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How Dollar Shave Club used its viral video to attract investors
Dollar Shave Club’s debut video is cool. Scratch that. It is damn cool. It might even have convinced a few people to buy the product. Here’s the thing; it’s also been attracting investors.
In fact, it was doing so long before it was convincing us to stop giving most of the money we spend on razors to Roger Federer.
According to Mashable, CEO Michael Dubin — who’s also the star of the video — used it to get US$1-million in funding out of the likes of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz.
“We develop great content,” Dubin says, “and [the video] said, ‘This is the tone of voice we’re going to come at it with.'”
According to its website, “The Dollar Shave Club started with two guys who were pissed off about something and decided to do something about it…”
Those two guys were Dubin and Mark Levine. According to Mashable, Levine knew how to get cheap razors online and convinced Dubin that they should start selling them.
A strong influence in the company’s viral video was the Old Spice campaign — something that is evident in the tracking shots and Dubin’s self-assured mock bluster.
Although the Dollar Shave Club’s flagship product is the simple twin-blade razor, which actually does retail for US$1 a month, it also has a couple of other products.
The “4X” bills itself as “your new razor. And it’s also your girlfriend’s new razor. Or your boyfriend’s”.
Dollar Shave Club has nicknamed it the “Lover’s Blade” and claims that it “was designed to satisfy the harshest critics of both genders, so you can share your subscription with someone you care about (or someone who’s been stealing your blades)”.
“The Executive” meanwhile seems to fly slightly in the face of the simplicity promised by the ad. One the other hand, the company claims “the shave is so buttery, it feels like you’re carving turns through a virgin Wyoming snowfall” so it might be worth the US$9 a month you’ll be shelling out.
Dubin says the company has been experiencing teething issues familiar to any startup, including servers crashing from too much traffic.
There’s also reportedly another video in the works, which will probably centre on Father’s Day.
