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Corner Office

Bevel keeps growing, from online to retail shelves

Kai Ryssdal and Bridget Bodnar Aug 16, 2016
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The Bevel Razor. Courtesy of Walker and Company
Corner Office

Bevel keeps growing, from online to retail shelves

Kai Ryssdal and Bridget Bodnar Aug 16, 2016
The Bevel Razor. Courtesy of Walker and Company
HTML EMBED:
COPY

A couple of years ago, Tristan Walker was a guy whose resume included time at Foursquare and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Then, he launched his own company, Walker & Company Brands, and released his first product line — the Bevel Shave System.

“A lot of folks, when we started, thought that is was a bad idea” says Walker. “Well, they were wrong.”

Bevel is a shaving system geared towards people of color, an answer to Walker’s own frustrating experience with the shaving products available to him. Traditional razors irritated his skin and depilatory creams were equally unpleasant. The products he bought were often consigned to the “ethnic aisle” in stores.

“We wanted to ensure that our products have the dignity or were presented with as much dignity as other products within that aisle. And I think we’ve succeeded in a very very big way.”

Bevel is now available at Target and earlier this month, Walker & Company Brands released the Bevel Trimmer.

“I think Silicon Valley is growing a hell of a lot more amenable to companies like ours because we are proving that there is such a unique need for this thing.”

Walker’s plans for the future are all big. “We want to build something with as much legacy as a Proctor & Gamble, with as much legacy as a Johnson & Johnson and Unilever, and we’re not going to stop until we give our all to that.”

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