06/07/2024
Two friends come to a party and tell each other their frustrations with their razor blades. They became "Unicorn Owners" after a few years.
Can you tell what is the name of the company founded by them that took the form of Unicorn / 1 billion dollars valuation?
Yes, you guessed right. The name of the company is Dollar Shave Club / us.dollarshaveclub.com. And those two friends are - Mark Levin and Michael Dubin.
The time was 2011. Two friends, Mark and Michael, were also disappointed with the price of the razor while at the party. Disappointing, because razors were a necessity at the time, but their prices skyrocketed. Which not everyone could make an effort. It took weeks to shave with that one blade. Which was not healthy at all.
Mark and Michael invested their own money from their startup incubator to solve this problem. The company started in January 2011 from Michael's apartment. Named Dollar Shave Club. In April 2011, they launched their website us.dollarshaveclub.com.
Which later made a huge impact on the razor market.
But I would say their turning point was March 2012. They uploaded their first video on their YouTube channel called Dollar Shave Club. Which was a bit funny and funny. In that video, Michael somewhat humorously highlights the various benefits of their razor. The title/slogan of their video was "OUR BLADES ARE F**KING GREATE". If you want you can watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
And this video goes viral. As soon as the video was published, the number of orders increased. And in just two days the amount of orders became more than 12000. All the razors they had in stock were sold in one basket. And their words from walking in front of people.
Of course it won't happen. Although they didn't make razors themselves, their approach to selling them was different from everyone else's. They were the first to come up with a subscription system at Razor Blade. Their razor blades and handles were detachable. That is, if the edge of the blade is reduced, it is possible to change only the blade without changing the entire razor. Which was much cheaper than all other razors. The blade was also easy to use.
Dollar Shave Club offers three plans:
1."The Humble Twin" (two blades per razor, five razors per month, $4 per month),
2."The 4X" (four blades, four razors, $7) and
3."The Executive" (six blades, four razors, $10).
This subscription system also got a lot of popularity at that time.
Also they gave many of their customers their 1 month subscription for just 1$.
At that time other brands of razors cost 18-19$ which had to be purchased at the store. Dollar Shave Club, on the other hand, had subscriptions between $4-10. And they deliver their razors to customers' doorsteps. This was another reason for their overnight popularity.
Because of these benefits and their funny approach, they became a cause of concern for Gillette, the razor brand of the then famous company Unilever, within a year of their launch in the market. They earned $4 million in their first year. In 2013 it was $19 million. and earned $65 million in 2014.
Finally, in 2016, Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club from Mark and Michael for $1 billion.
This was the story of Dollar Shave Club and its founders - Mark Levine & Michael Dubin - one of the contributors to the razor market.
Jeet Saha