Live Episode! Walker & Company: Tristan Walker

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2019

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The very first time Tristan Walker shaved, he woke up the next morning with razor bumps all over his face. "I was like, what is this?" he remembers saying. "I am never shaving again—ever." He soon discovered that like him, many men of color were frustrated by the lack of shaving products for coarse or curly hair. Fifteen years after that first disastrous shave, and after countless meetings with doubtful investors, Tristan launched Bevel, a subscription shaving system built around a single-blade razor. Eventually his brand Walker & Company grew to include 36 hair and beauty products, used by millions of men and women across the U.S. In 2018, Walker & Company was sold to Proctor & Gamble, and Tristan became P&G's first black CEO. Recorded live in Washington, D.C. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:31.0	I remember the very first pitch deck, which was a PowerPoint of Graduated to Keynote.
0:36.0	But like, we had a PowerPoint of like ClipArt because I didn't have the things I remember being so embarrassed.
0:42.0	So I had like this 15 slide pitch deck that just sold a hope in the dream.
0:47.0	And we pitched 50, 60 VCs and folks returning this down.
0:54.0	And it wasn't until they started to push back that I realized, hmm, they just don't get it.
1:07.0	From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:16.0	I'm Guy Ross and on the show today, have a lifetime of shaving with products that irritated his skin, inspired Tristan Walker to build a better shaving and beauty brand for men and women of color.
1:31.0	Walker and Company.
1:34.0	So one of the guiding principles of creativity is that some of the very best ideas come out of sheer frustration, products like honesty or ClipBar or Olberts or Dyson.
1:50.0	These all came about because their founders couldn't find the beverages or energy bars or shoes or vacuum cleaners that they wanted.
1:59.0	So they invented them.
2:01.0	But in the case of Tristan Walker, I think it's safe to say that he didn't just start from a place of mild frustration.
2:08.0	He actually started from a place of being fed up, even angry.
2:13.0	Because for most of his life, he had felt completely ignored, totally overlooked whenever he walked into the shaving aisle of a drugstore.
2:22.0	Virtually all the big shaving brands were making products that worked well on men with relatively straight hair.
2:28.0	But Tristan couldn't find a high quality razor that worked on his curly facial hair without leaving razor bumps all over his neck and jawline.
	...

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