Dear Stansberry Reader,

I'm forwarding you an excerpt from a very personal letter that I published in yesterday's Digest… you can find this below.

If you've been a subscriber to our research for any length of time, you'll definitely want to read it.

It's a very personal story about business… and an idea that is far more important. 

It's also a chance for you to get – for a very limited time – nearly $200 worth of free gifts this holiday season… 

Again, you'll find my letter below.

Best regards,

Porter Stansberry

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Dear Stansberry Reader,

When I set out to build a company, I had one idea foremost in my mind – my children.

Stansberry Research is a great business – it’s the largest independent source of financial research in the world, with almost a million subscribers around the world. Our lifetime subscribers – our partners – have given our firm a terrific advantage over the past 15 years, a firm financial foundation that’s allowed us to invest heavily in making sure our content, our research, is top notch.

But Stansberry Research doesn’t make a “thing” – we develop ideas. When I tried to explain to my children what I did at work, it was virtually impossible. (My sons are now 9 and 5 years old. And they still don’t really understand what I do at Stansberry Research.)

When I turned 40 (four years ago) I decided that I wanted to start a new business. I wanted to build a “thing” – a great product. I wanted to build something that could last forever. I wanted to build something that my children could point to and say: “my Dad made that, it’s the best in the world.”

*** I’ve always admired Rolex and BMW. Long before I could afford to own either of these company’s products, I was deeply impressed by their passion. And it wasn’t their advertising at golf venues. It was the incredible effort they’ve expended to build watches and cars that are objectively better than any other in the world.

For example, most watch makers use a kind of very high quality German steel known as 316L. But, in the 1980s, Rolex decided that even the highest quality of industrial made steel available wasn’t good enough. They developed something privately, that’s even better. Known as 916L, it is able to take and hold a polish that’s far more intense and lasts far longer. It is also even more rust and corrosion resistant. To use this steel in their watches Rolex had to replace virtually every piece of tooling they owned and, even then, using 904L required years of climbing an expensive learning curve. Likewise, you might find this hard to believe, but Rolex also makes its own gold and platinum in its in-house foundry. In fact, although the company imports 24k gold into its factory, the output from this metal is 18k yellow, white, or Rolex’s proprietary Everose gold (a kind of rose gold that never fades.)

This obsession with building the perfect watch extends from the materials through the entire production (all Rolex watches are made by hand and go through multiple quality control tests, including a pressurized water chamber). As a result, each Rolex watch takes about a year to make. Production can’t easily be scaled behind the million watches a year Rolex currently makes.

But it was this obsession with making perfect watches that saw the company acquire almost every important watch making record and develop most of the modern functions of mechanical watches. Rolex was the first wristwatch to win the Swiss Certificate of Chronometric Precision (1910). It developed the first waterproof watch (1926). A Rolex was the first watch with a self-winding mechanism powered by the wearer’s movements (1928). It was the first watch to indicate the date in a window on the dial (1946). And the first to show two time zones at once (1954).

It was this record of outstanding quality and these innovations that explain why Chuck Yeager was wearing a Rolex when he broke the sound barrier in 1947 and why it was on Sir Edmund Hillary’s wrist when he summited Mt. Everest in 1953.

It was the quality of the watch that created the brand. And that’s why, since the early 1900s, Rolex has been widely regarded as the world’s finest brand of watch.

*** BMW originally made aircraft.

The Versailles Treaty forced it to find a new line of business, so it began making motorcycles. In 1922, long before BMW was selling cars in America, its engineers designed a revolutionary new kind of motorcycle. They positioned the engine ‘sideways’ on the frame (to increase airflow across the motor) and then linked the drive shaft direct to the rear wheels – no chain. This shaft drive design continues to this day and makes BMW motorcycles the overwhelming choice of bike for long distance riders. BMW has won the Dakar Rally, the toughest long distance bike race in the world, six times.

In automobiles, BMW was the first car maker to focus on smaller, more powerful, more capable cars at every price point. It’s famous 2002 model (from the early 1970s) delivered a perfected balanced (you didn’t have to rotate the tires) commuter car that, thanks to its engine (100 horsepower) and its handling, was fun to drive. BMW sold over 300,000 of these cars in the U.S., putting it on the road to becoming a major U.S. car brand. The 2002 and later BMW models create the entire class of sport sedan. BMW engines are renowned around the world for their durability and power. The company has won the most grueling long-distance car race, the 24-hour race held at the Nurburging ring in Germany an amazing 19 times. Today BMW’s latest flagship vehicle, the 7-Series, is the most technological advance sedan that’s ever been built.

Once again… it’s the product that’s created the brand appeal.

*** So right after I turned 40, I decided to build a razor.

Ever since I started shaving in the 1980s, I’d never been able to use any kind of shaving product happily. My skin was always irritated by razors. I’d tried everything and nothing was comfortable for me. Worst of all were cartridge razors, like the kind made by Gillette and others. These always caused me to get ingrown hairs. By my late 30s, I was only shaving once a week and only by going to a barber to get a straight razor shave. That was the only solution that worked for me.

Four years ago, when we got started on the OneBlade project, the marketing-led shaving world hadn’t taken off. The Dollar Shave Club hadn’t taken off yet. Harry’s, another new entrant into the world of plastic cartridge razors, hadn’t even been started. When those companies got up and running before we did, I wasn’t worried. Those companies were all trying to compete with Gillette by making a lower cost (and probably a lower quality) version of the industry’s standard razor. We had something completely different in mind.

We wanted to build an entirely new kind of razor, using the world’s best materials.

Like Rolex and BMW, we wanted to build a new brand that would be valued not because of its marketing, but because of its technical capabilities and reputation for innovation. We weren’t trying to sell everyone a razor. We were trying to build the best razor that had ever been built.

Comparing OneBlade to Gillette or Dollar Shave Club or Harry’s would be like comparing a Rolex to a Casio. They both make watches, but they’re not in the same business.

*** As a result, our development timeline was completely different. The Dollar Shave Club got started in 2010 when a private equity investor got stuck with 250,000 razors in a deal that went bad in Asia. A friend’s son offered to help sell them online.

On the other hand, we spent about six months recruiting an experienced CEO, Tod Barrett to lead our efforts. He’d been the head of Ronco and its predecessor company for more than a decade. He had close relationships with dozens of industrial design firms and knew how to source ultra-modern, high quality manufacturing in China. We struck a deal over dinner in Baltimore and he set up OneBlade’s headquarters near his home in Austin, Texas.

*** Over the next two years, we invested almost $2 million into building hundreds of prototypes and testing dozens of designs.

Tod interviewed 20 different leading industrial design firms and then we both sat down with the top three candidates for the final selection. We choose PENSA (http://pensanyc.com/), a firm headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The group’s founder (Marco Perry) and its design director (Mark Prommel) and were extremely enthusiastic about the project and our unusual requirements. We told them that we weren’t concerned about what it would cost to manufacture the razor, we just wanted them to build the best tool that had ever been made for shaving. This design request was so unusual Fast Company magazine wrote a story about our design process

“These guys at OneBlade are coming at it saying, we don't care about calling this what it is—being a return to safety razors, or being a better cartridge. It’s not a value story. It’s about, ‘How can we create the best shave?’" Prommel says. "Right from that, it was interesting, a no-holds-barred approach. We were like, ‘We don’t know, the cost could be $100, $300, $500, but whatever it costs, it’ll cost that for a reason,'" which is exactly what OneBlade asked for.

“For half a year, Pensa’s team studied nothing but the blades and core geometries behind shaving. What they learned was that three basic components make up any shaving razor: the angle of the attack for the blade, the exposure of the blade (how much actually presses against your face), and the gap (or the chasm between the blade and the body of the razor, which is meant to catch your skin to be shaved).

"It’s really down to the tenths of a millimeter spacing between the blade and the razor [chassis] . . . and dozens and dozens of ways you can affect the way the razor falls on your face," he says. The team concluded that the best razor would be a bit of a hybrid: one great blade with a handle, like a safety razor, with the pivoting and protection you get in a cartridge razor.

– Fast Company Design, September 2015

*** By mid-2015, we were ready to sell our first razors.

If you’ve purchased one, then you know… there’s never been any other razor like this on the market, ever before.

OneBlade comes in a heavy, wrapped box, with a red cord tied around it. The paper is carefully folded and held in place by a custom-made steel coin. If you look carefully, you’ll discover there’s a number typed onto the cover of the box. It’s a production number. We individually number every razor we produce. You’ll find the same number has been etched, by a laser, into the steel of your razor, on the rear side of the floating head.

When you open the paper wrapper, you’ll find a full-grain, hand cut, leather box. The form is made by carefully stitching up the corners with red silk. We wrap the leather in paper to make sure it doesn’t get scratched on its way to you. This isn’t just packaging: it’s a gorgeous leather box. I use mine to pack my shaving supplies and my toothbrush when I travel. (If you’re curious about the quality of the leather, you can see a complete “unboxing” here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo0O88fYzMY]. One of our first buyers was so impressed with our packaging he put a video of it on YouTube.)

*** But we didn’t spend $2 million developing the box.

We spent our money building the razor. After you open the box, you’ll discover why the package weighs so much.

OneBlade razors are made with the same high grade, 316L German stainless steel that most watch makers use. To mold this ultra-hard steel into the form our technology requires we use a brand new, revolutionary kind of manufacturing process, called MIM: metal injection molding. This kind of manufacturing, which involves using a laser to melt the steel, allows extremely precise designs, while maintaining the unbelievable strength of the steel. Then… we go even farther to ensure that your OneBlade will last forever. All OneBlades are treated with a military-grade PVD (physical vapor deposition) coating – making them virtually indestructible and permanently resistant to corrosion.

*** The handle, however, isn’t where you’ll find most of the weight.

In fact, our handle design is revolutionary in its own right. It’s been “hollowed out” in a way that’s very counter-intuitive, as the beveled edges provide a firm grip on the smooth surface. This is also a weight-saving measure, that allows us to use ultra-high quality steel, without making a handle that weighs too much.

No, it’s not the razor handle that’s so heavy in the box. It’s the razor stand.

Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like this before in any consumer product.

This is half a pound of solid stainless steel that’s made in exactly the same way as our razor – PVD coating and everything. OneBlade fits horizontally on top of this solid piece of metal, like putting a key into a lock. If you’ve ever knocked over a cheap metal razor on a vertical stand, you’ll understand why we built it this way. You can’t knock this over. But that’s not the only reason. The combination of a steel razor and a heavy steel stand just looks, feels, and even sounds right.

If you’ve ever closed a BMW’s door, you know what I mean. Things that have been carefully designed and exquisitely crafted just feel better. That feeling is produced by a combination of senses, not just by the way it looks.

*** The guys at Pensa have designed an entirely new kind of razor. OneBlade isn’t merely a safety razor. But it’s not a cartridge razor either. There’s only one blade, like a safety razor. But, like a cartridge razor, there’s technology in place that makes cutting yourself almost impossible. In fact, OneBlade goes either farther. Our technology is designed to give you the closeness of a professional straight razor shave, with zero irritation and without any practice.

The secret to our design is the floating razor head – the assembly that holds the blade. There’s a Teflon-coated spring hidden inside the handle. You can’t see it. But it makes sure the blade is presented against your skin at the perfect angle, and with the right amount of pressure.

That’s the magic: OneBlade doesn’t require any “learning curve” like most old-fashioned safety razors, that will quickly cut you if you hold them at the wrong angle or press too hard. With OneBlade, you just set the razor against your face until you feel the spring engage and you’re ready to go. No practice or expertise required. (If you want, you can of course set your own angle for shaving. But, I’m sure that if you try it a few times you’ll discover that the ‘pre-set’ angle we’ve built into the razor delivers the smoothest, least irritating shave.)

Ironically, it’s this feature of OneBlade, the way the razor essentially shaves for you, that’s come under criticism from a lot of shaving enthusiasts. These guys have spent years developing the skill to use a dangerous safety razor. Suddenly, those skills and all that experience aren’t necessary… because OneBlade is giving them better shaves than they can give themselves.

*** Telling the OneBlade story in a 30-second TV ad isn’t possible. There isn’t even a name, yet, for the kind of product we’ve built. There’s technology in this product that will completely change what you expect from a razor – like the first time you drove a car with anti-lock brakes.

*** Likewise, most people who haven’t tried OneBlade think our advice about always using a new blade, is just a marketing gimmick.

It’s not.

We studied every kind of safety razor blade available in the world. We put them under microscopes to see their leading edge. And we shaved them, using prototypes of the OneBlade razor. We were looking for one thing in particular from these blades: zero irritation. We want you to hear your shave, not feel it.

Again, we didn’t care what the blades cost, we just wanted the best. We even tried to build our own, but we couldn’t build or find any blades that were better than a Japanese company’s. Feather, a brand well known by professional barbers and shaving enthusiasts, has been making the FHS-10 blade since the 1920s. There’s something about the alloys in this blade (the specific formula is a secret) that permits nearly perfect, uniform leading edges. It’s simply the best shaving edge in the world.

But, as any professional will tell you, this particular blade has one, serious shortcoming: it dulls quickly. If you experiment, you’ll see that our advice, to use a new blade with every shave, is important and genuine. If you want the world’s best shave, you’ve got to use a new blade, which isn’t that much of a surprise. And, by the way, we’re now selling these blades for about $0.60 each, which means using OneBlade will still cost less than using any cartridge razor system, even the “dollar” shave club, which of course, costs a lot more than a dollar.

*** Now… maybe you like this story. Or maybe you don’t. But just because we built a great razor doesn’t mean that we’re finished. Our brand is going to be about innovation. Constant innovation. There are always improvements that can be made. So, this year, as we began to think about our next major production sequence, we went back to Pensa with the feedback that we’d gotten from our users.

First, we needed steel that was even stronger than 316L. We needed steel that wouldn’t bend, at all, no matter what happens to the handle. And secondly, we wanted a razor head system that was even safer – no nicks or cuts, ever.

*** In October we began shipping OneBlade 2.0.

While this razor looks and feels exactly like our first model, it’s been subtly improved. Our new Active Floating Blade Approach System (FBAS) allows the blade to float – to move slightly – in all three dimensions inside the razor’s head assembly. You’ll never notice these incredibly minor variations, but the new system is even more comfortable and offers users a dramatic improvement in the ‘forgiveness.’ So, in addition to the extraordinary ‘Forgiveness’ that comes from the pivoting/floating head design of our razor, this new FBAS innovation gives us substantially increased ability to overcome many of the typical user errors as well as deal with the extreme differences in skin topography. This is yet another radical new way of building a razor. And, like virtually all of the new technology in OneBlade, you’d never know it was there unless I told you.

*** A small amount of OneBlade users noticed that after dropping their razors from a height of over five feet onto extremely hard surfaces, like marble and granite, that the head assembly was damaged, slightly.

Obviously for a precision instrument like a razor, any damage is unacceptable.

Therefore, we went out looking for a kind of steel that was even stronger than 316L. We found a new steel alloy made by BASF of Germany, called PANACEA. The yield strength of this material is four times stronger than 316L. Yield strength is the minimum amount of stress required to deform the metal. Or, said another way, OneBlade 2.0 is four times more damage resistant than the original. And, once again, unless we told you about these changes, you’d never know the difference. PANACEA also has twice the tensile strength, it’s more than twice as hard, and its more corrosion resistant too (although that’s probably a moot point, given our PVD coating.) What’s makes PANACEA so much better? Niobium. PANACEA steel contains 0.73% Niobium, a special element that’s normally found in super alloys that are used to make things like jet and rocket engines.

*** Did we need to go to all of this trouble? Don’t even average razor blades get the job done? Why build things like individually numbered handles (which most people never even notice)? Why use super expensive materials, like Niobium? Why wrap OneBlade in hand cut, full grain leather? Why build it to extreme tolerances, using the latest manufacturing technology available? Why have you spent four years and millions of dollar building this tool…money that you might never get back…? And why keep investing in improvements that most users will never, ever notice?

There only two reasons:

1. I wanted to build the world’s greatest shaving tool, to build a product that creates its own brand through its dedication to quality and innovation. 
    
2. And I wanted to build a legacy that will make my children proud of me.

I hope you understand my passion for this product.

And I hope you’ll want to be a part of it.

We can make shaving the very best part of your day.

Give OneBlade a try here.

Regards,
 
Porter Stansberry