cap. The campaign identifies a first event in 2027 and outlines a longer-term ambition of reaching $5 million in annual revenue.
Those numbers provide a clearer sense of the opportunity.
They also underline how early the project remains.
The Aztecs have not publicly committed to a final professional league pathway. Crowdfunding does not guarantee a league place. Owning or controlling a historic trademark does not provide a stadium. A famous former player does not automatically create a modern supporter base.
Los Angeles is also one of the most competitive sports markets in the country.
MLS now has 30 clubs, including LA Galaxy and LAFC. MLS NEXT Pro also has 30 teams in 2026, while USL is developing its own interconnected professional structure through its new Division One competition, USL Premier.
Any professional route would also operate within a regulated framework. U.S. Soccer certifies professional leagues against standards covering ownership strength, stadiums, market coverage, staffing and financial viability. Its policy framework requires men’s outdoor professional leagues to have at least eight certified professional teams.
History, therefore, cannot replace infrastructure.
That is the central challenge facing the Aztecs project.
The potential benefit of heritage is not that it removes the difficult work. It may instead reduce one of the most expensive challenges in sport: building an identity and emotional connection from zero.
New sports properties can spend heavily attempting to create awareness, mythology and loyalty. A historic property may already possess some of those ingredients, provided there are enough people who still care.
That is the wager.
From Products to Assets
Viewed separately, Michaels’ career can appear to span a surprising number of industries.
Hair styling.
Football boots.
Player mandates.
Dormant sporting intellectual property.
Crowdfunding.
Football ownership.
Writing.
Today, those strands come together through ScottMatchmaker.co.uk, which serves as a central platform for his work across football, brands, ownership and ideas.
The underlying argument is more consistent than the individual industries might suggest.
Hairbond gave Michaels a lesson in recognising unmet demand.
Stylo demonstrated that forgotten history can still contain commercial potential.
Football agency showed him that value only becomes meaningful when interests can be brought into alignment.
The Los Angeles Aztecs represent an attempt to apply those lessons to a considerably larger asset.
There is also an important difference between Hairbond and the heritage projects.
Hairbond was not revived.
It was built.
That gives Michaels’ philosophy two distinct sides.
Sometimes entrepreneurship means recognising something valuable that others have stopped paying attention to.
Sometimes it means seeing the potential in something that does not yet exist and attempting to create it.
Both approaches require judgement.
Neither guarantees the outcome.
Some dormant brands disappear for good reasons. Some negotiations never reach completion. Some audiences have no interest in heritage. Some ambitious projects remain just that: ambitious projects.
That uncertainty is why evidence matters.
Hairbond has nearly two decades of trading behind it and says millions of products have been sold. Stylo returned a dormant football name to manufacturing and sold more than 10,000 pairs of boots. The Los Angeles Aztecs, in contrast, remain at the venture stage, with its most significant milestones still to come.
That progression is more credible than presenting every project as an established success.
From a hairdressing chair in Lancashire to George Best’s football boots and a crowdfunded football proposition in Los Angeles, Michaels’ career has increasingly centred on one question:
Where is the value that the existing system has failed to recognise, connect or develop?
His answer is reflected in the philosophy behind the name.
Find the value.
Understand why it matters.
Connect the pieces.
Then try to turn the idea into something real.
More on Scott “Matchmaker” Michaels, his businesses, football projects and writing can be found at ScottMatchmaker.co.uk.
