Dollar Shave Club is an American company based in

Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...

, that delivers

razors A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, safety razors, disposable razors, and electric razors. While the razor has been in existence since before ...

and other

personal grooming Grooming (also called preening) is the art and practice of cleaning and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior. In animals Individual animals regularly clean themselves and put their fur, feathers or other skin cov ...

products to customers by mail. It delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home delivery.

History

Dollar Shave Club was founded by Mark Levine and Michael Dubin. The pair met at a party and spoke of their frustrations with the cost of razor blades. With their own money and investments from start-up incubator Science Inc., they began operations in January 2011 and launched their website in April 2011. Dollar Shave Club was backed by a variety of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

ists. In March 2012, seed investors provided $1 million in funding from groups that included

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen H ...

Shasta Ventures Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment firm located in Silicon Valley that invests in enterprise and technology consumer startups. It is located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Funds Shasta's second fund of US$250 milli ...

, and others. The same group, joined by Venrock, provided $9.8 million in

series A funding A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

in October 2012. A year later, a $12 million series B round was raised led by Venrock, Comcast Ventures, New World Investors and Battery Ventures. Amidst the fundraising announcement, Dollar Shave Club announced it would be expanding its product line to include a dozen other men's products in 2014. In June 2015, the company secured $75 million in series D funding. On July 19, 2016, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever for a reported $1 billion in cash.

Membership

Dollar Shave Club offers three membership plans, which can be upgraded or downgraded at any time. The membership service first launched March 6, 2012, via a YouTube video that went viral. The YouTube video attracted an unanticipated amount of traffic, which crashed the company's server in the first hour. Once Dubin got the server working, he enlisted a team of friends and contractors to help fulfill the 12,000 orders that arrived in the first 48 hours of launching the video. The orders were initially packed by hand in a warehouse in

Gardena, California Gardena is a city located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 58,829 at the 2010 census, up from 57,746 at the 2000 census. Until 2014, the US census cited the City of Gardena as the plac ...

, before the company moved their warehouse and fulfillment to a third-party logistics center in Kentucky. As of 2016, the company has acquired 3.2 million subscribers. Although the company primarily markets its products to men, approximately 20% of its customers are women.

Products

Dollar Shave Club offers three plans: "The Humble Twin" (two blades per razor, five razors per month, $4 per month), "The 4X" (four blades, four razors, $7) and "The Executive" (six blades, four razors, $10). Each subscription comes with a compatible handle. Most of the razor handles and blades are not made by Dollar Shave Club, but rather are re-sold Dorco products. The company also sells related accessories, such as shave butter,

wet wipe A wet wipe, also known as a wet towel or a moist towelette, disposable wipe, disinfecting wipe, or a baby wipe (in specific circumstances) is a small to medium-sized moistened piece of plastic or cloth that either comes folded and individually ...

s, and moisturizer. In late 2012, the company launched its program in Canada and Australia. In 2015, the company expanded its product line to include hair care products, called "Boogie's". The line includes

hair gel Hair gel is a hairstyling product that is used to harden hair into a particular hairstyle. History Analysis of ancient Egyptian mummies has shown that they styled their hair using a fat-based gel. The researchers behind the analysis say tha ...

hair cream Hair gel is a hairstyling product that is used to harden hair into a particular hairstyle. History Analysis of ancient Egyptian mummies has shown that they styled their hair using a fat-based gel. The researchers behind the analysis say that ...

, hair paste,

hair clay Hair clay, or simply clay in the hair industry, is a hair product that has very similar characteristics to hair wax. Clay also makes the hair soft. It also disentangles the hair. Clay has a little to no shine, meaning a stylist can achieve a very na ...

and hair fiber. In May 2015, the company began hiring writers and editors for a new website, '' Mel Magazine'' (stylized as ''MEL'') which went online in late 2015. The website contains editorial content described by the company as "men's lifestyle topics". While the site does not host

sponsored content Native advertising, also called sponsored content, is a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. In many cases it functions like an advertorial, and manifests as a video, article or editorial. ...

, its business model "relies upon being a branded publisher", according to ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

''. In December 2015, Gillette brand owner

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

filed a patent infringement lawsuit that claimed Dollar Shave Club used its patented formulas to manufacture copycat blades. In February 2018, the company launched in the United Kingdom.

Promotion

On March 6, 2012, the company uploaded a

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

video entitled "Our Blades Are F***ing Great" featuring CEO Michael Dubin, delivering his speech in a nonchalant and sarcastic manner. The video prompted 12,000 orders in a two-day span after it was released, and has received over 27 million views as of November 2020. The video won "Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign" at the 2012 ''

Ad Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mul ...

'' Viral Video Awards. Dollar Shave Club was awarded a 2013

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

in the Fashion & Beauty category and earned the People's Choice Webby Award in the Consumer Packaged Goods category. On June 4, 2013, Dollar Shave Club released a second video on YouTube called "Let's Talk About #2", which again starred its CEO and promoted One Wipe Charlies. The video won the Shorty Award in 2014 for best use of Social Media. In 2014, Dollar Shave Club and its One Wipe Charlies teamed up with the Colon Cancer Alliance in an effort to help "wipe out" colon cancer. The company reports that during National Colorectal Cancer Awareness month it reached 23 million people in spreading the message about the importance of getting screened. The company also donated $10,000 to the Colon Cancer Alliance, contributing a percentage of One Wipe Charlies' sales and putting a dollar value on social shares. As part of the campaign, Michael Dubin had his own colonoscopy streamed live online.

References

External links