Originally from Queens, Walker moved out to the West Coast to attend Stanford Graduate School of Business for his MBA. Maybe it's that innate business savvy that led him to the birthplace of upstarts, the Silicon Valley, to plant his grooming company Bevel.
Walker’s reasoning is straightforward: African Americans are underrepresented in both Silicon Valley and in the health and beauty industry, which begets a massive opportunity to solve some pretty vexing problems. Its first product is Bevel, a shaving system specially designed for African-American males and others with coarse hair. But if you ask him, it’s just the beginning of a roadmap that stretches more than a century.
Every success story starts with a vision. Tristan Walker’s vision is to become the next Johnson & Johnson for Blacks and people of color. This Stanford MBA Grad cut his teeth in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, but his first step in creating his vision is to start very low tech with a razor.
His flagship brand right now is Bevel– a shaving system that focuses on what has been until now the completely forgotten market of shaving products for Black men. Just like sisters require different products for naturally curly or kinky hair, brothers often discover that the generic brand offered by Gillette, Schick and other big names ignored their needs.
Walker wanted products made specifically for coarse, curly hair like his and most Black men. Walker explains “The multi-blade razor cuts hair beneath your skin explains. But if you have curly hair, then it grows back into your skin. It’s a problem. It zaps folks confidence, among other things and no one has tried to fix it until now.” Walker says says that “razor burns and bumps from shaving course curly hair affects about 80% of the black community”. It’s not a glamourous problem, but a problem nonetheless that requires a solution and people are willing to pay for it. Walker says, “Just look at the census, for the first time in the nation’s history, the majority of Americans are non-white. And all those babies are going to want to pluck, rinse, groom, and shave in the not-too-distant future.
BEVEL Founder Tristan Walker