May 14, 2025 • 64 mins
In this episode we're in conversation with Michael Dubin, the founder of Dollar Shave Club. Dubin shares insights about his entrepreneurial journey, from his childhood in Philadelphia and his formative years at Emory University to creating Dollar Shave Club and navigating its viral success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Didn't wake up one day and say, now it's time
to start a razor Internet company. The path reveals itself
and then you walk it. You start out kind of
hating your competitors, and then the longer you play in
the game, you start to realize that you're actually really
grateful for your competitors because they push you to elevate
your game and go a little higher.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Everybody at Cino McFarland from The Sino Show, I hope
you're enjoying the show. I can't imagine you again. Help
us out. Please subscribe, because you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Know what, We've got a good one today.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
On The Sino Show, I got a man who changed
the game, not just in business, but how we think
about brand, voice and viral disruption. Michael Dubin took four
thousand video and turned into one billion exit. He's a
founder of Dollar Shape Club, a master of storytelling, and
(00:57):
one of the smartest, most creative, dangerous minds I know.
For eight years, I've been blessed to witness his journey
of growth, discipline, and discovery. He's a fucking fascinating guy
with a fascinatings. I'm super duper excited to have you
on the show. Buddy, welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
This is a real blessing. Thank you, Thank you for
the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Although I just heard I think through you that you've
done your fortieth show. Yes, yeah, and so I was
invite number forty one.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I don't know, Keith, what number were you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
This is forty one three, you're forty three, So I'm
forty three on the list.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, I was hoping to be closer to the top.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But I want to start here. Let's go back Young Michael.
Tell us about Young Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So I grew up outside Philadelphia, Yeah, Pennsylvania. Were you
a happy kid?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I was a very happy kid. Yeah, I was. I
was a happy kid. I was definitely a little bit
of a spaz. I think you would say I love detention.
I love being the center of the action. Would you
consider himself a class clown kind of guy, one hundred
percent class clown.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I was. I was loud, I was distracted. I had
ad d Yeah, I mean I would.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I would, you know, bang on my drum set in
the basement, and my mother would scream at me to
go outside because I was making too much noise. I
just I loved being around people and I still love
being around people, and I like when good people are
hanging around having a good time. And so you know,
if I could contribute to that in some way way
(02:25):
by making people laugh, then I wanted to do that.
And I think that's where the class clownism came from,
is I I.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I liked making people laugh. I still like making people out.
Oh you're really good at Yeah, but not a great student,
right I was.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I was not a good student. No, I was definitely
a mediocre student. If I was excited about something, I
leaned in and I was good at it. But if
I wasn't, if I was disinterested or it just didn't connect, No,
it was.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It was really hard for me to perform well.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
When if you can remember, buddy, did you get kind
of your entrepreneurial spirit? What kind of sparked it? Where
did you Was there a big influence your life?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Where did it? Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
You know, it's so interesting. This is something that I've
had from the very beginning. My family and I we
would always talk about business ideas, like what might make
a good idea for a business? And this is biological
for us in my family, and we'll we'll. I remember
being very young and being on a road trip, and
(03:27):
I must have been six or seven, and I remember
my my mom and dad in the car talking about
uninsured motorists and how uninsured motorists shouldn't have, you know,
like shouldn't be driving and and I and I just
kind of blurted out, well, you know what about a
(03:48):
device that you know prevents the car from turning on
unless you present your insurance And like they were like, well,
that's a great idea, seven year old Michael.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And and that just was the kind of stuff that
we would do all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
But yeah, I was and they fostered those ideas. It
was a creative family. They was like, we want to
talk about this stuff, right.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I grew up in a family that leaned into those
and said, oh, why, yes, that could work, and how
could you build on that idea? And so we were
always kind of kicking around ideas more for fun than
for actual we want to pursue them. But but yeah,
it was great, It was. It was a lot of
fun to do that with the family. I should also
(04:27):
add like, maybe not for my grandmother, because one of
my first businesses was taking her stuff off the shelf
and selling it.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
On the street. Did she know about that? I don't.
I don't know. You said, I'm going to start selling
grandma stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
My sister and I and then the kids across the
street who we used to play with when we would
go over to grandma's house. Was we we just had
this idea, like for a business, like let's go get
our parents and grandparents' stuff and let's bring them out,
make a little stand and sell it. And so we
like made a couple hundred bucks telling like old walkie
talkies and books and other supply was called bookends and
(05:06):
supplies was the name of this business. And we were
very young, but yeah, we were always doing stuff like that.
So I started in public school, and I went to
public school until I got to high school, and then
I switched to a private school. And the reason was
in public school, as a class clown, I was drawn
to the more social things and trying to fit in
(05:30):
and trying to impress the girls. And you know that
was that was distracting from school. Right when you're focused
on the social things, you're not focused on academics. And
I remember thinking to myself at a certain point, you know,
my higher self at that time was like I'm not
(05:52):
going to be able to really get ahead academically if
I'm focused on these social things. So I visited a
private school, and the attitude towards academics was totally.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Different in public school. At least in the public school
I was going to.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
It wasn't cool to be into school. And when I
visited the private school, everybody was into school. They were
into theater, and of course they were into academics.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And it was an all.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Boys school also, which helped for me, you know, so
there were no girls impress and so ultimately I just
was I became totally lit up when I switched schools
and I got into everything.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I started doing better in school.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I pursued theater, I pursued sports, and it was really
a fantastic four years for me. It was a wonderful
time because I was scratching all of my it'ses, so
to speak. I was exploring all parts of my soul.
And only really when I started Dollar Shave Club did
(06:56):
that kind of happen again for me, where I got
to do a little bit of everything that I loved,
a little bit of performance art, a little bit of
academics or business or things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But you know, I think it's really interesting as we
get older.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
In life, you know, we we start to whittle down
the things that we engage with and we forget how
much joy having a multidisciplinary life can be. And I
think it's a I think it's I think it's a dragon.
I think we suffer from it. You know, a lot
of people, you know, it's like we'll have we'll have
a hobby, you know, maybe play some sports with some friends,
(07:32):
but like you know where you know, maybe we go
to the theater, but you know, where are we engaging
in rich you know, intellectual conversation about the things that
plague us as a society, or you know, or our politics,
or where are we you know, where are we getting
on stage and performing or bringing our emotions out for
the benefit of an audience, Like we just don't do
(07:54):
that anymore. And I think it's it's maybe a little
bit of a of a fantasy to think that we
could somehow bring that back as adults with busy lives
and families.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
But but but I.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Think we'd be better off if I think would be
a lot happier if we if we could do a
little bit more of these things that we that we
used to do.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Beautiful, man, that's good Michael. Where'd you go to college?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, right, And why did you choose
em Orate? I think kind of Emory chose me, honestly,
like it was the best school that I got into.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I applied to a bunch of other schools. I mean,
I guess I should step back and say, I don't
even know why. I didn't know why. At the time
I was applying to colleges. It was just sort of
what you did back then in nineteen ninety seven, you
just you kind of it was accepted that, at least
where I come from, that when you're done with high school,
you go to college and that's the path, and then
(08:47):
whatever happens beyond that happens beyond that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
But but it was it wasn't something that I put
a tremendous amount of thought into. It's just what you did.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And so I applied to a bunch of schools that
I thought I might enjoy. I didn't want to go
to college out west seemed too far.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I'd explored the Northeast.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I had kind of had a little bit of a
you know, you know, romantic idea about the South and
kind of wanted to check out a different region. So
so I applied to some schools down south, and you know,
I eventually got into to Emory and and it just
kind of happened, you know, And it was the best
academic school that I got into, so I went. But
(09:29):
you know, it was it was I was fortunate enough
that I was you know, I came from a house
that was able to you know, get me to college
and and and but it wasn't a whole lot of
thought that went into this.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Got it favorite teacher, right, I didn't do a whole
lot of class. Yeah, yeah, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I probably fell back into the same kind of mistakes
that I made in public school, where I was just
kind of socializing.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, I was never a party animal.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I liked around people, but but I just didn't I
wasn't inspired. My high school was very challenging, but college
was was was. I didn't find it as academically challenging,
and so I just sort of screwed off. I mean,
I played soccer for a year and then that fell off,
and then I I didn't really get lit up until
(10:20):
I discovered some internships one was at CNN, and then
another one was at a marketing agency in Atlanta. But
I just I didn't really have any favorite teachers there
because I didn't really go to class.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But Michael, let me ask you something.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You've always been insanely curious, Like the CNN, those are
tough jobs to get.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
How did you walk walk the listeners through like.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Your tenacity and like making stuff happen, kind of not
knowing where you needed to go, but just kind of
venturing out there a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I was very fortunate to come from a home that
could put me through college and to have the opportunity
to go to college. At the same time, I didn't
really know why I was there. I didn't know what
the purpose of it was, and so I mean, I
guess it was to go to class, but I wasn't
finding that very inspiring, and I kept thinking to myself,
(11:12):
I can't wait to get out of here and get
into the real world where I can start making a
difference and being in the game in a way that
feels more interesting, productive, relevant, and helpful. Because I'm sort
of stagnating here intellectually as a student at this college.
(11:37):
And so I pursued internships that lit me up because
I needed to get that from somewhere and I was
very interested in news and entertainment and the media. And
I and I, you know, hunted down a CNN internship
really at the insistence of my mother. I have to
thank her for kind of pushing me into it, but
(12:00):
you know, she, yeah, she was like, you should, you know,
you're interested, you should go for this, do it, and
and then I just hunted it down and I and
I got it. Same thing with the marketing internship at
a place called BrightHouse, really brilliant guy named Joey Ryman
was a marketing thinker and had this consultancy in Atlanta.
And you know, I was able to hunt that one
(12:20):
down too, And I got so much joy out of
those things that I almost stopped going to class because
I was more interested in those things. So you know,
it's like you're going to go in life where you're inspired,
and I wasn't inspired to go to class, which was
a waste of resources, you know, and I and I
part of me is embarrassed about that, like, you know,
(12:42):
because there's so many people who don't get that chance
to go to college that want to. And I didn't
get much out of that, but I did.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
But I did.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Being in Atlanta opened up the opportunity to hunt down
these other internships and they were transfer forrmative for me.
They ultimately led me to my first job, which was
a page at NBC in New York, and then everything
kind of blossomed from there.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What was that job like?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Outside of Dollar Shave Club? The page job was my
favorite job. Maybe maybe it was my favorite job. It
was It was you know, your fifty kids, You're giving
the keys to NBC studios, you seat the audiences for
the shows, you you watch the shows, you give tours
(13:29):
of the studios, and then you're allowed to take these
mini jobs in different areas of the building. So that
could be Nightly News, that could be that could be
the Today Show, it could be Saturday Night Live, and
you just learn everything by watching and doing so I had.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I had a tremendous experience as a page. It was
I was.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I was at Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on nine
to eleven, which was an interesting moment to be there,
to say the least. I was lit up in a
really interesting way because I got to do all these
different things at NBC How long were you there for
the page Program's only a year?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Okay, let's talk about Los Angeles in coming out west?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
What year was that?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I lived in New York for eight years after college,
after I pivoted into marketing.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I got a job at Time Inc.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
At Life Magazine and Sports Illustrated, back when there were
magazines and magazines had websites that people went to. And
then I got laid off in two thousand and eight
and I moved out west to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What you didn't know? You didn't have a big network
out here, right? What inspired you to come out here?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I'd always I'd always wanted to live in California. I
wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get there
and how it was going to happen, but I always
knew that California had some magic for me, and I
wanted to get there, and I was dating somebody at
the time who lived out here, And it made for
(15:00):
a soft landing up because I got laid off in
New York and I had no reason to not come
check out Los Angeles in California. So it's sort of like,
you know, the path sort of was revealed for me.
I can't say that if I hadn't gotten laid off
(15:22):
in two thousand and eight, that I would have done it.
You know, I like to think that I oftentimes am
a bold chooser, But I think when I really look
at some of the bigger decisions that I've made in life,
they've happened. I don't want to say by accident, because
(15:43):
there are no accidents, right if you're you know, spiritually
switched on, as we like to say. But but like
I think they they happened by the path kind of
revealing itself to me, you know, not in a necessarily
me always hunting it down.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Got it, and then one day you're at a party.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, and and then that's you know, yeah, and that's
and that's that's how Dollar Shape Club happened too, you know.
I So I got so I got to Los Angeles,
I had just gotten laid off.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I got a job at a marketing consultancy for about a month,
and I and I got fired from that because the
boss and I had some disagreements about which way the
business ought to go. And it was his business, so like,
who was I to tell him what he should be
doing with his business? So he's probably right to fire me.
(16:38):
But but I had gotten fired, and I was doing
a little bit of freelance marketing on the side, and
the cash was drying up, you know, and I was
really worried for a minute that, you know, if I
wasn't able to kind of figure out a job or something,
that I was going to be headed back to the
East Coast.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
You know. Wow, it was that close.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know how close we
actually got, but there were definitely some real long, you know,
looks in the mirror of like, how are we going
to make this work? Because if we don't make it work,
we got to be out of here.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Like, I didn't really have a network in California when
I got here.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I had some friends, for sure from college that lived
out here, but and I had made some new friends
once I landed here, but I hadn't been around that long,
and so things were starting to look a little bleak.
So I'm worried that I'm running out of money. I
think I might end up having to go back to
the East Coast. And one night I'm at a party
(17:39):
and I bump into my friend's wife's father, who is
an importer of sorts, and he imports all kinds of stuff,
cake slicers and soccer balls, and you know, in that
batch of stuff that he had in a warehouse in
Rancho Kucamungo was like one hundred thousand or two hundred
and fifty thousand twin razor blades. A twin razor blade
(18:02):
is like a two blade razor blade. And he was like,
do you want you know, like, can you help me
do anything with these? And I and I was like, well,
I don't know that I can do anything with.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
These cake slicers. The cake slicer is like it was
like a cake.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It was like a it was like a knife in
the shape of a slice of cake, and so like
you would take it and slice the perfect slice of
cake with it, and it was called piece of cake.
And I was like, that's clever, but I can't do
anything with that. But these razors, I think I know
what I can do with them. And it brought me
back to an idea that I had when I was
(18:38):
living in New York.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I used to walk by.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Dwayne Reid uh and not want to go in to
buy razors because the line was long and the razor
fortress was always locked and you had to find the
person with the key, and and and then the price
was really high, and so I would just kind of
milk my own my old razor blades. And so as
soon as I met Mark at the party, I had this.
(19:04):
I instantly remembered having felt that way in New York,
and I was like, oh, I know what I'm going
to do. And I had the idea for the company
right there on the spot. And that was the beginning
of Dollar Shave Club. And like, you could never have
forecasted that. You could never have said, I mean, like,
(19:25):
I couldn't have forecasted that that's how it would happen.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
But that's how it happened. Wow, it's amazing. The idea
came to you.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You saw it, right I The idea came to me
right then and there because I drew on a prior
experience that I had. But I but I, when I
was living in New York, I wouldn't have connected the
dots that I should go out and solve that problem.
Only later, when this luck, the real luck of bumping
(19:56):
into market this party. Only that, only that moment triggered
my thinking. So if that, if that meeting doesn't happen,
there's no, there's no shape cloud.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, this is this is I wanted you on this
show for a lot of reasons. Most people get a
great idea like that and they don't do shit.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, what do you do next? What's the execution? What
did you see all these razor what do you do
next with them? Well?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I I whipped up a website and a fulfillment system
in my apartment, which was basically buying a label, printer,
putting it all together. And I started selling razors on
the internet.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And I'm assuming people are like, Michael, what the fuck
are you doing? Right?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Oh yeah, definitely people, my friends, my family, they didn't
get it, you know, they they and I did this
for about a year, you know, making a little bit
of money, not a ton, and and then we started
working on the video that ultimately put us on the map.
And and even when I made that video, you know,
(20:58):
even when I made that video, it was like people
that watched it, like I would show it to my
family and they're like, oh, yeah, that's cute, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And I never expected that that would go viral. I
knew it was funny.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I believed it was a funny video, but I never
thought it would catch on the way that it did.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And you wrote everything on that right. Yeah. Yeah, but
you know, like I didn't never asked you this. What
did you have to modify the razors? What did you
have to do to make them?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know? Yeah, so so you know, we'll bore the
audience if we go too deep into razor sign them somehow. No,
we didn't touch those, but eventually we went and found
out another manufacturer that could make us new razors. They
were based in South Korea. That was a journey, and
(21:48):
then eventually eventually we built our own razor factory in Israel,
and that was a wild experience. I mean, sourcing rais
around the world is a unique adventure. Uh, fraught with
peril and you know I I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Got it? Got it?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So you're you're here in the garage, you got this
website going, You're getting a couple orders coming in.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
What's it like when your first orders are coming in?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I mean, it's it's really validating. You know, I'll never
forget where I was when the first order came in.
There's a guy's name was Imrn Charnania and he was
from Houston, Texas. And I was sitting on my friend's couch.
You remember this, and you know, I looked it up
and I got the email and I was just like okay.
(22:39):
I was like, we're in business, you know, like somebody
somebody said yes to this, because it's never real until
you get that first order. And then you get that
first order, and it's like somebody said yes to me.
I mean, it's the most validating thing when you get
that first order.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, and then you you wrote, you wrote this this ad,
and I I've watched that ad.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I've been preparing for the show. Obviously I've watched it.
Probably it's fucking genius, man, thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's really all listeners watch it because this is a
guy who just did what the fuck he wanted to do. Yeah,
I mean I think the interesting I think, how did
you believe in yourself to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I was living in New York.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That was another time in my life that I was
sort of lit up across a bunch of different areas.
I had a day job at time, inc at night
I would either take business school classes or business classes
at night, or go study improv or sketch comedy at
(23:47):
the Upright Citizens Brigade. And all of that was the
seedling of Dollar Shave Club. That's where the soil became
fertilized for everything that came later. Because if I hadn't
taken those business classes, I wouldn't have had some knowledge
that became critical. If I hadn't done improv or sketch
comedy just because I was passionate about it, I wouldn't
(24:11):
have had the skills to write the video or probably
perform in the video. And I only did those things
because I was drawn to them. Only later, when when
Dolla Shave Club launched, did it all come back for
the benefit. And you know, it's it's a trite lesson,
(24:33):
but here it's a cliche or whatever to say it,
but it like the lesson is like just follow the
things that you're interested in and that you're passionate about,
because you can't, you know. And and it's like Steve
Jobs said this in his Stanford graduation speech, but like
you can't connect the dots looking forward, only looking backward.
(24:56):
And it's really true, like I could never have imagined
that all the things that I was doing in my
twenties in New York, just following my passion striving to
get ahead and build my skill set and resume. Would
I could never have imagined that all of those things
would come back to in the way that they did
(25:19):
to help me run and succeed with Dollar Shave Club.
And so this is a long winded way of answering
your question. But it's like when I got to this
moment where I launched the company, and I was like, Okay,
we now need to the basic concept works. We now
need to kind of polish it up, polish the site, polish.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The brand, and get the word out.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The only reason that I had the confidence to write
and perform that video is because I had followed my
passions when I was living in New York, like, you know,
to do improv and sketch in business class. Nobody would
tell you that the way into starting a business is
to go take improv classes three nights a week, or
(26:05):
go watch a bunch of comedians perform three nights a week.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I just did.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It because I loved it, and it all came back
in a really beautiful, synergistic way. So yeah, that's I
had the confidence because I had trained, you know, and
I got a lot of great help. So a friend
of mine, Lucia who's you know, the creator of Hacks
and Broad City and some other things. She and I
(26:31):
did some sketch back in New York and she had
just moved to Los Angeles and I said, hey, I
need some help with this company that I'm starting. I
need to film this video, Like will you direct it?
Like will you come out and direct? And she was
like sure, no problem. So we shot it in one day.
I have to give her credit for writing one of
(26:51):
the more significant jokes in there, which was our blades
are fucking great. I was really struggling with that line
and I was like, are our blades any good? And
then every other line that I came up is just
wasn't hitting. And she was like, well, how about just
our blades are fucking great? And I was like, yeah,
that's good. That's the one. And so she directed it
and then we launched it and the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
What made you come up with the idea? I get emotional.
I see when you have the girl who's an employee.
What made you think about you know, when you do
the train the locomotive to have that in there because
we create jobs too?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
What did that just dropped in? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's very cool now that thing goes live and holy cow,
I mean your site crash. How many hits you get
the first day on that? I don't I don't remember
how many hits we got, but yeah, our site crashing. Man.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I remember launching the video.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We launched it at six am Pacific time on March sixth,
twenty twelve, and you know, I remember waking up at
like seven thirty am because I didn't think I needed
to get up when this video went live. And I
remember waking up and going to the website and the
(28:05):
website wasn't there, and I was like, oh fuck. You know,
we were using some fly by Night programmers that were
working on the promenade and you know, they were the
ones that built the first version of the site, and
I was like, you know, I called them and I
was like, wtf.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
The site is like, this is our most important day.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Why is the site not down or why is the
site not up? And they were like, well, the site
has crashed because we have so much traffic. And that's
when I knew we had a good problem, but a
problem nonetheless, and we quickly sold out of all of
our inventory that day. I think I forget exactly how
much inventory we had, but it was hundreds of thousands
(28:45):
of razors that we kind of sold out of and
then we were stocked out for three months until we
could get a new order in. And but you know,
that was sort of like that day.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
It was. It's all a blur.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I don't remember much from that day at this point,
except that it was the really interesting blend of panic, excitement, terror,
and hope. Like you know, in an instant, your wildest
dreams are also your worst nightmare. Like you put all
(29:25):
of this energy into everything, and the stakes are super high.
This is your big launch moment for a guy who
was running out of cash and might have had to
move back to Philadelphia, and you pop in the way
that you could never have dreamed. Good thing, but your
(29:48):
website's down and you're sold out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Bad thing.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And so now in retrospect, I realized that that was
all good. But at the moment, I was an unsophisticated
young busines I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That it was all going to work out.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I was just scared that, like you know, we met
the wave came and we missed the wave.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Wow, got it, got it? Got it.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Now let me ask you this, which is interesting because
like we do this as entrepreneurs, and we do this
as people. We always sort of assume that the worst
case scenario is going to come true, and it's rarely
true that the worst case scenario comes true. It's also
rarely true that the best case scenario comes true. But
(30:33):
the best case scenario comes true more often than the
worst case scenario comes true. And only after you've sort
of lived enough life, you know, can you kind of
unfuck your mind from going right to that worst case
scenario is going to happen all the time scenario. But
that's how I was wired, or that's how I am wired,
(30:57):
and you know, it takes a lot of work to
kind of undo that. And it's a sword that cuts
both ways, because that fear that helps you imagine the
worst case scenario also helps you prepare so that the
worst case scenario doesn't happen. So it's a it's a
(31:18):
it's a sword that cuts both ways. I wouldn't say
I would love to be without that gene or that chip,
but I also because it because it's useful, you know,
because it was has been useful for me. But it
doesn't always make it easy because you can torture yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, that's beautiful. All right.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Let me ask you this, brother, when you started out,
did you think like, now this is a this thing
can sell, It is gonna do really well.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I'll make a few bucks, I'll get out there.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Or was it from the gate You're like, I'm gonna
fucking go to I'm gonna fucking take Jillette to town.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
It was not the ladder.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It was definitely not the ladder. I started the business
and I thought to myself, like, this is this is
a business set hopefully I can make some money with
Like if I make a living, that's a win, and
I'll get some experience and then I'll go on to
do the next thing, whatever the next thing is. But
(32:14):
you know, I I definitely never thought when I started
the business that's that this is where we could take
it over time and and honestly with a lot of
help from other people and the way that they thought
about what the possibilities were. Did I embrace the bigger mission?
(32:37):
I didn't know I was on the bigger mission until
I was already on the path.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
You've been ridiculed, you've been sued, you've been copied. I mean,
just talk talk about that.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Process, will you? The different levels of it.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, I mean, you know it's like, well, you start
with you start with ridiculed, and you know, I think
that you just kind of work your way through that one,
knowing that like anybody that's ridiculing you probably has some
other reason to ridicule you, besides a good reason.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That you're worthy of their ridicule.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You start to again, you have to live through that
a few times before you realize it. The first time,
the first couple of times always sting, you take it personally,
and then you start to realize what's really going on.
You know, you don't you know, I was no, I
was no, I am no master of the human psyche.
But you learn through experience where the ridiculers are coming from.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
That's that's and then and then you talk about being copied,
and you know it's not enough to live with the
old traitism that imitation is the most sincerest form of
flattery or whatever, because you're worried that someone's gonna come
in and eat your lunch, you know, and then you're
(34:05):
gonna be on the slow train back to Philadelphia again,
you know, and and ultimately, like.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
You know what you you just you you.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Start out kind of hating your competitors, and then the
longer you play in the game, you start to realize
that you're actually really grateful for your competitors because they
push you to elevate your game and go a little higher.
And you know, if we don't have that, you know,
tiger on our tail, we're just kind of playing at
(34:38):
whatever our speed is. Now, my default speed is fast,
and I don't miss I'm my own biggest competitor, so
I'm always pushing myself. But that having another outside competitor
really sharpens your focus, your strategic thinking, and lights of
fire under your ass, and you end up being really
(35:00):
grateful for that. You find a different way of looking
at your competition. Doesn't always feel good, and nobody likes
to lose or or or or come in second, but
you learn to kind of accept the presence and the
gift that is good competition.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
So and then getting sued.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
You know, I'd love to say that getting sued is
a part of business, but it doesn't have to be
right like it probably will happen if you you know, uh.
Sometimes there's a great quote from Frank Underwood from.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
House of Cards.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
You know, the higher, the higher up on the mountain,
the more treacherous the pass. And maybe that wasn't even
his quote. Maybe it was somebody that he let's go
with it. That's where I remember it from.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, you snipers.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Higher you get up, the higher you get up, you know,
a lot of people have their eye on you, and
they're going to do everything they can to slow you down.
And so we were sued by by some of the
big players, and you know, they were they all turned
out favorably for us. But but like you know, they'll
they'll take any swing at you that they can to
(36:18):
kind of slow you down.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
But it's a sign of your success. Yeah, beautiful, let's
talk about this.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
I know I was there really difficult scary times the company. Yeah,
a lot going on, a lot at stake, a lot
of them. How manyployees did you have at.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
The top at the peak, probably three point fifty. It's
amazing incredible facility created over there. By the way. How
do you talk to listeners about dealing with chaos? Yeah, yeah,
I mean I think.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I think that I personally am wired to handle chaos. Well,
you know, I you know, there's like sometimes you can
think about people like there's there's people that love bright
sunny days. And then there's people that love thunderstorms. I
love a good thunderstorm. It's not that I don't appreciate
(37:11):
sunny days, of course I do. But I think I
have uh. I think I have the wiring to handle
chaos and and spin a lot of plates and and
in some ways that's a blessing and in some ways
that's a curse.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
That's another sword that cuts both ways.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But but no matter how well you're wired for chaos,
it doesn't prevent you from having the shit scared out
of you that everything that you've been working towards can
be destroyed very quickly, and it's always easier. We read
(37:52):
this great poem in high school, Graham Green's The Destructors,
and I think that the point of that poem was like,
it's easier to destroy than it is to create. You know,
something can be taken away, something that takes years to
build personally, professionally, can be destroyed in moments. And I
(38:17):
was always acutely aware of that, and so I worked
hard to try to prevent any lethal moments.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
But sometimes you do stare.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
That death in the face, and like not a physical death,
but the death of things that you created and ultimately
an ego death, because let's be honest, like I had
an enormous amount of my self worth or my sense
of self worth wrapped up in the success of this company,
(38:51):
probably too much. When you stare at that potential death,
it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
And so your question was, how did I deal with that?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And I don't know that I dealt with it particularly well, honestly,
Like when I was scared, I was scared, I get
real quiet. I just get into think mode and process mode,
and my brain is going on, how do I not
suffer this worst potential worst case scenario?
Speaker 3 (39:26):
And I have to.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Stew on it for a while, and I have to
stew on it for a while, and I have to
stew on it until I'm done stewing, And so I
can't really say that I have a method, and I
would love to maybe try to find one. I think
you can tell yourself all of the platitudes around, like
the worst case scenario never happens, and you know, but
like it doesn't mean when you get scared that you're
(39:51):
not thinking about the worst case scenario really having and
then having a physiological reaction to that. So I don't
know that I have method or or a system. I
just kind of, you know, you know, ride out, ride
out the storm.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Okay, let's talk about this buddy, learning from failures, not
giving up, being persistent.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
I wish I had some method here that I could share.
I don't know that. I don't know that I do.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I think, like so much of what I do is
based on an innate optimism and hopefulness about what's possible
and and a sort of creativity around like what or
not not necessarily a creativity, but a synergistic way of
thinking of how I can blend A with B to
(40:41):
achieve C. And I I have the let's call it
a gift and a sickness of believing that anything's possible. Yeah,
you know, and because it is, because it is, you know,
don't you think you have to have that to be
an entrepreneur? Exactly right, It's exactly right, you do, because
(41:02):
you know, you have to be crazy enough to persevere
through the people that you love and trust the most
saying stop, this is dumb, it's not going to work,
and and so like you have to have that conviction,
you know, but we all know that we can all,
you know, conjure stories of people that had too much
conviction in some area and they went too far with
(41:24):
it right. So you know, it's like it's like you
have to Yes, you have to have that disease.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Disease.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I use that word flippantly and I don't mean to,
but but it is. You do have to be sort
of like addicted to your own ideas so much that
you're not going to let go of it, you know,
you know, and it can cause you harm too write
like you don't always get it right. You can hang
on to the idea too long, and you can it
(41:55):
can bring you closer to ruin. So you also have
to know, work with yourself to find that, you know,
where is your line? How far are you going to
chase this until until you kind of let it go
as a failure, you know. But but even after you fail,
which I certainly did. I mean I this, you know,
Dollar Shave Club is not my first startup, and and
(42:17):
you know, you just kind of realize like, Okay, this
one didn't work, and like there will be another one,
and that's you return to that place of hopefulness and
you give it another swing and keep giving it another
swing and hopefully you bust through but but I don't
know that there's you know, I don't know that there's
anything else around the idea of persistence other than just
(42:41):
like persistence itself. You know, there's it like it's like
you just it's so it's so trite, you know, but
it's like you just have to keep at it.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I don't think it's tried. I think it's important. You
just can't give up. Yeah, just can't give up.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, until it's until you know it's time to up right.
And it's like, how do you know where that line is?
Because you know it's just some people know, but some
people can take it too far, you know.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I I yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
And then a company you get a phone call and
there they're knocking on the door. They're interested in buying
your company.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, that was a that was also a surreal process
because I never got into the business to sell the business.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
I got into it because I thought maybe I could
make a good living doing this. And then the journey changed,
and the purpose of the journey changed, and we realized
that we could go bigger. And you know, eventually, when
you grow something bigger, you're going to pop up on
people's radars and those people are going to call you
because they they want a piece of what you're building.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
And that's what happened for us.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
And it happens so organically and naturally, just like every
other thing in life. I mean, it really is, it
really is. My success story is a is a story
of like following your passions and the things that you're
really interested in, and then you know, when when the
(44:23):
path reveals itself, running down that path, you know, and
not trying to force it. You know, like I didn't
wake up one day and say now it's time to
sell the company, just like I didn't wake up one
day and say now it's time to start.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
A Razor Internet company. You just.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
The path reveals itself and then you walk it. And
so the phone rang, so to speak. I mean, it
wasn't quite like that, but it was you know, I
met I met our choir at a dinner and we
hit it off, and we started talking about how we
might be able to work together, and then one thing
led to another and eventually we we we did the transaction.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
But but like you.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Know, it wasn't something that we pushed too hard at.
It's just like, you know, the path revealed it said
the bushes opened, and we walked through the woods and
we ended.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Up where we were supposed to.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You know, one of the things I love about you know,
it's a long list. I I never got the money
was the big motivator with you. You're so humble around money.
You know, Like some people go, I saw that fucking
company for a billion dollars, You'd be like, oh, fuck,
year is like they bought it for a billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
It's like, yeah, yeah, talk to me about that, brother.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, I mean it's a I mean, that's a big
that's a big fake number, right, yeah, And it's not.
It's it's hard to grasp. It's hard to fathom, you know,
the scale of that. And you know, I I more warding. Listen,
(46:01):
I'm not gonna lie and say that selling, you know,
selling your company and being able to be in a
position where you can, you know, do things in life
that were previously undoable and where you can help your
friends and family and in ways that you previously weren't
(46:22):
able to and never dreamed you'd be able to, isn't
a wonderful thing.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
It is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
So I certainly don't want to pretend like that's not
a wonderful thing. But you know, for me, it was
never the target. It was never where I derived the
joy from. Was never the idea of making money. It
(46:52):
was more more enthralling to me was solving the puzzle
right right, and and like figuring out how to get
consumers to walk through the maze and come to the team,
(47:14):
and same with employees, and how to get everybody playing
on the same team in harmony and working towards the
same championship goal, which is you know, not just survival
but innovation and evolution. And that was the fun part,
(47:37):
you know, and I loved that. And you know, in
some ways, and this will sound I know how this
will sound to people who might be in a position
where they'd like to sell their company or extra from
their company and reap the financial warward of doing that.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
I know how this may sound. But like.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
The benefit like when we sold the company, in some
ways it was bittersweet because you were sort of awarded
the medal for having done it. But at the same time,
like now you're not doing it anymore, or you're doing it,
(48:22):
but you're doing it in a different way and it
becomes a different puzzle and the challenge becomes a different
one and ultimately, like you know, you get hungry for
the next puzzle, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
And.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
You know that that's so so in some ways it
was very it was very bittersweet, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
It's it was.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
It was definitely it was you know, it's a real
it's a real moment. But the moments that I remember, like,
and again I can appreciate how this might sound, but
like in some way in this which is maybe trite,
but like in some ways, like that first sale that
I got from im run Charnania in Houston, Texas, sitting
(49:12):
on my buddy's couch was like buck, yeah, this is
a business that works. Like I came up with something
that works. You know, that was really cool. And again,
like selling your company is.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Also really could about. So I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Trivialize that, but it's like it's so big, it's so
surreal that you know, it's it's it's sometimes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Hard to grasp.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Walk the listeners through your last kind of official day
there and leaving the building.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
What was that like, Well, the last day that I
left the building was not my last day. The last
day I left the building was March ninth or tenth,
twenty twenty, when I walked out of the building with
a headache and some body chills and went home for
the day to rest and ultimately realized what I had
(50:09):
was a unique virus called the coronavirus.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
And that was my last day in the office. Oh fuck,
I forgot about that, man. That was my last day
in the office.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I remember getting up out of the meeting, walking out,
being like, I got to go rest.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I don't feel well.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
And of course I came back to the office later on,
but you know, to get stuff or maybe to meet
with people one on one. But so, yeah, it's March
of twenty twenty and we're the pandemic's kicking off and
we have to figure out how to run a company remotely,
just like a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
I was also very sick with COVID.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
That was a scary time for me because nobody knew
what was going on, and you know, eventually we.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Sort of figured it out.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
But in January of twenty twenty one, that was my
last day, and I gave my goodbye speech to a
zoom camera h sitting remotely, and so it was actually
quite anti climactic.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
If you want to live a unique and exceptional life,
choose unique and exceptional things.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
I don't remember saying that, really, yeah really yeah. So
I'm just I'm just the receiver, man, I just I
just receive it and then I pass it through me
and then.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
That's just how it works. Yeah. I got another one.
If you don't remember that one, well, I mean, but
that is you, though, brother.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds Yeah, I guess I I guess
I've lived that way. Not always to my benefit, but
I suppose I've lived that way.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Okay, let me go back to something on that though,
because you said something that's really poor. I always tell
people do something you've got to always don't you never know?
Take it our class. That might lead to something. Five
you take an improv class, Yeah, and you make one
of the greatest commercials of all time. Yeah, do something right?
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Right?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Okay, all right? How about this one? All right?
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (52:17):
I believe if you want to live a life of
purpose and happiness, you have to become familiar with the
essence of choices.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was I think I gave that
when a graduation class. God, some of these quotes they
just they sound so they sound so I don't even
know what.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yeah. No, they sound like what, I don't know what?
They sound like too serious too, Yeah, I don't know.
I really say that. I don't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's got it. It's like I probably knew
what I meant at the time when I was saying it,
but now I have no idea what that was in
your graduation speak. Yeah, yeah, and you don't remember what
you wrote that, No.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
I remember, I remember.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
I'd have to really distill that. I thought where you
were going was to a different place, which is like
do something.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
You know that this idea of do something.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
And I believe that to be successful in life you
have to go out there and collide with life. When
I was in my twenties and I had no idea
what I wanted to do with my life, I would
I would do this thing where I would like say
to myself, Okay, Tomorrow Saturday, I'm gonna wake up, I'm
(53:25):
gonna get my breakfast sandwich, I'm gonna sit down, and
i'm gonna figure out what I want to do with
my life. I'm gonna map it out and start to finish.
And That's what I'm gonna do on Saturday. And I
would try to sit down and do it, and I
would write it all down, and sorry, I wouldn't even
write it all down. I would sit down with the
(53:46):
pen and I would try to write it all down
and nothing would come out, because that's not how it works.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
What you do, what I've done, is.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Just go out there and try a bunch of shit
it and collide with different things and hope that my
instincts are right and that the things that I try
to follow will somehow benefit what I ultimately want to do.
That's what I know how to do, is follow the
things that I'm passionate about and excited to do.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
And that's not how everybody's wired.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Some people are very focused, they know exactly what they
want to be, and there's a very clear path on
how to get from A to B. But my process
has always been a little bit more improvisational and organic
in that way. And for that type of person, you
have to get out there and go collide with it.
(54:40):
It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't happen sitting
at your desk kind of mapping it out. That's a
piece of it. But you got to go out there
and get some data. What was it like going back
to the school that you barely showed up for and
came the convincement speech?
Speaker 3 (54:54):
It was fun. That was a fun day. You know.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
I got to so I un the same class twice.
I don't know how many people have done that. That's
a rare feat, I think. And you know, I I
the professor who flunked me twice was there and I
got to call him out in a really fun way too.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
I forget.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yeah, well I just I mean, you know, it's I
just kind of called him out to give him a
hard time, to bust his chops a little bit, which
was fun. But that was that was a That was
a fun day for sure.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
Yeah. What advice, Michael, do you have for young entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Most advice that I would give to an entrepreneur is
probably based on what stage they're at.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Are they.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Still conceiving the idea, shaping the business, have they launched it,
et cetera. There's different advice that you'd give to people
at different stages of the journey. So I don't know
what universal piece of advice I could give. It's a
tough one because it's like everything, everything's different, Every business
(56:05):
is different.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
But one thing that I think.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
I and this is not the only advice, and it's
maybe not the best piece of advice, but in your journey,
you're gonna have to discuss your idea with people that
can help you. And some people are going to be
(56:35):
unhelpful because they don't get the idea, or maybe because
they're wired in a way that doesn't lead them to
believe that great things are possible, or maybe they'll be
unhelpful because they can't quite see what's in your head clearly.
(56:59):
And one piece of advice that I might offer is like,
keep going to talking to different people about your idea
until you find people that get what you're trying to do,
or that are open minded and playful enough with you
to kick it around. Because you need to find those people,
(57:22):
whether they're going to end up being a co founder
or an investor or a supporter of some kind, a
friend to you in some way. You need somebody that's
willing to kick it around, playfully with you and say like, oh, yeah,
I see what you're I see what you're going for,
you know, look for positive people. Look for positive people
(57:44):
that are open minded and come from a place of
I want to help you know, I want to help you.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
I'm maybe not.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Sure what you're saying yet, but or where you're going
with the thing, and you know or that you're the
right guy to do it or girl to do it,
but like you know, they want to engage with you
playfully and with a smile. Like you have to go
out there and find those positive people because there's a
lot of there's a lot of negativity out there, there's
(58:13):
a lot of short sightedness out there.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
There's a lot of people that.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Don't get it, and you've got to find people that
have the right energy.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Right on Dylanston's love by the way, because you've been
very helpful to him, I hope so he kept them
in the game.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
It was very wise, counsel. You gave that nice Great,
that's good, Michael. When are you your happiest?
Speaker 1 (58:35):
I still think, you know, to tie it back maybe
to something I said earlier, I think I'm at my
happiest when I'm with the right kind of people, like
whatever that mean. Maybe that's goofing off with friends and family, or.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
You know, like.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Working on a project with other collaborators that you know,
we're all really excited about playing a team sport, you know,
just kind of being around happy, energetic people, you know,
and having having a good time. And that can take
(59:27):
a variety of forms, you know, can it can happen
in you know, romantic relationships, professional relationships, team sports, anything really,
you know. But I would say I'm at my happiest
when I'm around people in good energy.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Right on, man, people are going to know what's next
for Michael doing, what's next for you? What's inspiring?
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Where are you going, what are you working on?
Speaker 1 (59:51):
So I'm trying my best to follow my own advice,
which is follow the things that I'm passionate about and
interested in and waiting for the past to open, you know,
in the right way, which doesn't mean you wait exclusively
for the you know, the branches in the forest to part.
Sometimes you peel the branches back a little bit to
(01:00:12):
get a look down a certain path yourself. But you know,
I've been writing a screenplay for the last two years
that I just finished and I'm doing some rewrites on that.
That's been an awesome journey and really fun, you know.
I'm I'm working on one or two new business ideas
(01:00:35):
that you know, at this point for me anything that
I do business wise, I really want it. I need
it to have, you know, a make the world a
better place component. It has to check that box for me.
And and so you know, that's a that's a that's
(01:00:56):
a high bar. Can you find a thing that's not
you know, can you find something that is exciting challenging
enough and also is a big enough of a market
and also checks that box is a tall order. But
it's a fun it's a fun one. So I've got
I got a couple of ideas for that. And yeah,
(01:01:21):
I think I I don't I don't know what's I
don't know what's next. And I'm and at the moment,
I'm kind of okay with that, you know, I think,
I think I don't need to know that right this second.
Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
But I am.
Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
But I am anxious to not anxious, excited to you know,
get get in the game in a meaningful way, in
a way that makes the world a better place, whether
that's through art or or business.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I I can't, I can't yet know. Okay, what is
the greatest thing you learned here at Shell.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I'll just start talking and I'll let the answer find itself.
Is an entrepreneur and as a person really have have
relied on my creativity and imagination to create things that
don't exist and make them, you know, to create things
(01:02:15):
that don't exist.
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
And sometimes that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Gene can be unproductive in your personal life and in
your professional life for sure, but but but certainly in
your in your in your personal life. And you know,
we didn't go too deep there today. Maybe we'll do
that on episode two, but ultimately, you know, I think
(01:02:46):
when you it cuts back I think to this idea
of finding a way to not let your imagination, which
can be a wonderful gift, also be your biggest weakness.
And that's a lot of work that we have done here,
(01:03:07):
I think, is trying to find the balance between leveraging
that as a strength and avoiding that as a weakness.
And we're all sort of victims in life. I think
of magical thinking, as you have said, and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
The magical thinking again is.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
A beautiful thing in some areas of your life, and
in others it can be extremely detrimental. You've been so
helpful in helping me understand myself and my wiring around that,
and I'm extremely grateful for the work that you've led
me through.
Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
There no it's beautiful. Thank you brother.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Once again, folks, I mean you know this is a
masterclass with Michael Duban.
Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Please subscribe, help us out, support our show. We really
appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
The Sales Show is a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted
by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod People in twenty
eighth av Our lead producer is Keith Carnlick. Our executive
producer is Lindsay Hoffman. Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver. Thank
you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
Didn't wake up one day and say, now it's time
to start a razor Internet company. The path reveals itself
and then you walk it. You start out kind of
hating your competitors, and then the longer you play in
the game, you start to realize that you're actually really
grateful for your competitors because they push you to elevate
your game and go a little higher.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Everybody at Cino McFarland from The Sino Show, I hope
you're enjoying the show. I can't imagine you again. Help
us out. Please subscribe, because you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Know what, We've got a good one today.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
On The Sino Show, I got a man who changed
the game, not just in business, but how we think
about brand, voice and viral disruption. Michael Dubin took four
thousand video and turned into one billion exit. He's a
founder of Dollar Shape Club, a master of storytelling, and
(00:57):
one of the smartest, most creative, dangerous minds I know.
For eight years, I've been blessed to witness his journey
of growth, discipline, and discovery. He's a fucking fascinating guy
with a fascinatings. I'm super duper excited to have you
on the show. Buddy, welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
This is a real blessing. Thank you, Thank you for
the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Although I just heard I think through you that you've
done your fortieth show. Yes, yeah, and so I was
invite number forty one.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I don't know, Keith, what number were you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
This is forty one three, you're forty three, So I'm
forty three on the list.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, I was hoping to be closer to the top.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But I want to start here. Let's go back Young Michael.
Tell us about Young Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So I grew up outside Philadelphia, Yeah, Pennsylvania. Were you
a happy kid?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I was a very happy kid. Yeah, I was. I
was a happy kid. I was definitely a little bit
of a spaz. I think you would say I love detention.
I love being the center of the action. Would you
consider himself a class clown kind of guy, one hundred
percent class clown.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I was. I was loud, I was distracted. I had
ad d Yeah, I mean I would.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I would, you know, bang on my drum set in
the basement, and my mother would scream at me to
go outside because I was making too much noise. I
just I loved being around people and I still love
being around people, and I like when good people are
hanging around having a good time. And so you know,
if I could contribute to that in some way way
(02:25):
by making people laugh, then I wanted to do that.
And I think that's where the class clownism came from,
is I I.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I liked making people laugh. I still like making people out.
Oh you're really good at Yeah, but not a great student,
right I was.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I was not a good student. No, I was definitely
a mediocre student. If I was excited about something, I
leaned in and I was good at it. But if
I wasn't, if I was disinterested or it just didn't connect, No,
it was.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It was really hard for me to perform well.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
When if you can remember, buddy, did you get kind
of your entrepreneurial spirit? What kind of sparked it? Where
did you Was there a big influence your life?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Where did it? Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
You know, it's so interesting. This is something that I've
had from the very beginning. My family and I we
would always talk about business ideas, like what might make
a good idea for a business? And this is biological
for us in my family, and we'll we'll. I remember
being very young and being on a road trip, and
(03:27):
I must have been six or seven, and I remember
my my mom and dad in the car talking about
uninsured motorists and how uninsured motorists shouldn't have, you know,
like shouldn't be driving and and I and I just
kind of blurted out, well, you know what about a
(03:48):
device that you know prevents the car from turning on
unless you present your insurance And like they were like, well,
that's a great idea, seven year old Michael.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And and that just was the kind of stuff that
we would do all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
But yeah, I was and they fostered those ideas. It
was a creative family. They was like, we want to
talk about this stuff, right.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I grew up in a family that leaned into those
and said, oh, why, yes, that could work, and how
could you build on that idea? And so we were
always kind of kicking around ideas more for fun than
for actual we want to pursue them. But but yeah,
it was great, It was. It was a lot of
fun to do that with the family. I should also
(04:27):
add like, maybe not for my grandmother, because one of
my first businesses was taking her stuff off the shelf
and selling it.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
On the street. Did she know about that? I don't.
I don't know. You said, I'm going to start selling
grandma stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
My sister and I and then the kids across the
street who we used to play with when we would
go over to grandma's house. Was we we just had
this idea, like for a business, like let's go get
our parents and grandparents' stuff and let's bring them out,
make a little stand and sell it. And so we
like made a couple hundred bucks telling like old walkie
talkies and books and other supply was called bookends and
(05:06):
supplies was the name of this business. And we were
very young, but yeah, we were always doing stuff like that.
So I started in public school, and I went to
public school until I got to high school, and then
I switched to a private school. And the reason was
in public school, as a class clown, I was drawn
to the more social things and trying to fit in
(05:30):
and trying to impress the girls. And you know that
was that was distracting from school. Right when you're focused
on the social things, you're not focused on academics. And
I remember thinking to myself at a certain point, you know,
my higher self at that time was like I'm not
(05:52):
going to be able to really get ahead academically if
I'm focused on these social things. So I visited a
private school, and the attitude towards academics was totally.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Different in public school. At least in the public school
I was going to.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
It wasn't cool to be into school. And when I
visited the private school, everybody was into school. They were
into theater, and of course they were into academics.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And it was an all.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Boys school also, which helped for me, you know, so
there were no girls impress and so ultimately I just
was I became totally lit up when I switched schools
and I got into everything.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I started doing better in school.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I pursued theater, I pursued sports, and it was really
a fantastic four years for me. It was a wonderful
time because I was scratching all of my it'ses, so
to speak. I was exploring all parts of my soul.
And only really when I started Dollar Shave Club did
(06:56):
that kind of happen again for me, where I got
to do a little bit of everything that I loved,
a little bit of performance art, a little bit of
academics or business or things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But you know, I think it's really interesting as we
get older.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
In life, you know, we we start to whittle down
the things that we engage with and we forget how
much joy having a multidisciplinary life can be. And I
think it's a I think it's I think it's a dragon.
I think we suffer from it. You know, a lot
of people, you know, it's like we'll have we'll have
a hobby, you know, maybe play some sports with some friends,
(07:32):
but like you know where you know, maybe we go
to the theater, but you know, where are we engaging
in rich you know, intellectual conversation about the things that
plague us as a society, or you know, or our politics,
or where are we you know, where are we getting
on stage and performing or bringing our emotions out for
the benefit of an audience, Like we just don't do
(07:54):
that anymore. And I think it's it's maybe a little
bit of a of a fantasy to think that we
could somehow bring that back as adults with busy lives
and families.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
But but but I.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Think we'd be better off if I think would be
a lot happier if we if we could do a
little bit more of these things that we that we
used to do.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Beautiful, man, that's good Michael. Where'd you go to college?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, right, And why did you choose
em Orate? I think kind of Emory chose me, honestly,
like it was the best school that I got into.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I applied to a bunch of other schools. I mean,
I guess I should step back and say, I don't
even know why. I didn't know why. At the time
I was applying to colleges. It was just sort of
what you did back then in nineteen ninety seven, you
just you kind of it was accepted that, at least
where I come from, that when you're done with high school,
you go to college and that's the path, and then
(08:47):
whatever happens beyond that happens beyond that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
But but it was it wasn't something that I put
a tremendous amount of thought into. It's just what you did.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And so I applied to a bunch of schools that
I thought I might enjoy. I didn't want to go
to college out west seemed too far.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I'd explored the Northeast.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I had kind of had a little bit of a
you know, you know, romantic idea about the South and
kind of wanted to check out a different region. So
so I applied to some schools down south, and you know,
I eventually got into to Emory and and it just
kind of happened, you know, And it was the best
academic school that I got into, so I went. But
(09:29):
you know, it was it was I was fortunate enough
that I was you know, I came from a house
that was able to you know, get me to college
and and and but it wasn't a whole lot of
thought that went into this.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Got it favorite teacher, right, I didn't do a whole
lot of class. Yeah, yeah, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I probably fell back into the same kind of mistakes
that I made in public school, where I was just
kind of socializing.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, I was never a party animal.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I liked around people, but but I just didn't I
wasn't inspired. My high school was very challenging, but college
was was was. I didn't find it as academically challenging,
and so I just sort of screwed off. I mean,
I played soccer for a year and then that fell off,
and then I I didn't really get lit up until
(10:20):
I discovered some internships one was at CNN, and then
another one was at a marketing agency in Atlanta. But
I just I didn't really have any favorite teachers there
because I didn't really go to class.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But Michael, let me ask you something.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You've always been insanely curious, Like the CNN, those are
tough jobs to get.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
How did you walk walk the listeners through like.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Your tenacity and like making stuff happen, kind of not
knowing where you needed to go, but just kind of
venturing out there a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I was very fortunate to come from a home that
could put me through college and to have the opportunity
to go to college. At the same time, I didn't
really know why I was there. I didn't know what
the purpose of it was, and so I mean, I
guess it was to go to class, but I wasn't
finding that very inspiring, and I kept thinking to myself,
(11:12):
I can't wait to get out of here and get
into the real world where I can start making a
difference and being in the game in a way that
feels more interesting, productive, relevant, and helpful. Because I'm sort
of stagnating here intellectually as a student at this college.
(11:37):
And so I pursued internships that lit me up because
I needed to get that from somewhere and I was
very interested in news and entertainment and the media. And
I and I, you know, hunted down a CNN internship
really at the insistence of my mother. I have to
thank her for kind of pushing me into it, but
(12:00):
you know, she, yeah, she was like, you should, you know,
you're interested, you should go for this, do it, and
and then I just hunted it down and I and
I got it. Same thing with the marketing internship at
a place called BrightHouse, really brilliant guy named Joey Ryman
was a marketing thinker and had this consultancy in Atlanta.
And you know, I was able to hunt that one
(12:20):
down too, And I got so much joy out of
those things that I almost stopped going to class because
I was more interested in those things. So you know,
it's like you're going to go in life where you're inspired,
and I wasn't inspired to go to class, which was
a waste of resources, you know, and I and I
part of me is embarrassed about that, like, you know,
(12:42):
because there's so many people who don't get that chance
to go to college that want to. And I didn't
get much out of that, but I did.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
But I did.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Being in Atlanta opened up the opportunity to hunt down
these other internships and they were transfer forrmative for me.
They ultimately led me to my first job, which was
a page at NBC in New York, and then everything
kind of blossomed from there.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What was that job like?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Outside of Dollar Shave Club? The page job was my
favorite job. Maybe maybe it was my favorite job. It
was It was you know, your fifty kids, You're giving
the keys to NBC studios, you seat the audiences for
the shows, you you watch the shows, you give tours
(13:29):
of the studios, and then you're allowed to take these
mini jobs in different areas of the building. So that
could be Nightly News, that could be that could be
the Today Show, it could be Saturday Night Live, and
you just learn everything by watching and doing so I had.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I had a tremendous experience as a page. It was
I was.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I was at Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on nine
to eleven, which was an interesting moment to be there,
to say the least. I was lit up in a
really interesting way because I got to do all these
different things at NBC How long were you there for
the page Program's only a year?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Okay, let's talk about Los Angeles in coming out west?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
What year was that?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I lived in New York for eight years after college,
after I pivoted into marketing.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I got a job at Time Inc.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
At Life Magazine and Sports Illustrated, back when there were
magazines and magazines had websites that people went to. And
then I got laid off in two thousand and eight
and I moved out west to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What you didn't know? You didn't have a big network
out here, right? What inspired you to come out here?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I'd always I'd always wanted to live in California. I
wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get there
and how it was going to happen, but I always
knew that California had some magic for me, and I
wanted to get there, and I was dating somebody at
the time who lived out here, And it made for
(15:00):
a soft landing up because I got laid off in
New York and I had no reason to not come
check out Los Angeles in California. So it's sort of like,
you know, the path sort of was revealed for me.
I can't say that if I hadn't gotten laid off
(15:22):
in two thousand and eight, that I would have done it.
You know, I like to think that I oftentimes am
a bold chooser, But I think when I really look
at some of the bigger decisions that I've made in life,
they've happened. I don't want to say by accident, because
(15:43):
there are no accidents, right if you're you know, spiritually
switched on, as we like to say. But but like
I think they they happened by the path kind of
revealing itself to me, you know, not in a necessarily
me always hunting it down.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Got it, and then one day you're at a party.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, and and then that's you know, yeah, and that's
and that's that's how Dollar Shape Club happened too, you know.
I So I got so I got to Los Angeles,
I had just gotten laid off.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I got a job at a marketing consultancy for about a month,
and I and I got fired from that because the
boss and I had some disagreements about which way the
business ought to go. And it was his business, so like,
who was I to tell him what he should be
doing with his business? So he's probably right to fire me.
(16:38):
But but I had gotten fired, and I was doing
a little bit of freelance marketing on the side, and
the cash was drying up, you know, and I was
really worried for a minute that, you know, if I
wasn't able to kind of figure out a job or something,
that I was going to be headed back to the
East Coast.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
You know. Wow, it was that close.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know how close we
actually got, but there were definitely some real long, you know,
looks in the mirror of like, how are we going
to make this work? Because if we don't make it work,
we got to be out of here.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Like, I didn't really have a network in California when
I got here.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I had some friends, for sure from college that lived
out here, but and I had made some new friends
once I landed here, but I hadn't been around that long,
and so things were starting to look a little bleak.
So I'm worried that I'm running out of money. I
think I might end up having to go back to
the East Coast. And one night I'm at a party
(17:39):
and I bump into my friend's wife's father, who is
an importer of sorts, and he imports all kinds of stuff,
cake slicers and soccer balls, and you know, in that
batch of stuff that he had in a warehouse in
Rancho Kucamungo was like one hundred thousand or two hundred
and fifty thousand twin razor blades. A twin razor blade
(18:02):
is like a two blade razor blade. And he was like,
do you want you know, like, can you help me
do anything with these? And I and I was like, well,
I don't know that I can do anything with.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
These cake slicers. The cake slicer is like it was
like a cake.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It was like a it was like a knife in
the shape of a slice of cake, and so like
you would take it and slice the perfect slice of
cake with it, and it was called piece of cake.
And I was like, that's clever, but I can't do
anything with that. But these razors, I think I know
what I can do with them. And it brought me
back to an idea that I had when I was
(18:38):
living in New York.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I used to walk by.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Dwayne Reid uh and not want to go in to
buy razors because the line was long and the razor
fortress was always locked and you had to find the
person with the key, and and and then the price
was really high, and so I would just kind of
milk my own my old razor blades. And so as
soon as I met Mark at the party, I had this.
(19:04):
I instantly remembered having felt that way in New York,
and I was like, oh, I know what I'm going
to do. And I had the idea for the company
right there on the spot. And that was the beginning
of Dollar Shave Club. And like, you could never have
forecasted that. You could never have said, I mean, like,
(19:25):
I couldn't have forecasted that that's how it would happen.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
But that's how it happened. Wow, it's amazing. The idea
came to you.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You saw it, right I The idea came to me
right then and there because I drew on a prior
experience that I had. But I but I, when I
was living in New York, I wouldn't have connected the
dots that I should go out and solve that problem.
Only later, when this luck, the real luck of bumping
(19:56):
into market this party. Only that, only that moment triggered
my thinking. So if that, if that meeting doesn't happen,
there's no, there's no shape cloud.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, this is this is I wanted you on this
show for a lot of reasons. Most people get a
great idea like that and they don't do shit.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, what do you do next? What's the execution? What
did you see all these razor what do you do
next with them? Well?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I I whipped up a website and a fulfillment system
in my apartment, which was basically buying a label, printer,
putting it all together. And I started selling razors on
the internet.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And I'm assuming people are like, Michael, what the fuck
are you doing? Right?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Oh yeah, definitely people, my friends, my family, they didn't
get it, you know, they they and I did this
for about a year, you know, making a little bit
of money, not a ton, and and then we started
working on the video that ultimately put us on the map.
And and even when I made that video, you know,
(20:58):
even when I made that video, it was like people
that watched it, like I would show it to my
family and they're like, oh, yeah, that's cute, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And I never expected that that would go viral. I
knew it was funny.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I believed it was a funny video, but I never
thought it would catch on the way that it did.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And you wrote everything on that right. Yeah. Yeah, but
you know, like I didn't never asked you this. What
did you have to modify the razors? What did you
have to do to make them?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know? Yeah, so so you know, we'll bore the
audience if we go too deep into razor sign them somehow. No,
we didn't touch those, but eventually we went and found
out another manufacturer that could make us new razors. They
were based in South Korea. That was a journey, and
(21:48):
then eventually eventually we built our own razor factory in Israel,
and that was a wild experience. I mean, sourcing rais
around the world is a unique adventure. Uh, fraught with
peril and you know I I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Got it? Got it?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So you're you're here in the garage, you got this
website going, You're getting a couple orders coming in.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
What's it like when your first orders are coming in?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I mean, it's it's really validating. You know, I'll never
forget where I was when the first order came in.
There's a guy's name was Imrn Charnania and he was
from Houston, Texas. And I was sitting on my friend's couch.
You remember this, and you know, I looked it up
and I got the email and I was just like okay.
(22:39):
I was like, we're in business, you know, like somebody
somebody said yes to this, because it's never real until
you get that first order. And then you get that
first order, and it's like somebody said yes to me.
I mean, it's the most validating thing when you get
that first order.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, and then you you wrote, you wrote this this ad,
and I I've watched that ad.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I've been preparing for the show. Obviously I've watched it.
Probably it's fucking genius, man, thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's really all listeners watch it because this is a
guy who just did what the fuck he wanted to do. Yeah,
I mean I think the interesting I think, how did
you believe in yourself to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I was living in New York.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That was another time in my life that I was
sort of lit up across a bunch of different areas.
I had a day job at time, inc at night
I would either take business school classes or business classes
at night, or go study improv or sketch comedy at
(23:47):
the Upright Citizens Brigade. And all of that was the
seedling of Dollar Shave Club. That's where the soil became
fertilized for everything that came later. Because if I hadn't
taken those business classes, I wouldn't have had some knowledge
that became critical. If I hadn't done improv or sketch
comedy just because I was passionate about it, I wouldn't
(24:11):
have had the skills to write the video or probably
perform in the video. And I only did those things
because I was drawn to them. Only later, when when
Dolla Shave Club launched, did it all come back for
the benefit. And you know, it's it's a trite lesson,
(24:33):
but here it's a cliche or whatever to say it,
but it like the lesson is like just follow the
things that you're interested in and that you're passionate about,
because you can't, you know. And and it's like Steve
Jobs said this in his Stanford graduation speech, but like
you can't connect the dots looking forward, only looking backward.
(24:56):
And it's really true, like I could never have imagined
that all the things that I was doing in my
twenties in New York, just following my passion striving to
get ahead and build my skill set and resume. Would
I could never have imagined that all of those things
would come back to in the way that they did
(25:19):
to help me run and succeed with Dollar Shave Club.
And so this is a long winded way of answering
your question. But it's like when I got to this
moment where I launched the company, and I was like, Okay,
we now need to the basic concept works. We now
need to kind of polish it up, polish the site, polish.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The brand, and get the word out.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The only reason that I had the confidence to write
and perform that video is because I had followed my
passions when I was living in New York, like, you know,
to do improv and sketch in business class. Nobody would
tell you that the way into starting a business is
to go take improv classes three nights a week, or
(26:05):
go watch a bunch of comedians perform three nights a week.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I just did.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It because I loved it, and it all came back
in a really beautiful, synergistic way. So yeah, that's I
had the confidence because I had trained, you know, and
I got a lot of great help. So a friend
of mine, Lucia who's you know, the creator of Hacks
and Broad City and some other things. She and I
(26:31):
did some sketch back in New York and she had
just moved to Los Angeles and I said, hey, I
need some help with this company that I'm starting. I
need to film this video, Like will you direct it?
Like will you come out and direct? And she was
like sure, no problem. So we shot it in one day.
I have to give her credit for writing one of
(26:51):
the more significant jokes in there, which was our blades
are fucking great. I was really struggling with that line
and I was like, are our blades any good? And
then every other line that I came up is just
wasn't hitting. And she was like, well, how about just
our blades are fucking great? And I was like, yeah,
that's good. That's the one. And so she directed it
and then we launched it and the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
What made you come up with the idea? I get emotional.
I see when you have the girl who's an employee.
What made you think about you know, when you do
the train the locomotive to have that in there because
we create jobs too?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
What did that just dropped in? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's very cool now that thing goes live and holy cow,
I mean your site crash. How many hits you get
the first day on that? I don't I don't remember
how many hits we got, but yeah, our site crashing. Man.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I remember launching the video.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We launched it at six am Pacific time on March sixth,
twenty twelve, and you know, I remember waking up at
like seven thirty am because I didn't think I needed
to get up when this video went live. And I
remember waking up and going to the website and the
(28:05):
website wasn't there, and I was like, oh fuck. You know,
we were using some fly by Night programmers that were
working on the promenade and you know, they were the
ones that built the first version of the site, and
I was like, you know, I called them and I
was like, wtf.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
The site is like, this is our most important day.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Why is the site not down or why is the
site not up? And they were like, well, the site
has crashed because we have so much traffic. And that's
when I knew we had a good problem, but a
problem nonetheless, and we quickly sold out of all of
our inventory that day. I think I forget exactly how
much inventory we had, but it was hundreds of thousands
(28:45):
of razors that we kind of sold out of and
then we were stocked out for three months until we
could get a new order in. And but you know,
that was sort of like that day.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
It was. It's all a blur.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I don't remember much from that day at this point,
except that it was the really interesting blend of panic, excitement, terror,
and hope. Like you know, in an instant, your wildest
dreams are also your worst nightmare. Like you put all
(29:25):
of this energy into everything, and the stakes are super high.
This is your big launch moment for a guy who
was running out of cash and might have had to
move back to Philadelphia, and you pop in the way
that you could never have dreamed. Good thing, but your
(29:48):
website's down and you're sold out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Bad thing.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And so now in retrospect, I realized that that was
all good. But at the moment, I was an unsophisticated
young busines I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That it was all going to work out.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I was just scared that, like you know, we met
the wave came and we missed the wave.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Wow, got it, got it? Got it.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Now let me ask you this, which is interesting because
like we do this as entrepreneurs, and we do this
as people. We always sort of assume that the worst
case scenario is going to come true, and it's rarely
true that the worst case scenario comes true. It's also
rarely true that the best case scenario comes true. But
(30:33):
the best case scenario comes true more often than the
worst case scenario comes true. And only after you've sort
of lived enough life, you know, can you kind of
unfuck your mind from going right to that worst case
scenario is going to happen all the time scenario. But
that's how I was wired, or that's how I am wired,
(30:57):
and you know, it takes a lot of work to
kind of undo that. And it's a sword that cuts
both ways, because that fear that helps you imagine the
worst case scenario also helps you prepare so that the
worst case scenario doesn't happen. So it's a it's a
(31:18):
it's a sword that cuts both ways. I wouldn't say
I would love to be without that gene or that chip,
but I also because it because it's useful, you know,
because it was has been useful for me. But it
doesn't always make it easy because you can torture yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, that's beautiful. All right.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Let me ask you this, brother, when you started out,
did you think like, now this is a this thing
can sell, It is gonna do really well.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I'll make a few bucks, I'll get out there.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Or was it from the gate You're like, I'm gonna
fucking go to I'm gonna fucking take Jillette to town.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
It was not the ladder.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It was definitely not the ladder. I started the business
and I thought to myself, like, this is this is
a business set hopefully I can make some money with
Like if I make a living, that's a win, and
I'll get some experience and then I'll go on to
do the next thing, whatever the next thing is. But
(32:14):
you know, I I definitely never thought when I started
the business that's that this is where we could take
it over time and and honestly with a lot of
help from other people and the way that they thought
about what the possibilities were. Did I embrace the bigger mission?
(32:37):
I didn't know I was on the bigger mission until
I was already on the path.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
You've been ridiculed, you've been sued, you've been copied. I mean,
just talk talk about that.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Process, will you? The different levels of it.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, I mean, you know it's like, well, you start
with you start with ridiculed, and you know, I think
that you just kind of work your way through that one,
knowing that like anybody that's ridiculing you probably has some
other reason to ridicule you, besides a good reason.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That you're worthy of their ridicule.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You start to again, you have to live through that
a few times before you realize it. The first time,
the first couple of times always sting, you take it personally,
and then you start to realize what's really going on.
You know, you don't you know, I was no, I
was no, I am no master of the human psyche.
But you learn through experience where the ridiculers are coming from.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
That's that's and then and then you talk about being copied,
and you know it's not enough to live with the
old traitism that imitation is the most sincerest form of
flattery or whatever, because you're worried that someone's gonna come
in and eat your lunch, you know, and then you're
(34:05):
gonna be on the slow train back to Philadelphia again,
you know, and and ultimately, like.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
You know what you you just you you.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Start out kind of hating your competitors, and then the
longer you play in the game, you start to realize
that you're actually really grateful for your competitors because they
push you to elevate your game and go a little higher.
And you know, if we don't have that, you know,
tiger on our tail, we're just kind of playing at
(34:38):
whatever our speed is. Now, my default speed is fast,
and I don't miss I'm my own biggest competitor, so
I'm always pushing myself. But that having another outside competitor
really sharpens your focus, your strategic thinking, and lights of
fire under your ass, and you end up being really
(35:00):
grateful for that. You find a different way of looking
at your competition. Doesn't always feel good, and nobody likes
to lose or or or or come in second, but
you learn to kind of accept the presence and the
gift that is good competition.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
So and then getting sued.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
You know, I'd love to say that getting sued is
a part of business, but it doesn't have to be
right like it probably will happen if you you know, uh.
Sometimes there's a great quote from Frank Underwood from.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
House of Cards.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
You know, the higher, the higher up on the mountain,
the more treacherous the pass. And maybe that wasn't even
his quote. Maybe it was somebody that he let's go
with it. That's where I remember it from.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, you snipers.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Higher you get up, the higher you get up, you know,
a lot of people have their eye on you, and
they're going to do everything they can to slow you down.
And so we were sued by by some of the
big players, and you know, they were they all turned
out favorably for us. But but like you know, they'll
they'll take any swing at you that they can to
(36:18):
kind of slow you down.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
But it's a sign of your success. Yeah, beautiful, let's
talk about this.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
I know I was there really difficult scary times the company. Yeah,
a lot going on, a lot at stake, a lot
of them. How manyployees did you have at.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
The top at the peak, probably three point fifty. It's
amazing incredible facility created over there. By the way. How
do you talk to listeners about dealing with chaos? Yeah, yeah,
I mean I think.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I think that I personally am wired to handle chaos. Well,
you know, I you know, there's like sometimes you can
think about people like there's there's people that love bright
sunny days. And then there's people that love thunderstorms. I
love a good thunderstorm. It's not that I don't appreciate
(37:11):
sunny days, of course I do. But I think I
have uh. I think I have the wiring to handle
chaos and and spin a lot of plates and and
in some ways that's a blessing and in some ways
that's a curse.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
That's another sword that cuts both ways.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But but no matter how well you're wired for chaos,
it doesn't prevent you from having the shit scared out
of you that everything that you've been working towards can
be destroyed very quickly, and it's always easier. We read
(37:52):
this great poem in high school, Graham Green's The Destructors,
and I think that the point of that poem was like,
it's easier to destroy than it is to create. You know,
something can be taken away, something that takes years to
build personally, professionally, can be destroyed in moments. And I
(38:17):
was always acutely aware of that, and so I worked
hard to try to prevent any lethal moments.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
But sometimes you do stare.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
That death in the face, and like not a physical death,
but the death of things that you created and ultimately
an ego death, because let's be honest, like I had
an enormous amount of my self worth or my sense
of self worth wrapped up in the success of this company,
(38:51):
probably too much. When you stare at that potential death,
it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
And so your question was, how did I deal with that?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And I don't know that I dealt with it particularly well, honestly,
Like when I was scared, I was scared, I get
real quiet. I just get into think mode and process mode,
and my brain is going on, how do I not
suffer this worst potential worst case scenario?
Speaker 3 (39:26):
And I have to.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Stew on it for a while, and I have to
stew on it for a while, and I have to
stew on it until I'm done stewing, And so I
can't really say that I have a method, and I
would love to maybe try to find one. I think
you can tell yourself all of the platitudes around, like
the worst case scenario never happens, and you know, but
like it doesn't mean when you get scared that you're
(39:51):
not thinking about the worst case scenario really having and
then having a physiological reaction to that. So I don't
know that I have method or or a system. I
just kind of, you know, you know, ride out, ride
out the storm.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Okay, let's talk about this buddy, learning from failures, not
giving up, being persistent.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
I wish I had some method here that I could share.
I don't know that. I don't know that I do.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I think, like so much of what I do is
based on an innate optimism and hopefulness about what's possible
and and a sort of creativity around like what or
not not necessarily a creativity, but a synergistic way of
thinking of how I can blend A with B to
(40:41):
achieve C. And I I have the let's call it
a gift and a sickness of believing that anything's possible. Yeah,
you know, and because it is, because it is, you know,
don't you think you have to have that to be
an entrepreneur? Exactly right, It's exactly right, you do, because
(41:02):
you know, you have to be crazy enough to persevere
through the people that you love and trust the most
saying stop, this is dumb, it's not going to work,
and and so like you have to have that conviction,
you know, but we all know that we can all,
you know, conjure stories of people that had too much
conviction in some area and they went too far with
(41:24):
it right. So you know, it's like it's like you
have to Yes, you have to have that disease.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Disease.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I use that word flippantly and I don't mean to,
but but it is. You do have to be sort
of like addicted to your own ideas so much that
you're not going to let go of it, you know,
you know, and it can cause you harm too write
like you don't always get it right. You can hang
on to the idea too long, and you can it
(41:55):
can bring you closer to ruin. So you also have
to know, work with yourself to find that, you know,
where is your line? How far are you going to
chase this until until you kind of let it go
as a failure, you know. But but even after you fail,
which I certainly did. I mean I this, you know,
Dollar Shave Club is not my first startup, and and
(42:17):
you know, you just kind of realize like, Okay, this
one didn't work, and like there will be another one,
and that's you return to that place of hopefulness and
you give it another swing and keep giving it another
swing and hopefully you bust through but but I don't
know that there's you know, I don't know that there's
anything else around the idea of persistence other than just
(42:41):
like persistence itself. You know, there's it like it's like
you just it's so it's so trite, you know, but
it's like you just have to keep at it.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I don't think it's tried. I think it's important. You
just can't give up. Yeah, just can't give up.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, until it's until you know it's time to up right.
And it's like, how do you know where that line is?
Because you know it's just some people know, but some
people can take it too far, you know.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I I yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
And then a company you get a phone call and
there they're knocking on the door. They're interested in buying
your company.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, that was a that was also a surreal process
because I never got into the business to sell the business.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
I got into it because I thought maybe I could
make a good living doing this. And then the journey changed,
and the purpose of the journey changed, and we realized
that we could go bigger. And you know, eventually, when
you grow something bigger, you're going to pop up on
people's radars and those people are going to call you
because they they want a piece of what you're building.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
And that's what happened for us.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
And it happens so organically and naturally, just like every
other thing in life. I mean, it really is, it
really is. My success story is a is a story
of like following your passions and the things that you're
really interested in, and then you know, when when the
(44:23):
path reveals itself, running down that path, you know, and
not trying to force it. You know, like I didn't
wake up one day and say now it's time to
sell the company, just like I didn't wake up one
day and say now it's time to start.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
A Razor Internet company. You just.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
The path reveals itself and then you walk it. And
so the phone rang, so to speak. I mean, it
wasn't quite like that, but it was you know, I
met I met our choir at a dinner and we
hit it off, and we started talking about how we
might be able to work together, and then one thing
led to another and eventually we we we did the transaction.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
But but like you.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Know, it wasn't something that we pushed too hard at.
It's just like, you know, the path revealed it said
the bushes opened, and we walked through the woods and
we ended.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Up where we were supposed to.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You know, one of the things I love about you know,
it's a long list. I I never got the money
was the big motivator with you. You're so humble around money.
You know, Like some people go, I saw that fucking
company for a billion dollars, You'd be like, oh, fuck,
year is like they bought it for a billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
It's like, yeah, yeah, talk to me about that, brother.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, I mean it's a I mean, that's a big
that's a big fake number, right, yeah, And it's not.
It's it's hard to grasp. It's hard to fathom, you know,
the scale of that. And you know, I I more warding. Listen,
(46:01):
I'm not gonna lie and say that selling, you know,
selling your company and being able to be in a
position where you can, you know, do things in life
that were previously undoable and where you can help your
friends and family and in ways that you previously weren't
(46:22):
able to and never dreamed you'd be able to, isn't
a wonderful thing.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
It is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
So I certainly don't want to pretend like that's not
a wonderful thing. But you know, for me, it was
never the target. It was never where I derived the
joy from. Was never the idea of making money. It
(46:52):
was more more enthralling to me was solving the puzzle
right right, and and like figuring out how to get
consumers to walk through the maze and come to the team,
(47:14):
and same with employees, and how to get everybody playing
on the same team in harmony and working towards the
same championship goal, which is you know, not just survival
but innovation and evolution. And that was the fun part,
(47:37):
you know, and I loved that. And you know, in
some ways, and this will sound I know how this
will sound to people who might be in a position
where they'd like to sell their company or extra from
their company and reap the financial warward of doing that.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
I know how this may sound. But like.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
The benefit like when we sold the company, in some
ways it was bittersweet because you were sort of awarded
the medal for having done it. But at the same time,
like now you're not doing it anymore, or you're doing it,
(48:22):
but you're doing it in a different way and it
becomes a different puzzle and the challenge becomes a different
one and ultimately, like you know, you get hungry for
the next puzzle, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
And.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
You know that that's so so in some ways it
was very it was very bittersweet, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
It's it was.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
It was definitely it was you know, it's a real
it's a real moment. But the moments that I remember, like,
and again I can appreciate how this might sound, but
like in some way in this which is maybe trite,
but like in some ways, like that first sale that
I got from im run Charnania in Houston, Texas, sitting
(49:12):
on my buddy's couch was like buck, yeah, this is
a business that works. Like I came up with something
that works. You know, that was really cool. And again,
like selling your company is.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Also really could about. So I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Trivialize that, but it's like it's so big, it's so
surreal that you know, it's it's it's sometimes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Hard to grasp.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Walk the listeners through your last kind of official day
there and leaving the building.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
What was that like, Well, the last day that I
left the building was not my last day. The last
day I left the building was March ninth or tenth,
twenty twenty, when I walked out of the building with
a headache and some body chills and went home for
the day to rest and ultimately realized what I had
(50:09):
was a unique virus called the coronavirus.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
And that was my last day in the office. Oh fuck,
I forgot about that, man. That was my last day
in the office.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I remember getting up out of the meeting, walking out,
being like, I got to go rest.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I don't feel well.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
And of course I came back to the office later on,
but you know, to get stuff or maybe to meet
with people one on one. But so, yeah, it's March
of twenty twenty and we're the pandemic's kicking off and
we have to figure out how to run a company remotely,
just like a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
I was also very sick with COVID.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
That was a scary time for me because nobody knew
what was going on, and you know, eventually we.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Sort of figured it out.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
But in January of twenty twenty one, that was my
last day, and I gave my goodbye speech to a
zoom camera h sitting remotely, and so it was actually
quite anti climactic.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
If you want to live a unique and exceptional life,
choose unique and exceptional things.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
I don't remember saying that, really, yeah really yeah. So
I'm just I'm just the receiver, man, I just I
just receive it and then I pass it through me
and then.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
That's just how it works. Yeah. I got another one.
If you don't remember that one, well, I mean, but
that is you, though, brother.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds Yeah, I guess I I guess
I've lived that way. Not always to my benefit, but
I suppose I've lived that way.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Okay, let me go back to something on that though,
because you said something that's really poor. I always tell
people do something you've got to always don't you never know?
Take it our class. That might lead to something. Five
you take an improv class, Yeah, and you make one
of the greatest commercials of all time. Yeah, do something right?
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Right?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Okay, all right? How about this one? All right?
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (52:17):
I believe if you want to live a life of
purpose and happiness, you have to become familiar with the
essence of choices.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was I think I gave that
when a graduation class. God, some of these quotes they
just they sound so they sound so I don't even
know what.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yeah. No, they sound like what, I don't know what?
They sound like too serious too, Yeah, I don't know.
I really say that. I don't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's got it. It's like I probably knew
what I meant at the time when I was saying it,
but now I have no idea what that was in
your graduation speak. Yeah, yeah, and you don't remember what
you wrote that, No.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
I remember, I remember.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
I'd have to really distill that. I thought where you
were going was to a different place, which is like
do something.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
You know that this idea of do something.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
And I believe that to be successful in life you
have to go out there and collide with life. When
I was in my twenties and I had no idea
what I wanted to do with my life, I would
I would do this thing where I would like say
to myself, Okay, Tomorrow Saturday, I'm gonna wake up, I'm
(53:25):
gonna get my breakfast sandwich, I'm gonna sit down, and
i'm gonna figure out what I want to do with
my life. I'm gonna map it out and start to finish.
And That's what I'm gonna do on Saturday. And I
would try to sit down and do it, and I
would write it all down, and sorry, I wouldn't even
write it all down. I would sit down with the
(53:46):
pen and I would try to write it all down
and nothing would come out, because that's not how it works.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
What you do, what I've done, is.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Just go out there and try a bunch of shit
it and collide with different things and hope that my
instincts are right and that the things that I try
to follow will somehow benefit what I ultimately want to do.
That's what I know how to do, is follow the
things that I'm passionate about and excited to do.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
And that's not how everybody's wired.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Some people are very focused, they know exactly what they
want to be, and there's a very clear path on
how to get from A to B. But my process
has always been a little bit more improvisational and organic
in that way. And for that type of person, you
have to get out there and go collide with it.
(54:40):
It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't happen sitting
at your desk kind of mapping it out. That's a
piece of it. But you got to go out there
and get some data. What was it like going back
to the school that you barely showed up for and
came the convincement speech?
Speaker 3 (54:54):
It was fun. That was a fun day. You know.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
I got to so I un the same class twice.
I don't know how many people have done that. That's
a rare feat, I think. And you know, I I
the professor who flunked me twice was there and I
got to call him out in a really fun way too.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
I forget.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yeah, well I just I mean, you know, it's I
just kind of called him out to give him a
hard time, to bust his chops a little bit, which
was fun. But that was that was a That was
a fun day for sure.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
Yeah. What advice, Michael, do you have for young entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Most advice that I would give to an entrepreneur is
probably based on what stage they're at.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Are they.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Still conceiving the idea, shaping the business, have they launched it,
et cetera. There's different advice that you'd give to people
at different stages of the journey. So I don't know
what universal piece of advice I could give. It's a
tough one because it's like everything, everything's different, Every business
(56:05):
is different.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
But one thing that I think.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
I and this is not the only advice, and it's
maybe not the best piece of advice, but in your journey,
you're gonna have to discuss your idea with people that
can help you. And some people are going to be
(56:35):
unhelpful because they don't get the idea, or maybe because
they're wired in a way that doesn't lead them to
believe that great things are possible, or maybe they'll be
unhelpful because they can't quite see what's in your head clearly.
(56:59):
And one piece of advice that I might offer is like,
keep going to talking to different people about your idea
until you find people that get what you're trying to do,
or that are open minded and playful enough with you
to kick it around. Because you need to find those people,
(57:22):
whether they're going to end up being a co founder
or an investor or a supporter of some kind, a
friend to you in some way. You need somebody that's
willing to kick it around, playfully with you and say like, oh, yeah,
I see what you're I see what you're going for,
you know, look for positive people. Look for positive people
(57:44):
that are open minded and come from a place of
I want to help you know, I want to help you.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
I'm maybe not.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Sure what you're saying yet, but or where you're going
with the thing, and you know or that you're the
right guy to do it or girl to do it,
but like you know, they want to engage with you
playfully and with a smile. Like you have to go
out there and find those positive people because there's a
lot of there's a lot of negativity out there, there's
(58:13):
a lot of short sightedness out there.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
There's a lot of people that.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Don't get it, and you've got to find people that
have the right energy.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Right on Dylanston's love by the way, because you've been
very helpful to him, I hope so he kept them
in the game.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
It was very wise, counsel. You gave that nice Great,
that's good, Michael. When are you your happiest?
Speaker 1 (58:35):
I still think, you know, to tie it back maybe
to something I said earlier, I think I'm at my
happiest when I'm with the right kind of people, like
whatever that mean. Maybe that's goofing off with friends and family, or.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
You know, like.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Working on a project with other collaborators that you know,
we're all really excited about playing a team sport, you know,
just kind of being around happy, energetic people, you know,
and having having a good time. And that can take
(59:27):
a variety of forms, you know, can it can happen
in you know, romantic relationships, professional relationships, team sports, anything really,
you know. But I would say I'm at my happiest
when I'm around people in good energy.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Right on, man, people are going to know what's next
for Michael doing, what's next for you? What's inspiring?
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Where are you going, what are you working on?
Speaker 1 (59:51):
So I'm trying my best to follow my own advice,
which is follow the things that I'm passionate about and
interested in and waiting for the past to open, you know,
in the right way, which doesn't mean you wait exclusively
for the you know, the branches in the forest to part.
Sometimes you peel the branches back a little bit to
(01:00:12):
get a look down a certain path yourself. But you know,
I've been writing a screenplay for the last two years
that I just finished and I'm doing some rewrites on that.
That's been an awesome journey and really fun, you know.
I'm I'm working on one or two new business ideas
(01:00:35):
that you know, at this point for me anything that
I do business wise, I really want it. I need
it to have, you know, a make the world a
better place component. It has to check that box for me.
And and so you know, that's a that's a that's
(01:00:56):
a high bar. Can you find a thing that's not
you know, can you find something that is exciting challenging
enough and also is a big enough of a market
and also checks that box is a tall order. But
it's a fun it's a fun one. So I've got
I got a couple of ideas for that. And yeah,
(01:01:21):
I think I I don't I don't know what's I
don't know what's next. And I'm and at the moment,
I'm kind of okay with that, you know, I think,
I think I don't need to know that right this second.
Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
But I am.
Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
But I am anxious to not anxious, excited to you know,
get get in the game in a meaningful way, in
a way that makes the world a better place, whether
that's through art or or business.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I I can't, I can't yet know. Okay, what is
the greatest thing you learned here at Shell.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I'll just start talking and I'll let the answer find itself.
Is an entrepreneur and as a person really have have
relied on my creativity and imagination to create things that
don't exist and make them, you know, to create things
(01:02:15):
that don't exist.
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
And sometimes that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Gene can be unproductive in your personal life and in
your professional life for sure, but but but certainly in
your in your in your personal life. And you know,
we didn't go too deep there today. Maybe we'll do
that on episode two, but ultimately, you know, I think
(01:02:46):
when you it cuts back I think to this idea
of finding a way to not let your imagination, which
can be a wonderful gift, also be your biggest weakness.
And that's a lot of work that we have done here,
(01:03:07):
I think, is trying to find the balance between leveraging
that as a strength and avoiding that as a weakness.
And we're all sort of victims in life. I think
of magical thinking, as you have said, and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
The magical thinking again is.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
A beautiful thing in some areas of your life, and
in others it can be extremely detrimental. You've been so
helpful in helping me understand myself and my wiring around that,
and I'm extremely grateful for the work that you've led
me through.
Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
There no it's beautiful. Thank you brother.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Once again, folks, I mean you know this is a
masterclass with Michael Duban.
Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Please subscribe, help us out, support our show. We really
appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
The Sales Show is a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted
by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod People in twenty
eighth av Our lead producer is Keith Carnlick. Our executive
producer is Lindsay Hoffman. Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver. Thank
you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
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