Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club, Inc.[3] is an American company based in Venice, California, that delivers razors and other personal grooming products to customers by mail. It delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home delivery.[4][5]

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.[6][7][8][9]

Dollar Shave Club (DSC) was backed by a variety of venture capitalists. In March 2012, seed investors provided $1 million in funding from groups that included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, and others.[10] The same group, joined by Venrock, provided $9.8 million in series A funding in October 2012.[11]

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, DSC announced it would be expanding its product line to include a dozen other men's products in 2014.[12]

On July 19, 2016, one year after securing $75 million in series D funding,[13] DSC was acquired by Unilever for a reported $1 billion in cash.[14] On October 26, 2023, Unilever announced that it had sold a majority stake in the company to Nexus Capital Management, LP,[15] while still retaining 35% of Dollar Shave Club.[16]

In February 2025, Dollar Shave Club announced that it would relocate its headquarters from Los Angeles to Durham, North Carolina.[17] The company opened its new headquarters at the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham in September 2025.[2][18]

Membership

Dollar Shave Club offers three membership plans, which can be upgraded or downgraded at any time.[19] The membership service first launched March 6, 2012, via a YouTube video that went viral.[20] 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, before the company moved their warehouse and fulfillment to a third-party logistics center in Kentucky.[21]

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.[22]

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).[23] 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.[24][25]

The company also sells related accessories, such as shave butter,[26] wet wipes,[8] and moisturizer.[27]

In late 2012, the company launched its program in Canada and Australia.[28][29]

In 2015, the company expanded its product line to include hair care products, called "Boogie's".[30] The line includes hair gel, hair cream, hair paste, hair clay and hair fiber.[31]

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".[32][33] While the site does not host sponsored content, its business model "relies upon being a branded publisher", according to Fast Company.[34]

In December 2015, Gillette brand owner Procter & Gamble filed a patent infringement lawsuit that claimed Dollar Shave Club used its patented formulas to manufacture copycat blades.[35][36]

In February 2018, the company launched in the United Kingdom.[37]

Promotion

On March 6, 2012, the company uploaded a YouTube video entitled "Our Blades Are F***ing Great" featuring CEO Michael Dubin, delivering his speech in a nonchalant and sarcastic manner.[5] 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.[4][38]

The video won "Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign" at the 2012 Ad Age Viral Video Awards.[39] Dollar Shave Club was awarded a 2013 Webby Award in the Fashion & Beauty category [40] and earned the People's Choice Webby Award in the Consumer Packaged Goods category.[41]

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.[8] The video won the Shorty Award in 2014 for best use of Social Media.[42]

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.[43] 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.[44] As part of the campaign, Michael Dubin had his own colonoscopy streamed live online.[45]

See also

• Harry's

External links