The Serious Guy Behind Dollar Shave Club's Crazy Viral Videos

- Kris Frieswick

YOU EXPECT Michael Dubin to be funny. After all, he wrote, produced, and starred in one of the funniest and most viral commercials that’s ever been posted on YouTube, a 2012 ad for his company, Dollar Shave Club. In it, he brings the viewer on a tour of his ware house to explain why “our blades are f**king great.” A flood of visitors crashed his company’s servers 90 minutes after the video went live. It has been watched more than 22 million times. That video, and the story of its creation—Dubin wrote it, ,and then he and a friend shot it in a single day for less than $4,500—has gone on to become entrepreneurial folklore. Today, DSC is the second-largest men’s razor seller in America—topped only by Gillette.

But in person, Dubin is taciturn. What does he like to do when he’s not working? “I like to sit.” He later adds, “I also read and think.”

Maybe he’s tired. Dubin has just flown in to New York City from Los Angeles, where DSC is based and he lives, and the plane didn’t land until nearly midnight. Perhaps Dubin has a lot on his mind. DSC, which he co-founded in 2011 with Mark Levine, has just launched Big Cloud, a line of skin care products for men, following up on the launches of the Boogie’s line of men’s hair care products and One Wipe Charlies “butt wipes.” All this on top of distributing more than 70 million razors each year through $3 to $9 monthly subscriptions.