YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Dubin

lines on the record: 66
first: 2026-01-05
most recent: 2026-01-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think that anybody that's successful in business has benefited from luck. And anybody that tells you that they haven't or don't is not being truthful. Luck plays a role in everything, and I think that you continue to get lucky throughout your career and throughout our business. We've gotten lucky in many ways. Sometimes good luck is a manifestation of hard work and sometimes luck is just luck. I like to think that a lot of other people who met Mark Levine at that party that night would not have done what I did with it. What we have all done with it because this is not a one-man show, never has been. But yeah. Luck is important.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's a lot of times when you are starting a company and you're faced with certain death or near death. You have a near-death experience, which will happen a lot. It's never as bad as you think. It's also not as great as you hope it will be either. And yes, there are some times when the worst possible outcome happens, but it's really rare. And you go through enough sort of crises and near-death experiences, and you come out on the other side, and you kind of like, in your mind, you say to yourself, okay, I know what it's like to be chill on the other side of the crisis. I'm just going to put myself there and know that eight out of ten times it'll be true. And two out of 10 times, it's not. And it helps you, I think, get a little bit less scared. Because starting a business is scary.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is mind boggling. It was a huge moment in the company's life and history and certainly a huge moment in my life and career, no doubt. But I knew that all the hard work was really yet to come. The acquisition in and of itself is a nice moment and an acknowledgement of the progress that we made, but there was still so much to do that I didn't spend a lot of time sitting around being like, you know, popping a lot of champagne bottles because there's just, it's just”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I met one of their executives at a dinner in New York, and we just started talking about. Potentially help each other. And the conversation took another step and then another step, and then we ended up with the acquisition.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The online Razor subscription market, I mean, most of it at that point. I won't know the exact market share numbers off the top of my head, but I think that as of now, there's about 20 to 25% of the men's non-disposable razor market that we have.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yes and no. I mean, you know, it was the first time I think that we had gotten sued. And, you know, the first time you get sued, you're like, how do you react to something like that? But I think at a certain point, people had been telling us along the way to expect that because that's a playbook that big competitors, big incumbent competitors can do to make you look unattractive to capital, to make you look unattractive to potential acquirers. And so for me, look, you take everything very seriously as a CEO, but you also say that there was a business calculation to it also that made a lot of sense from their side. So you put it all together and rationalize it that way.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The other thing, of course, is that Gillette sued you for patent infringement, you began to take away market share from Gillette. It's still pending, but did that lawsuit freak you out when that happened?”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Any smart entrepreneur, any smart CEO or business person should absolutely be afraid of that type of thing when something like that happens. And you should be doing the chess on On how to make that not happen. So, yes, of course, when any competitor launches, and many have, you have to think, how are we going to be different? How are we going to fend this off? If you don't take competitive threats seriously, that's foolish. So we absolutely took it seriously.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“diversify our first expansion was one wife Charlie's, it's a butt wipe for men, it's a moist toweltte that you use. Some people like to mop before they sweep. Some people like to sweep before they mop. It's a better way to do it, and anybody, unless you're very flexible, you're not spending any time back there, but other people that care about you might. And so that might be a service that you provide not for yourself, but for your loved ones.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, the virality wore off at a certain point for sure. And then it was jump into the paid marketing game. Paid advertising game. And yeah, we shot our first television commercials, I believe, in 2013. We did another video for our One Wife Charlies, which is our butt wipe for men. Butwife.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think, of course, anytime that you create something and you put it out there and it's naive to think that people aren't going to copy your great idea, and I think your first reaction is to be like, uh-oh, but I think what you learn over time is that the presence of competition pushes you to define yourself more specifically and focuses you on the things that you want to do. And, you know, definitely makes you work a little bit harder. Most people, when they first start a company and then they experience competition, don't think that's a good thing. I think it's a wonderful thing. We've benefited from that in some ways. It's been validating in so many ways too.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Raising money has never been easy for us. And I think for unless your Snapchat circa 2000, whatever, you know, it's hard to raise money for any kind of company. And for all the reasons that you pointed out in the beginning, how do you think that you are going to take on these giants that have been doing this for over 50 years? And aren't they going to squash you? Aren't they going to copy you? And so it was never easy for us. Yes, there was always, you can always raise some money from some portion of the market, but the people that you want to raise money from Smart money, so to speak. The smart money asks the smart questions. And they ask all the questions that they should, and it was never easy for us, even into our series D.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Windshield washer pellets into tubes. On Tuesday, they're putting vodka bottles in crates, and on Wednesday they're filling orders for Dollar Shave Club and like whatever. So you have to go over there, take the big bag of labels and the big trash bag, throw them over the fence, and hope that in the middle of the night, nobody comes by and steals the big bag of rolled labels Which would be crazy if they did that. But that's, yeah, that was how the operation worked.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had printers, we had a couple printers hanging around the office, and we were running labels, and it was so frustrating because we had thousands and thousands of orders. And this label printer's like, but the Like, the only answer is get more label printers. So, at a certain point, we had these label printers, and we're filling out these roles of labels, and then we put them in these big trash bags, and we drive them down to the warehouse where we shot the video, and that was doing our fulfillment center. And this was not.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Well, you know, if you think about it, it's a very small community. There are not that many people in the world that make great razors. And you think about the science that's involved for such an old school sort of product that's been around for a long period of time. There's an extraordinary amount of science that goes into taking raw metal, then thinning it out, then creating a blade edge, then coating a blade edge that can actually slice hair off your face and not skin off your face. There's a lot that goes into it. You can do it. People do it. But it's hard. And that's why there's not that many people that do it.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At that point, it was science was our first investor, and we had, I was the only full-time employee at that time. But science had a studio of folks, they had some designers, then there was a tech team that was third-party tech shop that did all of our engineering. But I was the only full time employee. Yeah.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People thankfully were okay with that. I mean, some people did. We were very transparent about the fact that there was a delay in the razors, but they hung around because the proposition was resonant. And we actually had tapped into something. We had solved a problem that many, many people had. And we did it in a way that resonated with them. And they wanted to give us a chance.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we had some other razors as well. We had some twin razors. The first razors were twins, then we had some four blades, then we had some six blades. But all they all sold out. And so they sell out and now you're like, what do I do? What do I do in this moment? Do I pull down the closed shade and say, sorry, like we'll be back in a couple months? Most we can make more razors? Or do we keep selling, put up a note that says, Hey, you know, we're gonna sell these razors to you in advance. We're gonna keep your money. And eventually we'll send you these razors.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And some of my friends that were up on the East Coast earlier were like, you know, dude, amazing video, but the site, I can't order my razors. And you're sitting there, and I'm literally in bed, and every entrepreneur has had a moment like this, or a hundred moments like this, where they look at their phone first thing in the morning and they're like, oh, whatever. And that was one of them. So the sighted crashed. I had to go figure out how to get the site back up online. Eventually we did. And then we sold out. And the”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you never build anything like that and think it's going to go viral. Anyone that tells you that they can build you a viral video or don't believe them, I did not have huge hopes for this video. I just thought that this was a really compelling way to tell the story of what our business was. And we launched it. And I woke up at my normal time, 6 30 on March 6th, and I looked at the site and the site wasn't there. And I was like, oh my God, what's wrong? Why is the site not live? Like, we should be live. And I saw some text messages.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Specifically went after? Yeah, so we had done a round of press to announce our million dollar seed round. And we talked to all the usual suspects, the tech crunches of the world, the Bloombergs, et cetera, and all the stories went live at the same time. And first, the tech ecosystem picked up on it. And this video, which people found funny and engaging, and also that it was promoting a real business, was sort of a unique combination for people. I don't think there were too many examples at that time of Direct to consumer business that launched with a video that was funny and good. And I think that that tech community surfaced it and then from there it sort of caught wildfire.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I had spent time in the media. I knew how the media would think about using a video like this to tell the story of our funding. And so I wanted to make sure that we announced our funding at the same day that we launched the video. We also chose that date because there was a nice lull right before South by Southwest. People get really excited right before south by southwest, or at least they did then they look for a big tech story. They hope something's gonna break the way Twitter did in 2006 or whatever, and that was when Twitter kind of had its big moment, was at South Bai and it became a thing. So there's a lot of anticipation in the air and people are looking for Something exciting in the tech space. So I wanted to do it before the festival, before that got me.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were like, well, you want to do this. And then they were the first ones that said all that stuff about there's no way you can do it. And then I said, they're like, how are you going to do it? And I was like, well, I'm going to build a brand. And they're like, yeah, but what do you mean? And I was like, well, and I tried to explain. I was like, you know what? Just watch this.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, our first investor was a company called Science throughout in Santa Monica. They gave us $100,000 check. Actually, no, they gave us a $100 check by accident first. And I got all the way to the bank. I literally got to the bank and I was like, here's my check for $100,000. You had to fill out the form that said $100,000. And I fill it out and the woman looks at me and she's like, uh-uh.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I said, She had just moved to LA too, and I said, Hey, I'm starting this company. I want to do a video advertisement that tells the story. It's going to go on the homepage. Like, you know, I wrote a script. Will you meet me for coffee and give me notes on the script and then help me film it? So we met for coffee. She looks at the script. She says, I really like it. Added a couple jokes. So the line, are our blades any good? No, they're fucking great. Used to be, are our blades any good? No. And then some other bad joke. And she gave me that line. So I actually owe that to Lucia. And we rented out the warehouse that we were fulfilling packages in out for the day. That background that you see, I mean, they fulfill all kinds of crazy stuff over the years.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I knew that this was a fairly simple story. Razors are overpriced, you're overpaying for the technology, and you can get a great shave without having to pay such a high price. And I knew that if you just told that story flat, it would sound flat. So I wanted humor to be a part of the brand and I wanted to make a video. And I knew how to write, and I sort of knew how to act or perform. And I called up a friend of mine, Lucia, creator and director of Broad City Now.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He just found us online. I remember where I was sitting when this first order came in, which was the first stranger validation, right? Because obviously my mom had bought some You know, like Other people, my buddies had bought some, and yeah, the first real sale came in, and like that validation, like that first thrill of that first sale is like all the encouragement that you need as an entrepreneur to be like, yes, somebody gets it.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And things like that. Yeah, we did a group on. I went to a mom blog conference down in San Diego or something. And, I mean, you know, this was real street hustle at the time. And you buy it, you do your own SEM in your house. And I still remember our first customer. It was Imran Charnania of Houston, Texas.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the goal of the beta site was really to test different pricing models, test different forms of engagement. And, you know, the first brand that we launched was not what it is today. It was really just what we have all come to know as an MVP, minimum viable product. And let's just get something up. Let's see how it does, and let's see what the feedback is. What we were trying to learn is what was the best product to sell? What was the best assortment to sell? What were people liking? What did they want more of, and really just, you know, can we move these razors? And what do people want out of this type of a service?”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I don't know that anybody quite phrased it like that. So, yeah, I mean, my family, but don't listen to your family because for a lot of reasons. I mean, listen to your family for a lot of reasons, but don't listen to your family for some things. I mean, the way you've laid it out is exactly right. Gillette at the time had an effective monopoly on this particular consumer product in this category. And, you know, for a nobody to come in with, you know, his rancho cuca mungo raisers and change the way that people think about that category, like, you know, I would never have said it that that's what I was going to try to do because it would have sounded crazy.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if I knew you then, right, and I probably would have said to you, and I have to imagine other people said to you, Michael, you're like a 30-something dude and you want to try to enter one of the most impenetrable markets, razors and shaving in America. I mean, Gillette Schick, did anybody in your family or anybody say to you like razors, this is like this market is dominated by like two or three companies?”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wanted the function of the business to come through in the name. And I think if you were to pluck somebody off the street and say, what does a company called Dollar Shave Club do, you should probably be able to figure that one out.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I believe truly that there was a problem worth solving here, and I certainly didn't think that it was going to become what it has become, but I knew that there was enough there to make a couple bucks.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I knew there was a problem. And I think that a lot of an entrepreneurs will tell you that they trust their gut and I trust my gut. And my gut told me that the problem that I had observed back in 2005, 2006, when I had that feeling of not wanting to go into the store because the razors were overpriced and the buying experience was super frustrating, if I had that feeling, I knew there were other people like me that would have that, that were experiencing that same frustration. And I knew that there was an opportunity. And like also like a lot of entrepreneurs, once you become focused on an idea and you've identified a problem that needs solving or a thing you want to bring into the world, it's really hard to get that out of your head.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How is it at that very moment? Because it sounds like that's what you're saying, you were thinking, this is the business I'm going to do. I'm going to drop everything. I'm going to focus on this thing. What was it about 250,000 razors in a warehouse in Rancho Kukamunga that inspired you to think like that?”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More or less, yeah, he was like, What do you want to do with them? And I was like, Well, I want to put them online. And I think that the best way to do it is to create a subscription mechanism where people don't have to go to the store to get them. They come automatically. And yeah.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go in, see the razors. I look at them, and I say these look like razors that I would use. I take them home, I shave with it, and I knew that we had something.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the razors are in a warehouse in San Bernardino or Rancho Cuca Mongo, which is like an hour east of here. And I get out there and there's a guy there and I'm like, hello, I'm Mark Levine's partner and I'm here for the Razors. And he's like, oh, you're Mark Levine's partner. And I'm like, yes, yes, I am. And they're like, great, you got to go get me $700. These razors I'm about to throw these razors out. So the razors had been there for so long and the bill hadn't been paid. Like I'm sure that Mark had forgotten about the rental space. I'm sure that he had almost forgotten about these razors. So I had to go get $700 sight unseen and give it to the guy so that he didn't throw out the razors, and I could have access to them.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the store, and I didn't in 2006 say this is a problem that I'm gonna go solve. But at that party, he said, The Razors are great. What do you want to do with them? I had the idea for a dollar shave club right there.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I knew that I wanted to get access to the Razors because I had always bristled at the price of razors and I had always, there was a time, and I remember this specifically when I was living in New York, I would walk right past a Duane Reed on my way from Rockefeller Center to the subway on the F-train when I go downtown. And I would need razors and I just wouldn't want to go into the store to buy the razors because the Razor Fortress is always locked. You have to find the person with the key. They're always doing something else. And you actually feel like your inconveniencing them for helping you get a product. It's the only product that's like that, or one of the only products that's like that.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the cake slicers were called piece of cake. The slicer themselves was shaped like a wedge piece of cake. Forget about the worry of having to slice twice when you want a piece of cake.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The two things that he approached me about were he was like, I've got razors, I got about 250,000 razors. Okay. He also had a couple thousand cake slicers Yeah, so”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Mark Levine is my friend's father. He's a businessman, has had a successful career in South Africa, then came to the United States, and he was an importer. He's like our family friend who would show up sometimes with a truck full of soccer balls or a truck full of bikes. And you'd be like, where are the bikes from? He'd be like, do you want a bike or not? And so you're like, yeah, I'll take a bike. So, yeah, we've been trying to get connected for a while because he had heard that I had worked in the internet, inside the internet. And he wanted to meet me because he had all this stuff in a warehouse that he was looking to unload.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, very related to the work that I had been doing Doing work for big brands, putting it online But doing it in a space that was pretty squarely in video.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I threw a friend, I was able to get a job at a small video marketing agency, and what they were doing is they were helping brands develop and distribute video content. And this was probably 2000-2010.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sorry, sometimes life happens on you. So, yeah, I got laid off. I was dating a girl at the time who lived in Los Angeles, and I'd always wanted to live in California at some point. So, you know, life happened on me. And I said, now's the time. Like, you know, screw it. I've not got nothing to lose.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you are in your 20s, you're in New York, I guess you're by this point approaching your early 30s, and you decide to leave. You decide to just go and move to here to Los Angeles. Why? I mean, quit your job in marketing in New York, leave improv troop there, and come here.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was there any part of you that thought this could help me one day if I want to start a business? Was that even a kernel of a thought in your mind? Because right now today you would think okay in your 20s, do some improv, learn marketing, and you'll be.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You would have these really hard, long days at work where you're getting grinded by your boss at work, and you're trying to start this social network for travelers in the margins. And then it's like you could go to the gym or you can go just completely blow your mind and do some improv.”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, listen, I would go to the Upright Citizens Brigade. Two, three nights a week and just watch the most amazing comedians perform. People that have gone on to have amazing careers, people like Donald Glover. I went to go see Donald Glover when... He was doing these shows in a basement in Chelsea under grocery store. And you're watching six to ten people on a stage pull ideas out of thin air and weave them together into a story that makes you laugh. And comedy is one of the hardest things to do, period. There's a setup and then there's the equal sign, right? It's A plus B plus C equals ha. That takes magic, that takes real talent, and so it's addictive. And when you get it right, and when you do it well, it's a high. And I also, it was such a great way to blow off steam in the evening as well because”
2026-01-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dollar Shave Club: Michael Dubin, From Zero to a Billion Dollar Exit in Five Years (December 2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT