Those shortcomings leave a hole that hair transplant specialists are eager to fill, and they’ve got no shortage of ideas. At last year’s annual conference of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS), surgeons buzzed about a new robotic FUE machine called ARTAS and debated the merits of transplanting beard hair onto human heads. Another surgeon, Peter Panagotacos, told me that he’d successfully grafted pubic hair onto a patient’s scalp. And various doctors, including Wesley, are experimenting with a regenerative powder derived from pig bladder.

All of these developments are tracked eagerly on online hair-loss forums, where hundreds of people share news, recount details of their own hair-hacking regimens, and chronicle the shame and anxiety that can accompany both baldness and its existing surgical solutions. "Should have been slick bald by 26…if not for thinking outside the box and experimenting," writes "Stevo" on Hair Loss Help, listing some 30 tactics and treatments he currently undergoes (among them is "Indian needling," a process whereby one rolls a needle-embedded brush over the scalp). "I had a bigger scar than I expected," admitted another user, "Varonil." He adds that he considered shaving his head, but didn’t want to expose that he’d undergone surgery for baldness, "like it was something so horrible that it merited disfiguring surgery."

Wesley’s decision to enter his profession’s world of maverick experimentation, his "aha moment," he says, came in 2009. On his way home one evening, he was distracted by a subway ad with a picture of three bald heads. It was a shame, Wesley mused, that men who undergo hair surgery can’t shave their heads because of the scars. He wondered: Why does there have to be scarring at all? Was it possible to go beneath the surface of the skin to take out the follicles, eliminating the side effect that so many men were ashamed of? His mother, an immigrant from Mexico who’d grown up in a rough LA neighborhood before becoming a successful veterinarian, had always encouraged Wesley to take big risks. So when Wesley imagined what he might be able to do for his patients — restore their hair, and do it without the downsides — he became fixated on creating a device to accomplish just that.

Various doctors are experimenting with a regenerative powder derived from pig bladder

With Dr. Unger’s encouragement, Wesley got a job working nights at his friend’s wine shop, swapped frequent restaurant meals for a diet of homemade spaghetti, and put every extra penny towards bootstrapping the piloscope. He rented hysteroscopes, devices typically used to inspect uteri, because they were the "most affordable" existing tool with some similarities to his initial concept. From there, Wesley prodded around on cadavers (a practice that’s actually routine when testing new medical devices) and determined that you could insert a device into a layer of tissue below hair follicles but above nerves and blood vessels. When he scraped together enough money, he hired freelance engineers to help craft early prototypes. Two years and $200,000 later, he’d fashioned a crude device and was eager to try it on live scalps. By luring them with the promise of free FUE grafts, Wesley recruited five of his former patients and his brother-in-law to serve as guinea pigs in an experimental piloscopy session. That study showed that follicles extracted with Wesley’s device grew 45 percent better than those transplanted using FUE. From there, Wesley secured $2 million in seed funding and partnered with CoorsTek to refine the device.

At the ISHRS conference in October, Wesley introduced the piloscope to fellow hair surgeons. Within days, online hair-loss forums lit up with people seeking more information. "I heard from credible sources that Dr. Wesley’s technique is ‘amazing’ BUT there are still some barriers," wrote a user named "didi." "I think if this was something really interesting, we would have heard something by now," replied "Arashi." "Be patient guys," advised "Javert." "Maybe something will leak soon!"