Sharp Thinking

What do you do with a warehouse full of razor blades?

You improvise.

Michael Dubin 01C was chatting with a friend's father-in-law at a cocktail party when he learned about 250,000 razor blades that needed to get sold.

After eight years of studying sketch comedy and improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, Dubin knew how to think fast, he knew an opening when he saw one, and he knew the value of running with an idea.

His company, Dollar Shave Club, launched in 2011 with a marketing video that went viral, setting the tone for the subscription-based venture and giving Dubin rock star status among business entrepreneurs. Fast-paced, funny, unexpected, and completely irreverent, the video found the target—men who shave—by making them feel like part of a club. Dubin's club. The one with the "f---ing great" razors.

"Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle, a flashlight, a back-scratcher, and ten blades?" he deadpans in the video. "Your handsome-ass grandfather had one blade and polio. Looking good, Pop-Pop!"

On his recent visit to Emory as the university's 2018 Commencement speaker, Dubin spent time with Michael A. Elliott, dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences, in a roaming conversation about his path to commercial success—which was publicly confirmed by the 2016 sale of Dollar Shave Club to Unilever for $1 billion. He credits his improv training for the unapologetically Dubin-branded marketing that became the company's launching pad.

"It was only because of those classes that I was able to write the first Dollar Shave Club commercial, or really any of the commercials that we do, or perform in them," he said. Dubin's fledgling California-based start-up logged twelve thousand orders the day that first video was released and crashed the company's servers.

He began to hire employees, bring on new product lines, and dig into the on-the-ground market research about grooming habits that would continue to give Dollar Shave Club an edge.

 In addition to conducting the usual focus groups, Dubin's team traveled the country hitting quirky festivals and community events so they could talk to real-life consumers. Who knew men wanted their own butt wipes? But then—why wouldn't they? Dollar Shave Club's One Wipe Charlies are one of its most popular products, and the marketing campaign—memorably kicked off by a 2013 video titled "Let's Talk about Number Two"—is pure Dubin.

Perhaps most notable, even in those early days, Dubin wasn't afraid to own the brand; his employees consistently report that it's an extension of his own personality and values. His confidence is already evident in the "Number Two" video, which Dubin opens by saying "Hi. Me again," from a toilet seat. Dubin is Dollar Shave Club the way Steve Jobs was Apple, and customers responded to his straight-up style.

"He's always the funniest person in every situation," said Ben Jacobson, a talent agent at United Talent Agency and a personal friend, in an interview for CNBC's series on American entrepreneurs, The Brave Ones. "He just fires nonstop."

Looking back, Dubin says, he didn't mean to start a business, exactly; he just wanted to hatch something novel and watch it take flight. He had tried to start a social network for travelers in 2006, but it didn't make it. A few years later, a passel of razors became the improv setup that inspired his best material.

"I've always been a bit of a dreamer—a bit of an imaginatarian, if that's a word—and I have always wanted to bring shape to things," he says. "I love the creation process, whether it's a television commercial, or a new part of the website, or a new physical product that people use in their bathrooms. . . . I love bringing things into the world and then watching people find use in them."

By 2016, business media reported that Dollar Shave Club was the number one online razor company on the market. The buzz was less about products than the company culture, also completely Dubin-driven. He describes it as one of inclusivity, humility ("nobody likes a glory hog," he says) pride of ownership, individual responsibility ("you saw it, now it's your problem, you've got to deal with it"), and what his team calls radical acceptance—the idea that Dollar Shave Club, inside and out, is for people of all kinds.

"There wasn't any other company out there like us, and he definitely took a leap to get us where we are today," says Kadie Ann Bowden, vice president for program development.

"Culture is incredibly important for any organization, whether it's a university or a business. People choose to build their careers with you," Dubin says. "They choose to spend more time with you every day than with their families, and so you better put some thought into what kind of place and what kind of an environment you want for these people as they come into your building and try to achieve the mission."

Ann Watson

Dubin grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and attended high school at the Haverford School, a private school outside Philadelphia. The transition from public school to the more rigorous prep school made a big impression. Dubin was Haverford's Commencement speaker in 2017, and began his speech with a shout-out to his parents, whom he consistently acknowledges as a source of support, encouragement, and motivation.

"I certainly wouldn't have been able to go through Emory if it hadn't been for the support and love of my parents both in college and beyond, of course," he told Elliott. "It's great that they're here to experience it." 

Dubin wasn't always so grateful.

In the Brave Ones interview, he recalls that his mom, Nancy Dubin, made him and his sister, Jessica, stay in and work math problems before they could go out to play on snow days.

"They hated it," Nancy confirms. "They still make fun of me."

Nancy also has described Dubin as a pretty typical teenage guy when it came to school, saying, "If things interested him, he was a fabulous student. If it was a subject that didn't interest him at all, I think he was probably a terrible student."

Still, that warehouse full of razor blades wasn't the only time Dubin was able to spot a chance opportunity and follow its lead. During his junior year at Haverford, a friend who was applying to colleges left an admission brochure from Emory on his hall table by accident. As Dubin tells it, he picked it up, read it, and thought, "Huh. That seems like a pretty cool place to go."

Emory's location was a big attraction for Dubin, who enjoyed studying the Civil War in high school and wanted to get a feel for Atlanta and the South. At the time, that's pretty much where his vision for the future ended. Dubin recently told the Emory Wheel that he built a great network of friends and contacts at Emory, getting to know a diverse set of people from all over the country and the world through his classes, social life, and membership in Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. One of his we-can-laugh-now memories is breaking his arm when he tried to jump off a chair and dunk a basketball. 

But Dubin has made no secret of the fact that his Emory experience wasn't a slam dunk. He struggled academically, never quite finding the inspiration that would point him in the right direction.

"I will admit to not being the most successful student my freshman and sophomore year," he told Elliott. "I think I came to college not really sure what the purpose was. My signature academic failure was actually flunking the same class twice in back-to-back years. It seems pretty amazing that someone could flunk the same class twice, especially after having seen all the exam material the year before. But I think that wasn't for lack of intelligence or motivation, it was just that I hadn't found my passion [or] my path and I didn't ask for help."

"I can't think of many people in my graduating class [who] are doing exactly what they thought they'd be doing when they graduated," Dubin says.

Kay Hinton

In his Emory Commencement speech, Dubin rewrote that chapter with what's become his trademarked humor, directly addressing political science professor Micheal Giles. "Professor Giles, I've been waiting twenty years to say this to you," he said. "You are a great teacher, and I was not your failure. I know you've been beating yourself up for the last twenty years, but I want you to know I'm okay. We can both move on now."

Junior year, Dubin gave himself a reality check and started to get a little more traction. His grades improved and he began exploring the idea of a career in business. Through some friends in Goizueta Business School, he met Andrea Hershatter, now senior associate dean and director of the BBA program.

"I said, ‘I would love to take a couple of classes, and I would love to get a marketing internship. I'm not a business school student. Can you help me?'," Dubin recalls. "She had no reason to say yes, [but] for whatever reason she said yes, because she's a great person. I'm so grateful that she did that, because if she hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten some critical exposure to ideas early on that sprung me onward into doing other things in media and marketing."

Among other opportunities, Dubin took an early version of a course taught by Joey Reiman, who founded the game-changing marketing firm Brighthouse, and interned at CNN.

Hershatter has taught entrepreneurship at Goizueta since the late 1990s, and she was particularly excited that this year's Commencement speaker would be Emory's first "unicorn"—someone who founded a company that has realized a valuation of a billion dollars. Hershatter also recruited Dubin to be the keynote speaker at the inaugural Emory Entrepreneurship Summit in 2015, and says he's one of the two coolest speakers she has brought back to Emory to help motivate future leaders.

"As a student, Michael was an enthusiastic and invaluable contributor to a small team of BBA students who were examining the connection between innovation and corporate success," Hershatter says. "He makes it look easy, but there is nothing accidental about Michael's success. He is not only incredibly bright, insightful, and creative, but also extremely strategic and hard working."

Although he wound up gravitating toward business, Dubin has a keen awareness of how every experience along the way helped shape him and guide his path forward—including his foundation in a liberal arts education. The writing
and critical thinking skills that he gained as a history major have helped him tell the Dollar Shave Club story.

"Whenever I meet alumni, I'm curious to know how their education has influenced their lives beyond Emory," Elliott says. "Like Michael, they often say that the liberal arts prepares them to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, whether it's an unplanned career change or a ton of razors sitting in a warehouse."

Dubin remains CEO of Dollar Shave Club and lives in Venice, California, where he recently renovated his house.

"Right now I'm very focused and dedicated to building Dollar Shave Club both domestically and internationally—launching new products, launching new business models," he told Elliott. "I get an opportunity to learn continually every day from the people around me, and that is the most amazing part of what I do. . . . I'm one of those people motivated primarily by curiosity, and as long as I'm learning, I'm happy."

In his Commencement speech, Dubin urged Emory graduates to keep an open mind, try new things, and worry less about what's happening next.

"If you want to live a unique and exceptional life, choose unique and exceptional things, make your own choices, follow your interests, follow your passions, and the universe will deliver you on your path . . . be patient."

Be patient—said the not-quite-forty-year-old billionaire who took a history degree, some business experience, a talent for improvisation, a little luck, and a warehouse full of f---ing great razor blades and made something new.