Look good, feel good, and crush it, said Colton Ropson, unboxing the purpose behind his newly launched men’s subscription startup — Luxee.
“We pretty much learn to shave and that’s it,” said Ropson, who co-founded the subscription box startup with his best friend, Alec Grawe.
Colton Ropson and Alec Grawe, Luxee
They duo described their perception of Midwest-raised men and those who identify as men.
“We don’t like talking about that stuff,” Ropson said, noting that growing up in sports and surrounded by traditional male stereotypes left him with questions about grooming habits when he realized he had an interest in men’s wellness beyond workouts and eating right.
“I worked for about 18 months as a mechanical engineer for Exxon Mobil. … I was working 80 hour weeks in a super stressful, high intensity environment,” Ropson recalled.
“That started to take a toll on my energy and specifically my skin; I was breaking out a lot. So, I started to look for product solutions that could help me feel more confident as a dude.”
Such a search led to a lot of questions for Ropson, which sent him running to his sister and friend’s like Grawe, he said.
“We started to look at the market and realized there really wasn’t a convenient way or a simple way for guys to discover products and brands,” Ropson said, acknowledging plenty of similar services already exist for women — including FabFitFun, a Los Angeles-based subscription box for women that closed an $80 million Series A funding round in January 2019.
“That inspired us and really started us down this path,” Ropson continued, detailing Luxee’s current model — formally launched in July — which sees a curated box of products and corresponding Luxee-branded magazine delivered to customers every three months and is soon expected to include an online marketplace for between-shipment purchases and added customization.
Luxee
“It’s mainly men 25 to 35 [subscribing] — especially on the coasts. It’s growing pretty rapidly right now,” Grawe said, adding Luxee is poised to see significant growth over the holiday shopping season.
“We’ve had a lot of women sign up their fathers, their boyfriends, just the guy in their life. And so that’s become a huge factor in our growth right now,” he continued. “We’re seeing — over the past week and a half specifically — probably a 50-50 split of [male and female customers.]”
The trend prompted the duo to add a gifting option to Luxee’ website. Click here to check it out.
Luxee
While the startup might have been inspired by a similar service, navigating ways to break through a saturated market — which includes such competitors as BirchBox and Stitch Fix — hasn’t been far from the minds of Grawe or Ropson, they said.
“We see ourselves as a media company first,” Grawe said, noting the subscription box is meant to serve as the startup’s flagship product as the brand finds its footing and ways to cater to the needs of the world’s modern man.
Click here to check out Luxee on Instagram.
“[Digital and video] content is going to be huge for us long-term,” he said of where the company’s headed as 2021 approaches.
“When you’re subscribing to Luxee, you’re not just subscribing to the box. You’re subscribing to access to a marketplace of the top brands in men’s fitness, grooming, lifestyle — all that good stuff,” Grawe said. “And it’s another opportunity to provide value to our members.”
Click here to learn more about Luxee.
