How I Joined An Industry Incumbent I'd Set Out To Defeat

After co-founding the wildly successful direct-to-consumer eyewear company Warby Parker, Jeff Raider co-founded DTC shaving brand Harry’s, which Edgewell Personal Care, the parent company of Schick, bought in May for $1.37 billion. In Raider’s view, the deal vaults him and co-founder Andy Katz-Mayfield closer to their goal of reinventing a huge category.

- Tom Foster

We never thought of Harry’s as only a direct-to-consumer company, or as only a subscription service. Eventually, we didn’t think of ourselves as only a men’s shaving company. It’s men’s and women’s personal care.

One thing we heard from our customers was that we weren’t as convenient as they’d like. They wanted to pick us up on their Sunday family shopping trips. Seventy-five percent of our online customers shopped at Target. We felt it was important to be where they wanted us—so one of the first big moves beyond our roots came in 2016, when we started selling in Target.