Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Consumer packaged goods |
| Founded | January 18, 2011[1] |
| Founders | Michael DubinMark Levine |
| Headquarters | Venice, California,U.S. |
| United States, Canada, Australia, and United Kingdom | |
| Parent | Unilever |
| Website |
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Consumer packaged goods |
| Founded | January 18, 2011[1] |
| Founders | Michael DubinMark Levine |
| Headquarters | Venice, California,U.S. |
| United States, Canada, Australia, and United Kingdom | |
| Parent | Unilever |
| Website |
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.[5][6][7][8]
Dollar Shave Club 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.[9] The same group, joined by Venrock, provided $9.8 million in series A funding in October 2012.[10] 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.[11] In June 2015, the company secured $75 million in series D funding.[12]
On July 19, 2016, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever for a reported $1 billion in cash.[13]
Membership
The initial welcome packet from Dollar Shave Club.
Dollar Shave Club offers three membership plans, which can be upgraded or downgraded at any time.[14] The membership service first launched March 6, 2012, via a YouTube video that went viral.[15] The YouTube video attracted an unanticipated amount of traffic, that 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.[2]
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).[18] Each subscription comes with a compatible handle.
In May 2015, the company began hiring writers and editors for a new website, Mel Magazine (stylized as MEL [27]) which went online in late 2015. The website contains editorial content described by the company as "men's lifestyle topics".[27][28] While the site does not host sponsored content, its business model "relies upon being a branded publisher", according to Fast Company.[29]
In February 2018, the company launched in the United Kingdom.
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.[32] The video prompted 12,000 orders in a two-day span after it was released, and has received over 24 million views as of February 2017.[3][33]
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.[38] 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.[39] As part of the campaign, Michael Dubin had his own colonoscopy streamed live online.[40]