Entrepreneur with a comic touch Michael Dubin disarmingly tells ordinary men to "clean up your act." AMERICAN entrepreneurs Michael Dubin and King Gillette both made their fortunes from disposable razors, but could not be less alike. Gillette (1855-1932), who invented the product, spent his spare time envisaging a utopian society led by capitalist visionaries with a "perfect economical system of production and distribution," and writing earnest books about it that nobody took seriously. Dubin, 34, jumped on the internet, a "system of distribution" that Gillette could barely imagine, and used it to liberate modern men from the tyrannical prices being charged by Gillette's successors. Oh, and he also created a hilarious Youtube advertisement that has been seen 12 million times. The ad, for his company Dollar Shave Club, lambasts the modern Gillette brand for giving most of the retail price of razors to sponsored tennis player Roger Federer, and extolls the virtue of a direct delivery service that is cheaper and more convenient. Two years after launching the business, he has found financial backers to not only expand the business into Australia and other nations, but also broaden the product range into shaving cream and moist wipes. Moist wipes? This line, called One Wipe Charlies, has been devised, he says, after market research found that 51 per cent of men were secretly using disposable wipes instead of toilet roll. Again, he's created an amusing Youtube ad featuring himself in a series of sketch-like situations. But this time, instead of blasting the opposition, he cleverly disarms whatever coyness his customers might have about the subject. "You shouldn't have to be Special Forces to extract a bad guy with speed and precision," he says in the ad from the middle of a parody commando raid. So clean up your act with the softest, fastest, manliest way to wipe your ass. The humour hasn't changed, but the strategy has. He's gone from redefining distribution to redefining a product. And he's also enlisted some NFL footballers to endorse the product. So when The Australian called him in Dublin yesterday, where he was delivering a speech to the International Web Summit, the most important question was, naturally, how will you avoid evolving into the same as the companies you once rebelled against? "What I would say there is that we sponsor NFL centres," he says. No one as far as I know has ever sponsored NFL centres. These are not the quarterbacks. These are not even the running backs or the wide receivers or the very well-known people on the team. These are the unsung heroes of the football team. They are easy-going, friendly guys, regular guys like me. They also bend over just in front of the quarterback and throw the ball to him at the start of each play. Hence the need for meticulous hygiene. Much has been written about Dubin's humour pedigree. His ads are delivered with the physical gestures and comic timing of a pro, which he almost was. After he graduated from college, he moved to New York, where he studied sketch comedy for 10 years. "I am a funny guy," he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year. Perhaps it was the lateness of the call (10pm in Dublin), but I was only able to extract one joke from him during our 15-minute chat, and even that one sounded a tad rehearsed. "I'm a pretty regular guy," he says. And I don't mean in the bowel-movement sense. Ask him how his life has changed since striking it rich - he's a handsome guy with a good sense of humour and, now, loads of money - and he quickly and disappointingly detours into turgid corporate speak. "It's been an incredible journey, an incredible learning experience," he says. Nothing has changed in terms of my commitment. If anything has changed, it has been in the addition of quality employees. We have 40 people now in the States..." You get the idea. Nevertheless, Dubin still gives the impression that he is living the dream, and remains closer to his customers than old King Gillette ever was. Dubin's new Australian general manager, Sam McDonagh, puts it more succinctly. Explaining that the company is staffed by men who are typical of its customers, he says: "We're the guy at the party who is friends with everyone, but doesn't offend anyone. We're a bit of a paradox - we're edgy, but we don't take it too far. In Dubin's world, that's as utopian as it gets.