About Harry's
Harry's was founded in 2013 by Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield, with Raider having previously co-founded eyewear brand Warby Parker, applying a similar direct-to-consumer playbook, cutting out traditional retail markup and marketing heavily through digital and social channels, to the razor and shaving industry, which had historically been dominated by a small number of large incumbent brands, particularly Gillette, that priced replacement razor blade cartridges at what Harry's and other challenger brands argued were excessive markups relative to their actual manufacturing cost, given the razor industry's long-standing business model of selling razor handles relatively cheaply while generating most profit from recurring, higher-margin replacement blade sales.
Harry's core offering combines a subscription model, in which customers receive regular shipments of replacement blades without needing to remember to repurchase them at a retail store, with pricing positioned as meaningfully lower than incumbent brands' blade cartridges, while emphasizing product quality and design as comparable to or better than the established incumbents it was challenging. The company notably acquired a German razor blade factory early in its history, an unusual move for a direct-to-consumer startup that let it control its own blade manufacturing and supply chain rather than depending entirely on third-party contract manufacturers, giving it more control over product quality and cost structure. Harry's attempted to be acquired by Edgewell Personal Care, the parent company of Schick, in a deal that would have combined Harry's direct-to-consumer expertise with an established incumbent's manufacturing and retail distribution scale, but the U.S. Federal Trade Commission blocked the proposed merger in 2020 on antitrust grounds, concerned about reduced competition in the razor blade market; Harry's remained independent following the blocked deal. The company has expanded beyond its original razor and shaving product line into broader personal care products, including body wash, deodorant, and hair care, and has raised substantial venture funding from investors including Tiger Global and Thrive Capital.
