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Thought about sticking this in the random chat thread but IMO there's too much juice here to let this get lost amongst the hundreds of pages.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ExeVMzuqk
So, we've all seen brands live and die within our lifetimes, you can probably take a quick peek in the process/execution category here on this very forum and see thousands of people that gave up at start or started and had a widdle bit of progress.... and then it died. It can be market forces, it can be flat-on-the-face marketing, it can be legal troubles... but with enough time and tenacity we've seen multiple people here (and in my Surprisingly Simple Stupid Businesses That Somehow Work thread that you should TOTALLY read) can make almost any business work, from dog toy brand #451 to letting people pay 20$ to e-mail their worst rival a giant d!ldo straight to their door.
I still remember when Dollar Shave Club hit, I grew up on those horrible little bic razors that were roughly 2.50$ for a 5 pack, and eventually found the light in a safety razor + disposable blades. My friends though, ohhhh man they went nuts. We were all in college but I remember when the first ad hit I had 3 different people sending me that and telling me they went in and ordered. Given that Gillette had people over a rather large sized barrel with their pants at their ankles, the cheap subscription compared to 14$ for maybe a month's worth of blades seemed like a deal. EVERYONE was talking about them.
Fast forward a little bit to 2016. They're not breaking more than 65m~ or so in profit but they have a buyout offer from a conglomerate that wanted to compete with Gillete - Proctor & Gamble. Dubin had no qualms about signing over the company, and while less discussed back then, therein started the normal cycle of post-acquisition syndrome.
"I have my cash, I only have to stay on for 2 years, I don't generally care about this business and I need to shop for yachts".
He did stay on for awhile, but either through his own decisions as CEO or pressure from P&G, the brand started slipping, first in effort, then in marketing, then ultimately in product quality.
While this was going, existing competitors like Gillette immediately tried to clone the business (after taking a HUGE hit from DSC, thank you DSC), and a few other clones like Harry's popped up. While they tried to add on a few add-ons, they didn't truly innovate or use their existing hooks to expand their ecosystem, falling to the point where they only cleared roughly 7m$ in profit just last year, 2025.
The company that EVERYONE knew about and permanently gave a haircut to century-old industry giants was now just a sub-brand tucked in a portfolio, resorting to AI marketing "viral" videos that barely get 700 views on youtube.
Problems:
Dubin was incredibly blessed that his family friend had pallets upon pallets of high-quality imported korean-made razors tucked away, and willing to simply give him the inventory. He had a great start devising the 1$ price point to clear them, and even more in making it a subscription. Unfortunately, he kept trying to ride that. He had a brand more popular than beatles, ran through his TAM, and didn't try to iterate or upsell to more luxurious products causing product exhaustion. For the few loyal DSC fans that were true believers, the decline in quality eventually betrayed them and caused them to go off. If you scare a fanatic off, expect to make a very vocal enemy for life.
The acquisition itself was another big problem, I can't scry into alternate realities, and we only have the reported profit/income to go off of, but taking the M&A buyout seemed to cause a ton of damage to DSC either through cost-cutting, forced processes, or unnecessary overhead. What used to be "it's 2016 and I have to bet 11% of our yearly profit on this superbowl ad" turned into "yeah this marketing campaign isn't working, we'll try another one and report the losses". Being hungry to win is a bit of a cliche, but losing almost 75% of your revenue when YOU WERE THE GUYS is absolutely stupendous.
Another point I've been processing is the inventory. I wasn't aware beforehand they got really nice korean-made multi-blade razors, but it does factor in a bit more. In the video a few customers who complained and canceled their subscription because of the new cheap chinese razors mentioned they just started getting the original korean razors though amazon for cheaper... and were of higher quality. Many times over on the forum and in TMF MJ mentions that commandment of control is not one to be toyed with lightly. While making things in the u.s. requires initial investment, it probably could've been the one way to secure production, control costs, reduce logistics and supply costs, and prevent off-shore competitors from cloning and flooding the market with their own cheap razors. DSC did introduce companion products and enough downward price pressure to help re-balance the market towards consumers, but Dubin didn't think ahead to where he'd be in the following years. "We're super viral, we're getting millions of sign-ups... we might reach out current nadir quicker than expected... how do we lock down what we have, and how do we iterate?"
Takeaways:
Off the bat, I have a hunch Dubin just wanted to get the cash for moving the inventory before doing something else, and didn't expect the success (which is GREAT and taking action is a big thing here on the forum). After that, even though total profits on top of revenue wasn't really that high, he probably started eyeing an exit through an acquisition, so started focusing on hyping up the brand, and hype it did have. As it hit its profit nadir in 2016, Proctor and Gamble handed him a cool check for 1 BILLION dollars and -boom- mission accomplished.
Everything in 2014 was probably done right, but I think a few tweaks afterward may have made the brand more enduring:
- Additional benefits for subscribers
- New razor/handle offerings above the initial box that could generate extra margin
- A step into electric razors (this is iffy and could eat into subscription costs, but they had the power to drop "The BEST EVER electric razor for DUDES" - see manscaped)
- Re-shoring or getting secure production
- Quality commitments
- Growing out of the shaving space into miscellaneous grooming
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now, I'm just a jack@ss in an office chair but I'm always reading and studying businesses and business lifecycles like these, because most of the entrepreneurs I respect have century+ legacies that had tangible effects outside of industry (looking at you Andrew Carnegie). These businesses not only make profit, but help others live better lives and provide employment and opportunity in our economy, and if I'm ever blessed enough to hit a home run, I'd want one that serves people for decades.
What would you do in Dubin's shoes?
So, we've all seen brands live and die within our lifetimes, you can probably take a quick peek in the process/execution category here on this very forum and see thousands of people that gave up at start or started and had a widdle bit of progress.... and then it died. It can be market forces, it can be flat-on-the-face marketing, it can be legal troubles... but with enough time and tenacity we've seen multiple people here (and in my Surprisingly Simple Stupid Businesses That Somehow Work thread that you should TOTALLY read) can make almost any business work, from dog toy brand #451 to letting people pay 20$ to e-mail their worst rival a giant d!ldo straight to their door.
I still remember when Dollar Shave Club hit, I grew up on those horrible little bic razors that were roughly 2.50$ for a 5 pack, and eventually found the light in a safety razor + disposable blades. My friends though, ohhhh man they went nuts. We were all in college but I remember when the first ad hit I had 3 different people sending me that and telling me they went in and ordered. Given that Gillette had people over a rather large sized barrel with their pants at their ankles, the cheap subscription compared to 14$ for maybe a month's worth of blades seemed like a deal. EVERYONE was talking about them.
Fast forward a little bit to 2016. They're not breaking more than 65m~ or so in profit but they have a buyout offer from a conglomerate that wanted to compete with Gillete - Proctor & Gamble. Dubin had no qualms about signing over the company, and while less discussed back then, therein started the normal cycle of post-acquisition syndrome.
"I have my cash, I only have to stay on for 2 years, I don't generally care about this business and I need to shop for yachts".
He did stay on for awhile, but either through his own decisions as CEO or pressure from P&G, the brand started slipping, first in effort, then in marketing, then ultimately in product quality.
While this was going, existing competitors like Gillette immediately tried to clone the business (after taking a HUGE hit from DSC, thank you DSC), and a few other clones like Harry's popped up. While they tried to add on a few add-ons, they didn't truly innovate or use their existing hooks to expand their ecosystem, falling to the point where they only cleared roughly 7m$ in profit just last year, 2025.
The company that EVERYONE knew about and permanently gave a haircut to century-old industry giants was now just a sub-brand tucked in a portfolio, resorting to AI marketing "viral" videos that barely get 700 views on youtube.
Problems:
Dubin was incredibly blessed that his family friend had pallets upon pallets of high-quality imported korean-made razors tucked away, and willing to simply give him the inventory. He had a great start devising the 1$ price point to clear them, and even more in making it a subscription. Unfortunately, he kept trying to ride that. He had a brand more popular than beatles, ran through his TAM, and didn't try to iterate or upsell to more luxurious products causing product exhaustion. For the few loyal DSC fans that were true believers, the decline in quality eventually betrayed them and caused them to go off. If you scare a fanatic off, expect to make a very vocal enemy for life.
The acquisition itself was another big problem, I can't scry into alternate realities, and we only have the reported profit/income to go off of, but taking the M&A buyout seemed to cause a ton of damage to DSC either through cost-cutting, forced processes, or unnecessary overhead. What used to be "it's 2016 and I have to bet 11% of our yearly profit on this superbowl ad" turned into "yeah this marketing campaign isn't working, we'll try another one and report the losses". Being hungry to win is a bit of a cliche, but losing almost 75% of your revenue when YOU WERE THE GUYS is absolutely stupendous.
Another point I've been processing is the inventory. I wasn't aware beforehand they got really nice korean-made multi-blade razors, but it does factor in a bit more. In the video a few customers who complained and canceled their subscription because of the new cheap chinese razors mentioned they just started getting the original korean razors though amazon for cheaper... and were of higher quality. Many times over on the forum and in TMF MJ mentions that commandment of control is not one to be toyed with lightly. While making things in the u.s. requires initial investment, it probably could've been the one way to secure production, control costs, reduce logistics and supply costs, and prevent off-shore competitors from cloning and flooding the market with their own cheap razors. DSC did introduce companion products and enough downward price pressure to help re-balance the market towards consumers, but Dubin didn't think ahead to where he'd be in the following years. "We're super viral, we're getting millions of sign-ups... we might reach out current nadir quicker than expected... how do we lock down what we have, and how do we iterate?"
Takeaways:Off the bat, I have a hunch Dubin just wanted to get the cash for moving the inventory before doing something else, and didn't expect the success (which is GREAT and taking action is a big thing here on the forum). After that, even though total profits on top of revenue wasn't really that high, he probably started eyeing an exit through an acquisition, so started focusing on hyping up the brand, and hype it did have. As it hit its profit nadir in 2016, Proctor and Gamble handed him a cool check for 1 BILLION dollars and -boom- mission accomplished.
Everything in 2014 was probably done right, but I think a few tweaks afterward may have made the brand more enduring:
- Additional benefits for subscribers
- New razor/handle offerings above the initial box that could generate extra margin
- A step into electric razors (this is iffy and could eat into subscription costs, but they had the power to drop "The BEST EVER electric razor for DUDES" - see manscaped)
- Re-shoring or getting secure production
- Quality commitments
- Growing out of the shaving space into miscellaneous grooming
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now, I'm just a jack@ss in an office chair but I'm always reading and studying businesses and business lifecycles like these, because most of the entrepreneurs I respect have century+ legacies that had tangible effects outside of industry (looking at you Andrew Carnegie). These businesses not only make profit, but help others live better lives and provide employment and opportunity in our economy, and if I'm ever blessed enough to hit a home run, I'd want one that serves people for decades.
What would you do in Dubin's shoes?
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