Utah entrepreneur believes in market for men who want a razor to shave their legs

SALT LAKE CITY — The entrepreneur's code has long been this: People don't know what they can't live without until someone shows them what they can't live without. Like the wheel, knives and forks, and automatic transmissions.

And now, custom heavy-duty razors for men who shave their legs.

How many people fit into this category? More than you think, says Adam Barker, founder, owner and hopeful entrepreneur who, two months ago, launched his men's razor company called BOLT SKIN + SHAVE.

"We're built on the back of athletes," says Barker. "Cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, people who go to the gym a lot, motocross guys who shave their legs, plus there's a lot of mainstream athletes, football players, soccer players, lacrosse players, who tape their knees or they wear knee braces, so they shave their legs."

There are practical reasons behind the leg shaving. For endurance athletes, shaved legs not only cut down on wind resistance, but after a crash on the pavement, it's easier to treat the road rash and ward off infection without hair in the way. It also makes it much less painful when it's time to rip off the Band-Aid.

Then there's the men out there who shave their legs for cultural reasons, i.e. because they want to. Barker cites a 2015 Men's Health survey that revealed 15% of the 600 men surveyed said they regularly shave their legs and 33% sometimes shaved or trimmed their legs. "And that survey was more than 10 years ago," he says. With the men's cosmetic business growing, it's not unreasonable to think the trend might be increasing.

So how does a 45-year-old man who shaves his legs — Barker has been doing so since 2008 when he first started logging some serious cycling miles — decide to start a men's leg-shaving razor company?

The first reason is because nobody else has.

As far as he knows, "We're the very first brand for men who shave their legs," he says. "We are the McDonald's, not the Burger King, the Coca-Cola, not the Pepsi. I think there's a lot to be said for being first to the marketing. We're not disrupting a market, we're creating one. The category doesn't exist."

Second, he wanted to make a career move. This will sound slightly crazy, he admits up front, but after 15 years traveling the world as a photographer, specializing in scenic landscape work, he was ready for a change. It was quite a ride.

He had sponsorships with leading outdoor gear companies. His work could be found on the cover of Outdoor Photographer, Skiing, Ski, Powder and other magazines. His photography won an ESPN X Games gold medal. He routinely traveled to places "people put on their bucket list." But the company was just him and his wife, Miranda, who handled the finances, and the constant hustling, and travel, got tiring.

"It got to the point where I would have gladly traded steak dinners (on the road) for eating leftovers with my family," he says. "I just wanted to be home folding laundry on the couch, watching 'American Idol.'"

And the third reason: He thinks there are a lot of guys out there just like him who would love a better leg razor.

It's a need that no one talks about.

Barker could count on one hand how many conversations he's had with other athletes about their leg-shaving experience — and have four fingers and a thumb left over. "Men talk about things like 'What do you eat to recover?' or 'Do you have a carbon frame?' or 'What kind of wheels are those?'" he says. What they don't talk about is shaving."

But if they did, they'd admit the process is largely unpleasant, like his used to be. "They use their wife's pink razor, or whatever's in the corner of the shower," Barker says, "and come out looking like they wrestled with a chainsaw."

A light went on for Barker when he was at a relative's house a couple of years ago and used the shaving gel someone had left in the shower. "I decided to try it," he says. "It was so much better than what I'd been using. That's when the idea was born — when I started to think that the entire leg-shaving process for men could be greatly improved."

So he put away his camera and shifted gears. First, he raised some venture capital the old-fashioned way: asking anyone he knew. After he secured nearly $400,000 in funding, he contracted with a Finnish company that has done design work with Mercedes and Apple, among other companies. They designed a heftier, almost flat razor with a cartridge tuned specifically for men's coarser hair. He next produced shaving gel and lotion and put it all in a package he calls Scrub, Shave, Soothe.

He sold his first razor (they retail for $39.99) at the Sea Otter Classic cycling event in Monterey, California, on April 18. In the two months since, he says he's sold $17,000 worth of product. He's still way in the hole, of course, but sees a huge upside.

"Where I see the greatest potential for BOLT is if shaving your legs for men becomes a lifestyle thing, if they shave their legs because they like how it looks and how it feels. They aren't involved in any athletic pursuit. Then I see BOLT living on the shelves of Target and Nordstrom and Scheels and big box retailers."

In the meantime, there's always the athletes. Barker points to his favorite testimonial that's been posted so far on his website. One guy wrote: "If my house caught on fire, I'd grab my BOLT razor and then probably perish while trying to figure out which bike to save."

Those guys, his kindred spirits, he's got for life.

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