Live Episode! Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin

At the end of 2010, Michael Dubin was working in marketing when he met a guy named Mark Levine at a holiday party. Mark was looking for ideas to get rid of a massive pile of razors he had sitting in a California warehouse. Michael's spontaneous idea for an internet razor subscription service grew into Dollar Shave Club, and his background in improv helped him make a viral video to generate buzz for the new brand. Just five years after launch, Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club for a reported $1 billion. Recorded live in Los Angeles. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Guy Raz?

  Hey, it's Guy here. And today, we've got a brand-new live episode for you. It's my conversation with Michael Dubin, who founded Dollar Shave Club. And that conversation happened in LA just a few weeks ago. But before we start the show, just one quick favor. So for the past few weeks, I've been asking you to consider making a donation to your local public radio station all this month. And the idea behind it isn't just to ask for money, but it's to ask for your support, because public radio stations depend on your contributions to function. It's how they can bring you the news programs you love and the cultural programs you love. And even this show, it's how they can broadcast our show on the radio. So if you can, please consider donating.

• 0:48Guy Raz?

  Go to donate.npr.org/built to show your support for our show. And thanks.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  So our first investor was a company called Science. They're out in Santa Monica. They gave us $100,000 check. Actually, no, they gave us $100 check by accident first. And I got all the way to the bank. I literally, I got to the bank and I was like, here's my check for $100,000. You had to fill out the form that said $100,000. And I fill it out, and the woman looks at me and she's like, uh-uh.

• 1:25Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:39Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Michael Dubin turned eight years of experience in improv comedy and video marketing into the billion-dollar Dollar Shave Club.

• 1:57Guy Raz?

  So think about the billion-dollar companies that didn't even exist 10 or 15 years ago. Companies like Airbnb, or Lyft, or Snapchat, or Spotify, or Hulu. Pretty incredible if you think about it, because there's a pretty good chance that today, you use at least one, if not all, of these services. And even if you don't like what these companies offer, you can't deny that they're innovative, that they all offer a new way to do something, to get around, or find a place to crash, or listen to music, or watch TV. These are some of the sexiest startups in recent years. But now imagine a completely opposite idea. A business that not only offers a boring product,

• 2:41Guy Raz?

  but a product that is dominated by one big company. I'm talking about men's razors. And just a decade ago, Gillette owned about 70% of the US shaving market. But today, Gillette's overall market share is closer to 50%, and that's partly due to a company called Dollar Shave Club. It's a company that decided to take on Gillette, not by offering a better razor, but by offering a better story. In fact, the story of how Dollar Shave Club went from a scrappy website to a billion-dollar exit in just five years is more about Michael Dubin's instincts and marketing chops than it is about anything else.

• 3:25Guy Raz?

  Because for almost eight years before he launched Dollar Shave Club, Michael Dubin was doing two things that would help him figure out how to penetrate an impenetrable market. One of those things was creating videos for corporate clients. And the other, probably more important, was taking improv classes at night. Those two skills would help Michael create one of the most successful guerrilla marketing campaigns in modern history. But long before any of that happened, Michael had what he calls a pretty normal childhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia. His dad was a lawyer, and his mom was a teacher, and then later worked in real estate.

• 4:06Guy Raz?

  Earlier this month, at the theater at Ace Hotel in downtown LA, I sat down with Michael Dubin in front of a live audience, where I wanted to find out why, on snowy days, his mom used to force him and his sister to stay inside and solve math problems.

• 4:25Guy Raz?

  All right. Welcome, Michael.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 4:29Guy Raz?

  Is that actually true, that on snow days, your mom would make you solve math problems? Or is that apocryphal?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we weren't allowed to, you know, it was like, you can have fun, but before you have fun, you're gonna be productive. And I think we carry that with us wherever we go. There's like, a little bit of guilt that we have whenever we have fun somewhere.

• 4:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah, you're like, I should be doing math problems.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 4:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  That's a good lesson. Do your work first, have fun later.

• 4:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right, so you grew up mainly, I guess, in the suburbs of Philadelphia?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:58Guy Raz?

  So I'm curious, and this is a little bit foreshadowing here, so I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves here, but as a kid, or as a teenager, were you into theater, or acting, or school plays and dramas? Did you do that kind of stuff?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I did. I was always in the school play. I was in the, I was the lead in a school play in 4th grade. It was called "Peace Child." And "Peace Child" was all about preventing a nuclear Holocaust through song.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  And literally, no, truly, there was a song that was called "I Want to Live."

• 5:35Speaker 01

  "I Want to Live," and something like, "I want to live the right to live my life." I don't know, I mean, it was really like, I'd love to see it.

• 5:42Guy Raz?

  All right, so I think you know why I'm asking questions about theater, because we'll get to that later, and the theatrical stuff. But what about general academics? I mean, did you feel like you were a good student? Or did you become a good student?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I was not a good student. I was not a horrible student. I was good at the subjects that I was interested in. But if I wasn't interested in the subject matter, it was really hard to get me to pay attention. I'm also, I was probably one of these kids that went undiagnosed with ADD. And I think that probably contributed to it. But yeah, I don't think that I was much of a student. I did okay.

• 6:17Guy Raz?

  Good, good enough. I mean, you went to a pretty good school. You went to Emory University.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I did.

• 6:21Guy Raz?

  Um, and you studied history there, right?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I actually started out as a poli sci major, but I flunked poli sci 100, actually twice. I flunked the same class twice in back-to-back years, um, which goes to show you what kind of a student I was my freshman and sophomore year. Um, and then couldn't do that anymore. So I became a history major because I always loved history and I love reading about history and studying history. So I actually did fairly well at that. I had a killer internship with a, with a company called Bright House. And I also got super into my internships at CNN. So I actually did more extracurricular, I think, in college. And I got really into those things and that helped set me on my career afterwards.

• 6:58Guy Raz?

  So you graduate college and what did you, what did you do?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  So I became a page at the NBC page program.

• 7:06Guy Raz?

  Like Kenneth Page.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Correct. Exactly. But, but this was before Kenneth made the page program cool. Or not cool. Kenneth wasn't very cool. Um, so, so yeah, I was a page program, which for anybody that knows what the page program is, you get to, it's 50 kids that they take right out of college and, um, you basically have the keys to the castle. You run around NBC Rockefeller Center and the studios and you seat the audiences for the shows. You give tours of the studios and the trade-off is that they give you an opportunity to take mini jobs in different departments. And so those mini jobs can be with Saturday Night Live or nightly news or, you know, at that time, the Rosie O'Donnell Show was still on the air.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And you do those, uh, mini jobs or assignments for 10 weeks each. So I had some pretty cool assignments. And it was just, I mean, I've said this before, but outside of this job at DSC, that was my favorite job.

• 7:58Guy Raz?

  So, so was that your idea that you would stay in journalism or media? Like, was that where you started to think, you know, this is what I'm, maybe this is what I'll do?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was super passionate about it and went to work at NBC and then went to work at MSNBC, first as a PA and as a writer, and I, I thought that I would have a career in the media and maybe even in journalism. But I think at a certain point, the 24-hour news cycle, you, you work all day to build a story and a narrative, and then at 5:00 PM, right before your show would air, they would, you know, there would be some breaking news and all your work would get thrown out.

• 8:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  And, and then I also felt like it was right around the time that I started thinking, like, I really want to be in marketing or advertising.

• 8:42Guy Raz?

  And how did you, I mean, how did you make that leap? Like, had you been exposed to marketing and advertising, or did you just think, this could be interesting?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Well, I had, I had, I had this really sort of formative internship in, in Atlanta, and I got an opportunity through a, a friend of mine's cousin who ran a small marketing firm in New York City that was doing, you know, client service work for a couple minor league sports teams, and the main project that I worked on was, I worked on an early website for an alarm company, and then I left with the, one of the partners at that firm to go over to Time Inc. and Life Magazine, and the relaunch of Life Magazine in 2005, I think this was. And I spent a couple of years at Life, and then I spent a couple of years at Sports Illustrated, sportsillustrated.com, and that work in general was, I built a, you know, back in the day, and people might remember the term "microsite," I built microsites

• 9:34Speaker 01

  for some of the big brand advertisers at Life and for Sports Illustrated, you know, those could have been for Gatorade or for Sega.

• 9:41Guy Raz?

  And you were just learning how to do this on the job?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Exactly, yep.

• 9:44Guy Raz?

  So, like, you would build a micro website, or make a video, or something for these brands?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly. Just figuring out what would be interesting to a user, how to present visual information with some copy in a way that's digestible, how would I lay out this website, and, you know, I've always been a bit of a visual thinker, so it's fun. UX, UIs, a maze, or a puzzle. That's what great architects do, that's what great restaurant designers do when they lay out a space or design a hotel lobby, you know, it's great, what great product designers do, UX, UI designers do. They create. These mazes for people to go in. And that's enormously satisfying when you can watch masses of people follow your lead.

• 10:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All of this is happening in New York. You're in New York in the early 2000s. And you decide to take improv classes, something you did for almost eight years. How did that start? Was it just something you wanted to do for fun?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  So I, I've always been passionate about comedy. And I had heard when I worked at NBC that all of the great comedians that were on SNL had trained in improv. And a lot of them had trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade, which at the time they only had one studio in the, in the West Village, no, in Chelsea. And I was just, you know, I said, well, I want to do that, you know?

• 11:04Guy Raz?

  And you could just sign up, just pay the fee and join?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yep, pay 300 bucks, take the entry level class and see how you do. And it just stuck. I fell totally in love with it. Before too long, I was taking sketch classes as well.

• 11:15Guy Raz?

  And you do this like weekly or?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you take a couple of classes a week. If it's a sketch class, you have some homework to do. You have to write comedy sketches. You, you go and you practice the improv at night with a bunch of people that you've never met before and you go rent some weird studio space and you make jokes at 9:00 PM. And it's, you know, a very bizarre experience.

• 11:33Guy Raz?

  So you had, you had this marketing job during the day, making videos and, and then at night you were doing improv?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  And I was also trying to start my first startup, which was a social network for travelers. So yes, I was busy.

• 11:46Guy Raz?

  And, and what happened to the social network for travelers?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Not, not much.

• 11:50Guy Raz?

  Okay, I got you. Okay. So you had, you had, you know, what I'm trying to understand, I mean, there must've been something about improv, like I, I, I have to imagine that in your mind, you're thinking, maybe I have a shot at being a comedian or being on SNL or was that what you were thinking?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  I would never admit that, but yes.

• 12:08Guy Raz?

  Got it. Yeah, that's right, right, because why would you take improv classes for years?

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, listen, I would go to the Upright Citizens Brigade two, three nights a week and just watch the most amazing comedians perform. People that have gone on to have amazing careers. People like Donald Glover, you know, I, I went to go see Donald Glover when he was doing these shows in the, in a basement in Chelsea under a grocery store. And you're watching six to 10 people on a stage pull ideas out of thin air and weave them together into a story that, that makes you laugh. And comedy is one of the hardest things to do, period. There's a setup and then there's the equal sign, right? It's A plus B plus C equals ha, ha, ha. And that takes magic, that takes real talent. And so it's addictive.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And when you get it right and when you do it well, um, it's a high. And I also, it was such a great way to blow off steam in the evening as well, because you would have these really hard, long days at work where you're getting grinded by your boss at work and, you know, you're trying to start this social network of, for travelers i- in the margins. And, you know, then it's like, you know, you could go to the gym or you can go just completely blow your mind and do some improv.

• 13:21Guy Raz?

  Was there any part of you that thought, this can help me one day if I want to start a business? Was that even a kernel of a thought in your mind?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:30Guy Raz?

  Wow. Cause right, like today you would think, okay, in your twenties, do some improv, learn marketing and then you'll be-

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, then I'll sell razors on the internet, yeah. It's a very-

• 13:45Guy Raz?

  So you are in your twenties, you're in New York, you're, I guess you're by this point approaching your early thirties, um, and you decide to leave. You decide to just go and move to, here to Los Angeles. Why? I mean, quit your job in marketing in New York, leave improv troupe there and come here. What-

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I got laid off, so that's like a lot of people, this is, there's no hero story there.

• 14:11Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Sorry, sometimes life happens on you.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, I got laid off. I was dating a girl at the time who lived in Los Angeles and I'd always wanted to live in California at some point. So, you know, life happened on me and I said, now's the time, like, you know, screw it. I've got nothing to lose.

• 14:34Guy Raz?

  So no plan, no job, you just came out here.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  No plan, no job, just came out here.

• 14:39Guy Raz?

  And what did you, what did you start to do?

• 14:41Speaker 01

  So I, through a friend, I was able to get a job at a small video marketing agency. And what they were doing is they were helping brands develop and distribute video content. And this was probably 2010.

• 14:57Guy Raz?

  So similar, kind of similar with the work you're doing in New York.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, very related to the work that I had been doing, doing work for big brands, putting it online, but doing it in a space that was, you know, pretty squarely in video.

• 15:09Guy Raz?

  So I'm curious to find, I guess it's sort of somewhere near the end of 2010. This is a fateful moment for you because you meet somebody, you are at a holiday party here in LA, you meet a guy named Mark Levine.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:23Guy Raz?

  At this party, who is Mark Levine? What's that party? What happens there?

• 15:28Speaker 01

  So Mark Levine is my friend's father. He's a businessman, he's had a successful career in South Africa, then came to the United States, you know, and he, he was an importer. He's like our family friend who, you know, would show up sometimes with like, you know, a truck full of soccer balls or like a truck full of bikes. And you'd be like, where are the bikes from? He's like, do you want a bike or not? And so you're like, yeah, I'll take a bike. So, yeah, we'd been trying to get connected for a while because he had heard that I had worked in, you know, worked in the internet, inside the internet.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  And he wanted to meet me because he had all this stuff in a warehouse that he was looking to, you know, unload.

• 16:16Guy Raz?

  Like, when you say "stuff," like, he would just, he would just import whatever stuff?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Well, the two things that he approached me about were, he was like, "I've got, um, razors, uh, I've got about 250,000 razors." Um, okay. Uh, he also had a couple thousand cake slicers.

• 16:36Guy Raz?

  Cake slicers?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so these-

• 16:38Guy Raz?

  In a warehouse?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the cake slicers were called "piece of cake." The slicer themselves was shaped like a wedge piece of cake.

• 16:46Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  And so, you know, forget about the worry of having to slice twice when you want a piece of cake.

• 16:53Guy Raz?

  You just sliced it once?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Now, you take your piece of cake and you put it over the cake-

• 16:58Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  And out comes the perfect slice of cake.

• 17:02Guy Raz?

  I need to know why we are not talking about Dollar Cake Club. How, how was that? How was that not the product that you said, "Mark, oh my god, amazing, the cake slicer, yeah, I'm in."

• 17:17Speaker 01

  I just, I knew that, you know, gluten-free was gonna be the next thing and I just wasn't gonna be a market for it.

• 17:26Guy Raz?

  All right, so you are at this party, uh, this holiday party, and he's like, "Yeah, I've got a warehouse of 250,000 razors and, uh, thousands of cake slicers." Are you in? Is that what he said?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  He, he was like, he was like, you know, "Yeah, what do you think?" And I was like, "Well, let's, let's give him a try and we'll see what we can do."

• 17:43Guy Raz?

  So, wha- what happens? Like, you go home and then you, you call him and say, "Okay, I wanna go check out these razors."

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Yes, so I, so I knew that I wanted to get access to the razors because I had always bristled at the price of razors and I had always, there was a time, and I remember this specifically, when I was living in New York, I would walk right past Duane Reade on my way from Rockefeller Center to the subway on the F train when I go downtown. And, and I would need razors and I just wouldn't wanna go into the store to buy the razors because the razor fortress is always locked, you have to find the person with the key, they're always doing something else.

• 18:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  And you actually feel like you're inconveniencing them for, you know, helping you get a product.

• 18:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  It's the only product that's like that, or one of the only products that's like that in the store. And I didn't in 2006 say, this is a problem that I'm gonna go solve. But at that party, he said, the razors are great. What do you want to do with them? I had the idea for Dollar Shave Club right there.

• 18:39Guy Raz?

  All right. So you go and you, what, you, you go check out this warehouse?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  So the razors are in a warehouse in San Bernardino or Rancho Cucamonga, which is like an hour east of here. And I get out there and there's a guy there and I'm like, hello, I'm Mark Levine's, you know, partner and um, I'm here for the razors. And he's like, oh, you're Mark Levine's partner. And I'm like, yes, yes, I am. And they're like, great, you gotta go get me $700 or these razors, I'm about to throw these razors out. So the razors had been there for so long and the bill hadn't been paid. Like, I'm sure that Mark had just forgotten about.

• 19:13Guy Raz?

  The rental of the space.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Like, I'm sure that he had almost forgotten about these razors. So I had to go get $700 sight unseen and give it to the guy so that he didn't throw out the razors and I could have access to them.

• 19:23Guy Raz?

  So you go in, you see the razors and?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I go in, see the razors. I look at them and I say, these look like razors that I would use. I take them home, I shave with it and I knew that we had something.

• 19:33Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you get home and, and you call him and you say, hey, I think I can sell these. And he says, great, go knock yourself out?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Um, more or less, yeah. He was like, what do you want to do with them? And I was like, well, I, you know, I want to put them online. And I, I think that the best way to do it is to create, you know, a subscription mechanism where people don't have to go to the store to get them. They come automatically and, um, yeah.

• 19:57Guy Raz?

  How is it at that very moment, because it sounds like that's what you're saying, you were thinking, this is the business I'm gonna do. I'm gonna drop everything. I'm gonna focus on this thing. Like, what, what was it about 250,000 razors in a warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga? That inspired you to think like that?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Well, because I knew there was a problem. And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs will tell you that, you know, they trust their gut. And I trust my gut. And my gut told me that the problem that I had observed back in 2005, 2006, when I had that feeling of not wanting to go into the store because the razors were overpriced and the buying experience was super frustrating. If I had that feeling, I knew there were other people like me that would have that, that were experiencing that same frustration. And I knew that there was an opportunity. And like also, like a lot of entrepreneurs, once you become focused on an idea and you've identified a problem that needs solving or a thing you want to bring into the world, it's really hard to get that out of your head. I believe truly that there was a problem worth solving here.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  And I certainly didn't think that it was going to become what it has become. But I knew that there was enough there to, you know, make a couple bucks.

• 21:08Guy Raz?

  And what about the name? How did you, was the name also part of the idea from within a few days of meeting Mark?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  I wanted the function of the business to come through in the name. And I think if you, you know, were to pluck somebody off the street and say, what does a company called Dollar Shave Club do? You should probably be able to figure that one out.

• 21:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So if I was, if I knew you then, right? And I probably would have said to you, and I have to imagine other people said to you, "Michael, you're like a 30-something dude and you want to try to enter one of the most impenetrable markets, razors and shaving in America." I mean, Gillette, Schick. Did anybody in your family or anybody say to you, like, "Razors? This is like, this market is dominated by like two or three companies."

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know that anybody quite phrased it like that.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  So yeah, I mean, you know, my family, you know, but like, don't listen to your family because for a lot of reasons, I mean, listen to your family for a lot of reasons, but don't listen to your family for some things. I mean, the way you've laid it out is exactly right. This is, you know, Gillette at the time had, you know, an effective monopoly on this particular consumer product in this category. And, you know, for a nobody to come in with, you know, his Rancho Cucamonga razors and, and like, change the way that people think about that category. Like, you know, I would never have said it that that's what I was going to try to do. Yeah. Because it would have sounded crazy.

• 22:51Guy Raz?

  When we come back, how Michael Dubin and his Rancho Cucamonga razors actually did end up changing the way millions of people would buy shaving products. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 23:21Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. So it's around the beginning of 2011, and Michael Dubin wants to see if he can get any traction with Dollar Shave Club, his new company that sells razors on the internet. And to fund it, he puts in some of his own savings, and he also gets an investment from Mark Levine, the guy who had that warehouse full of razors that he needed to get rid of. And so Michael hires a few people to help him put together a beta website.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  So the goal of the beta site was really to test different pricing models, test different forms of engagement. And, you know, the first brand that we launched was not what it is today. It was really just, you know, what we have all come to know as an MVP, Minimum Viable Product. And let's just get something up, let's see how it does, and let's see what the feedback is. What we were trying to learn is, what was the best product to sell? What was the best assortment to sell? What were people liking? What did they want more of? And really, just, you know, can we, can we move these razors? And what, yeah, what do people want out of this type of a service?

• 24:25Guy Raz?

  So in that first year, you were really seeing if people would get to the site, seeing what they were buying. How did you even reach people so early? Like by Google Ads and things like that?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did a Groupon. I went to a mom blog conference down in San Diego or something. And I mean, this was real street hustle at the time. And you buy, you do your own SEM in your house. And I still remember our first customer was Imran Charnania of Houston, Texas.

• 24:58Guy Raz?

  He just found you online?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  He just found us online. I remember where I was sitting when this first order came in, which was the first stranger validation, right? Because obviously, my mom had bought some.

• 25:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  You know, like other people, my buddies had bought some. And yeah, the first real sale came in. And that validation, that first thrill of that first sale is like all the encouragement that you need as an entrepreneur to be like, yes, somebody gets it.

• 25:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So obviously, at a certain point, and this really comes to a head in March, I think the date was March 6, 2012, your background in video and your background in improv magically come together, unplanned, when you release a video. What was the story about that video? How did that come about?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I knew that this was a fairly simple story. Razors are overpriced, you're overpaying for the technology, and you can get a great shave without having to pay such a high price. And I knew that if you just told that story flat, it would sound flat. So I wanted humor to be a part of the brand, and I wanted to make a video. And I knew how to write, and I sort of knew how to act or perform. And I called up a friend of mine, Lucia, creator and director of Broad City Now.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  Wow. You met her at the improv?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I met her. She directed one of the shows that I was in at one point. So yeah, I met her as part of that community.

• 26:28Guy Raz?

  And you asked her to help you with this video?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  I said, she had just moved to LA too. And I said, hey, I'm starting this company. I want to do a video. Advertisement that tells the story, it's gonna go on the homepage like, you know, I wrote a script, will you meet me for coffee and, and like, give me notes on the script and, and then help me film it. So we met for coffee, uh, she looks at the script, um, she says, I really like it, added a couple of jokes, um, so the line, are our blades any good? No, they're great. Used to be, are our blades any good? No. And then some other bad joke. And she gave me that line. So I actually owe that, owe that to Lucia. And we rented out the warehouse that we were fulfilling packages in, out for the day. Um, that background that you see, I mean, they fulfill all kinds of crazy stuff over the years.

• 27:10Guy Raz?

  For people who haven't seen it, which is, it's you, starting with you behind a desk and it tracks you. It follows you through this warehouse and we meet a toddler shaving the head of a, a grown man. We see a bear, a man, someone in a bear costume. Um, you've got one of your warehouse employees in a go-kart with you. Um, it's very, very funny if you haven't seen it. Uh, 25 million, I think, was the latest number. It's amazing. Um, you released it on March 6th, 2012. Was there a reason why you picked that date or that time of year to release the video?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, so we were ready to launch. We had just raised about a million dollars in, in, um, in venture capital.

• 27:53Guy Raz?

  And, and how did you raise that money? You went around and?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  So our first investor was a company called Science. They're out in Santa Monica. They gave us a hundred thousand dollar check. Actually, no, they gave us a hundred dollar check by accident first. And I got all the way to the bank. I literally, I got to the bank and I was like, here's my check for a hundred thousand. You had to fill out the form that said a hundred thousand dollars and I fill it out and the woman looks at me and she's like, uh-uh.

• 28:20Guy Raz?

  But who were the, I mean, I have to assume there were some investors or maybe many who looked at this idea and said, I'm not gonna get into the razor.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Plenty, yeah.

• 28:28Guy Raz?

  So what was the pitch that convinced those who agreed to, or who, you know, who said, yeah, sure, I'll, I'll, I'll put a little seed money?

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Well, they saw the video.

• 28:36Guy Raz?

  Before you released it?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 28:38Guy Raz?

  So that was how you were able to convince those initial investors?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yep. They were like, well, you wanna do this? And then they, they were the first ones that said all that stuff about, there's no way you can do it. Um, and then I said, how are you gonna, they're like, how are you gonna do it? Um, and I was like, well, I'm gonna build a brand. And they're like, yeah, but what do you mean? And I was like, well, and I tried to explain. I was like, you know what? Just watch this.

• 28:57Guy Raz?

  You said, "Just watch this video."

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:58Guy Raz?

  And instantly, many of them laughed, thought it was funny, and thought it was creative, and obviously believed in you.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they were like, "Sure, I'll give you a hundred bucks."

• 29:06Guy Raz?

  All right.

• 29:09Guy Raz?

  So you raised the seed money. March 6, 2012. Why was that date or that time of year significant?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  So I had spent time in the media. I knew how the media would think about using a video like this to tell the story of our funding. And so I wanted to make sure that we announced our funding at the same day that we launched the video. We also chose that date because there was a nice lull right before South by Southwest. People get really excited right before South by Southwest, or at least they did then. They look for a big tech story. They hope something's going to break the way Twitter did in 2006 or whatever, and that was when Twitter kind of had its big moment, was at South by, and it became a thing. So there's a lot of anticipation in the air, and people are looking for something exciting in the tech space. So I wanted to do it before the festival, before that got noisy.

• 29:58Guy Raz?

  Because you thought, "There's not a whole lot of noise out there right now, and maybe this will get some traction if I do it in this window."

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 30:07Guy Raz?

  So you guys put it out there. What happens? You upload it to YouTube?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Upload it to YouTube, turn the site on late the night before.

• 30:18Guy Raz?

  And how do you get people to know about it or click on it? Were there journalists that you targeted? Were there people that you specifically went after?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we had done a round of press to announce our million-dollar seed round. And we talked to all the usual suspects, the tech crunches of the world, the Bloombergs, et cetera. And all the stories went live at the same time. And first, the tech ecosystem picked up on it. And this video, which people found funny and engaging, and also that it was promoting a real business, was sort of a unique combination for people. I don't think there were too many examples at that time of a direct-to-consumer business that launched with a video that was funny and good. And I think that that tech community surfaced it, and then from there, it sort of caught wildfire.

• 31:08Guy Raz?

  And what happened to, I mean, that day, the 6th? I mean, were you... Surprised were you, I mean, because a lot of people watched that video.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you never build anything like that and think it's going to go viral. Anybody that tells you that they can build you a viral video or don't, don't believe them. I did not have huge hopes for this video. I just thought that this was a really compelling way to tell the story of what our business was. And we launched it and I, you know, we, I woke up at my, you know, normal time is 6:30 on March 6th. And I looked at the site and the site wasn't there. And I was like, oh my God, what's wrong? Why is the site not live? Like, we should be live. And I saw some text messages and some of my friends that were up on the East Coast earlier, they were like, you know, dude, amazing video, like, but the site, I can't order my razors.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  And, you know, you're sitting there and I'm literally in bed and every entrepreneur's had a moment like this, or a hundred moments like this, where they look at their phone first thing in the morning and they're like, oh, whatever. Um, and that was one of them. So the site had crashed. I had to go figure out how to get the site back up online. Um, eventually we did and then we sold out.

• 32:22Guy Raz?

  And you sold out, and these are, these are still the razors from Mark Levine's warehouse?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:26Guy Raz?

  So you, you cleared that warehouse?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, we had some other, we had some other razors as well. We had, we had some twin razors. The first razors were twins, then we had some four blades, then we had some six blades. So we actually had, but all they all sold out. And so they sell out and, you know, you're, now you're like, what do I do? What do I, what do I do in this moment? Do I, you know, pull down the closed shade and say, sorry, like, we'll be back in a couple of months. Once we can make more razors? Or do we keep selling, put up a note that says, hey, you know, we're going to sell these razors to you. Um, in advance, we're going to keep your money and eventually, eventually we'll send you these razors. And people thankfully, you know, were okay with that. I mean, some people, some people did. We were very transparent about the fact that there was a delay in the razors, but, you know, they, they hung around

• 33:13Speaker 01

  because, because the proposition was resonant. And we actually had tapped into something. We had solved a problem that many, many people, uh, had. And we did it in a way that resonated with them and they wanted to give us a chance.

• 33:28Guy Raz?

  At this point Dollar Shave Club was still you and anyone else?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  At that point, it was, so, so, Science was our first investor and we had, I was the only full-time employee at that time, but Science had a studio of folks, they had some designers, then there was a tech team that were third-party tech shop that did all of our engineering, but I was the only full-time employee, yeah.

• 33:52Guy Raz?

  And where were you sourcing your razors from?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  So, a manufacturer in South Korea.

• 33:57Guy Raz?

  And here, I mean, here's the thing, you, you see these ads, right, for Gillette or whatever razor it is, and they talk about this incredible technology as if it's like, you know, something that NASA invented. If Gillette was selling, you know, a four-pack of razors, let's say, for four or five times the cost that you were offering,

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:17Guy Raz?

  which was a dollar plus $2 for shipping and handling.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:20Guy Raz?

  I have to assume that you were, this was a lost leader, that you were not going to make money off this for a while.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  On that twin razor, no. On the other ones, yes.

• 34:29Guy Raz?

  And so, explain why, I mean, we've talked to the guys who founded Warby Parker, and they explain why frames were so expensive, because it was essentially a monopoly, and they said, "There's no reason why." Is it, was it the same with razors? Like, why, why were razors that you could buy at a pharmacy so much more expensive than the ones you were selling?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Right. Well, you know, if you think about, it's a very small community. There are not that many people in the world that make great razors. And you think about the science that's involved. For such an old-school sort of product that's been around for a long period of time, there's an extraordinary amount of science that goes into taking, you know, raw metal, then thinning it out, then creating a blade edge, then, then coating a blade edge, you know, that can actually slice hair off your face and not skin off your face. There's a lot that goes into it. You can do it. People do it. And so, but it's hard. And that's why there's not that many people that do it.

• 35:28Guy Raz?

  How were you fulfilling those, those orders in that, after the video came out? Was it like you and a few people, like, packaging them up and...

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had printers, we had a couple printers hanging around the office, and, you know, we were running labels, and, you know, it was so frustrating because we had thousands and thousands of orders, and this label printer's like, "Puh-choo!"

• 35:50Speaker 01

  So like, the only answer is get more label printers. So, at a certain point, we had these label printers and, you know, we're filling out these rolls of labels and then we put them in these big trash bags and we drive them down to the warehouse where we shot the video and that was doing our fulfillment center. And this was not an e-commerce fulfillment center. This is a place that like, on Monday, they're filling like windshield washer pellets into tubes. On Tuesday, they're putting vodka bottles in crates and on Wednesday, they're filling orders for Dollar Shave Club and like, whatever. So we have to go over there, take the big bag of labels in a big trash bag, throw them over the fence and hope that in the middle of the night, nobody comes by and steals the big bag of rolled labels.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Which would be crazy if they did that, but, but that's, yeah, that was how the operation worked.

• 36:37Guy Raz?

  So after-

• 36:38Speaker 01

  A lot of paper cuts.

• 36:39Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, after you kind of, right, broke through and start to get attention and start to get subscribers, did it become pretty easy for you to raise money at that point?

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Raising money has never been easy for us. And I think for, unless you're Snapchat circa 2000 whatever, you know, it's hard to raise money for any kind of company and for all the reasons that you pointed out in the beginning, you know, what, how do you think that you are going to, you know, take on these giants that have been doing this for, you know, over 50 years and aren't they going to squash you? Aren't they going to copy you? And so, it was never easy for us. Yes, there was always, you can always raise some money from some portion of the market, but the people that you want to raise money from, the smart money, so to speak, the smart money asks the smart questions. And they ask all the questions that they should and it was never easy for us, even, you know, into our Series D.

• 37:32Guy Raz?

  Hmm. You know, once you started to gain traction, obviously competitors came in, Harry's Razors, for example, did that make you nervous when you started to see other people who were also using the subscription model?

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, of course, anytime that you create something and you put it out there, and it's naive to think that people aren't going to copy your great idea. And I think that your first reaction is to be like, uh-oh. But I think what you learn over time is that the presence of competition pushes you to define yourself more specifically and focuses you on the things that you want to do. And, you know, definitely makes you work a little bit harder. So, you know, most people, when they first start a company and then they experience competition, don't think that's a good thing. I think it's a wonderful thing. We've benefited from that in some ways. It's been validating in so many ways, too.

• 38:28Guy Raz?

  Did you have to do a whole lot of advertising? Or were those viral videos, because you went on to produce more, was that really driving the customers? Was that bringing in new customers?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yes, the virality wore off at a certain point, for sure. And then it was, you know, jump into the paid marketing game, paid advertising game. And, yeah, we shot our first television commercials, I believe, in 2013. We did another video for our One Wipe Charlies, which is our butt wipe for men.

• 38:57Guy Raz?

  Butt wipe for men. Do you want to talk about that?

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, sure.

• 39:02Guy Raz?

  This is 2013. You decided to expand and to diversify?

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Decided to diversify. Our first expansion was One Wipe Charlies. It's a butt wipe for men. It's a moist towlette that you use. Some people like to mop before they sweep. Some people like to sweep before they mop. It's a better way to do it. And, you know, anybody, unless you're very flexible, you know, you're not spending any time back there. But other people that care about you might, might be.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  And so that might be a, that might be a service that you provide, not for yourself, but for your loved ones.

• 39:54Guy Raz?

  A couple of things happened to you guys that are not surprising because it happens to successful startups. The first is, the big players got into the game. They got into the subscription game, the Gillette's and the other companies. They are much bigger, at that time certainly were much, much bigger in terms of the capital they had, the cash, the marketing dollars they had. Was there ever a concern when they got into that game that they could actually crush you?

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Any smart entrepreneur, any smart CEO or business person should absolutely be afraid of that type of thing when something like that happens. And you should be doing the chess on how to make that not happen. So, yes, of course, when any competitor launches, and many have, you have to think, how are we going to be different? How are we going to fend this off? If you don't take competitive threats seriously, that's foolish. So, we absolutely took it seriously.

• 40:55Guy Raz?

  The other thing, of course, is that Gillette sued you for patent infringement as you began to take away market share from Gillette. It's still pending, but did that lawsuit freak you out when that happened?

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Well, yes and no. I mean, you know, it was the first time, I think, that we had gotten sued. And, you know, the first time you get sued, you're like, what do you, how do you react to something like that?

• 41:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  But I think at a certain point, you, people had been telling us along the way to expect that. Because that's a playbook that big competitors, big incumbent competitors can do. You know, to make you look unattractive to capital, to make you look unattractive to potential acquirers. And so, for me, you know, like, look, you take everything very seriously as a CEO, but you also say that there was a business calculation to it also that made a lot of sense from their side. So, you put it all together and rationalize it that way.

• 41:57Guy Raz?

  So you guys, I think at a certain point, maybe it was 2015, by 2015 or 2016, I think you had about 3 million subscribers. Do you remember what percentage of the subscription market you guys had at that point?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Of the online razor subscription market? I mean, most of it at that point.

• 42:15Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  I won't know the exact market share numbers off the top of my head, but I think that, you know, as of now, there's about 20 to 25% of the men's nondisposable razor market that we have.

• 42:30Guy Raz?

  Do you remember when you became profitable?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  No comment. We're owned by a very big company and we're not allowed to disclose financial information like that.

• 42:40Guy Raz?

  All right, so let's talk about that. 2016, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever, reportedly for $1 billion, okay? I mean, it's a mind-boggling, astounding amount of money. Were you looking to sell or did they come to you? How did that happen?

• 43:00Speaker 01

  So I met, I met one of their executives at a dinner in New York and we just started talking about where I wanted to take the company and he was telling me about some of the things that Unilever was working on and that men's grooming was a big priority for them strategically. And the conversation really just started out as a, hey, is there a way that we can potentially help each other? And the conversation, you know, took another step and then another step and then we ended up with the acquisition.

• 43:28Guy Raz?

  I know that there was a lot that preceded, you know, the founding of the company and there was a lot that went into it and a lot of stress and hard work, but just to, I mean, just to put it into perspective, we're talking about a five-year period from the time you founded it to the time Unilever bought it. I mean, when you think about that, are you astounded at that? Are you, I mean, do you, do you just think, God, five years and this is what, what we built? I mean, it, it is pretty mind-boggling.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  It is mind boggling. It was a huge moment in the company's life and history and certainly a huge moment in my life and career, no doubt. But I knew that all the hard work was really yet to come. The acquisition in and of itself is a nice moment and an acknowledgement of the progress that we made, but there was still so much to do that, you know, I didn't spend a lot of time sitting around being like, you know, popping a lot of champagne bottles because there's just, it's just-

• 44:27Guy Raz?

  You still run the company, you're the CEO.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 44:30Guy Raz?

  You work for Unilever.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm trying to think where I get my paycheck from, but yeah, more or less. Yeah, I mean, yes, my boss is Unilever.

• 44:40Guy Raz?

  How, how does, I, I understand that you and, and Unilever really wanted you to stay at the helm because it was your vision and your imprimatur is on it, but there have been plenty of stories, I mean Instagram is an example where, you know, the founders eventually left, but had a lot of autonomy for a long time. Has it, you know, when, when a big company like Unilever comes in as a parent company, in your experience, has it changed a lot at Dollar Shave Club? Do you feel like it's the same exact place?

• 45:12Speaker 01

  No, it's definitely not the same exact place, but not because of the acquisition. You know, we've gone through an enormous transformation at the company over the last two years. We have had to change the way that our entire technology stack is built, the way that the consumer interacts with it, the packages that we're selling people. We went from selling razors once a month to selling everything that you need a couple of times a year. And, and that's working out really well, but just to get to that point required transformation in advertising and frankly, transformation of, of personnel. I, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but something like, you know, 80% of, of our, you know, 300-ish employees are new within the last 18 months.

• 45:57Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  And that's what you have to do to, you know, we had a great first act and now we want to have a great second act. And so the, the company is, is actually quite different than it was, and that's the way that it should be.

• 46:11Guy Raz?

  For all the people here tonight who might be in your position in 2010 or 2011, who might be starting something up, or, you know, if you were in this audience then and you were watching somebody like you, what do you wish you knew then that you know now that would have been helpful?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of times when you're starting a company and you're faced with certain death or near death, you have a near-death experience, which will happen a lot. It's never as bad as you think. It's also not as great as you hope it will be either. And, you know, yes, there are some times when the worst possible outcome happens, but it's really rare. And you go through enough sort of crises and near-death experiences and you come out on the other side and you kind of like, in your mind, you say to yourself, "Okay, I know what it's like to be chill on the other side of the crisis. I'm just going to put myself there and know that like, eight out of 10 times, it'll be true.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  And two out of 10 times, it's not." And it helps you, I think, get a little bit less scared because starting a business is scary.

• 47:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Michael, this is a question that I ask everybody who comes on the show, and if you've heard the show, you've heard me ask the question. But I'm curious, from your point of view, how much of what happened to you do you think is because of luck? And how much do you think is because of your hard work and your intelligence and your skill?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  I think that anybody that's successful in business has benefited from luck. And anybody that tells you that they haven't or don't is not being truthful. Luck plays a role in everything, and I think that you continue to get lucky throughout your career and throughout our business. You know, we've gotten lucky in many ways. Sometimes, good luck is a manifestation of hard work, and sometimes, luck is just luck. I like to think that a lot of other people who met Mark Levine at that party that night, you know, would not have done what I did with it, what we have all done with it, because

• 48:23Speaker 01

  this is not a one-man show, it never has been. But yeah, luck is important.

• 48:29Guy Raz?

  Michael Dubin, founder of Dollar Shave Club.

• 48:36Guy Raz?

  I spoke with Michael Dubin in front of a live audience in Los Angeles at the theater at Ace Hotel. By the way, if anyone ever tells you that business school is the perfect path to becoming a successful entrepreneur, well, in his 20s, Michael Dubin was actually rejected from business school because of his low college GPA. And today, that viral video that Michael made to launch Taller Shave Club is actually used as a case study at Columbia Business School.

• 49:10Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to this live episode of How I Built This. Our show was produced this week by Casey Herman with original music composed by Rameet Aravulu. Our live team in Los Angeles includes Ali Prescott, Jessica Goldstein, Joanna Palavsky, John Isabella, and Ian Baldassari, with recording engineers Andy Huether and Josh Newell. Thanks also to our production team, Rachel Faulkner, Norquidsey, J.C. Howard, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Mia Venkat. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.