A Close Shave: Shaving Just Got Cheaper and Easier

Look out, Gillette and Schick. There is a new razor on the block and it is cheaper and comes directly to consumers homes. The Dollar Shave Club, a new startup, has launched with more than $1 million in backing from such venture capitalists as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz, according to TechCrunch.

The idea is that for only a dollar a month (plus $2 shipping and handling), a consumer can get all the razors he needs for the month sent to his door, saving him the walk into his local pharmacy or big-box store to snag them.

Of course they can spend more than that if they want. Another package goes for $6 a month while the “Executive” will cost you $9 monthly. Other razors have gotten overdeveloped with ““a vibrating handle, a back-scratcher, and all of that stuff,” said founder and CEO Michael Durbin to TechCrunch.

The site points out that this isn’t the first attempt at such a business. “Manpacks is offering a monthly package that includes razors as well as other necessities like underwear,” TechCrunch reports, but Durbin said that the strategy at Manpacks seems little too broad to him: It’s never clear if you’ll need new underwear each month but new razors always get used.

“I want people to see us as one of the first online-only power brands in the category,” Durbin said, TechCrunch reports.

And that may happen. Dollar Shave Club was borne out of the Science, Inc. incubator, which has such partners as Color co-founder Peter Pham and former MySpace CEO Mike Jones, who estimates that the personal-grooming industry is worth $2.6 billion. If and when Dollar Shave starts trotting out other products, its backers are hoping to get a piece of that massive pie.

That would surely bring smiles to their faces, whether they’re clean-shaven or not.