Born in Iran, Ben Eliass spent his childhood between Iran and the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden. He studied law in university, dropped out after achieving incredible success as one of the world’s best poker players, and then began investing in the hottest consumer brands in Stockholm, which is how he met Estrid co-founders: photographer Amanda Westerbom and entrepreneur Alan Aygun. They wanted to work on something together—sensing that their strengths and weaknesses would complement each others’.

The idea came in the form of a simple observation. Amanda was at a dinner party with her girlfriends when they started talking about shaving. She revealed that she preferred men’s razors—and bafflingly, so did all of her friends. In fact, research at the time said that over a third of women used men’s razors, which both performed better and were priced more fairly. That was the spark that started it all.

Up against a massive market leader like Gillette, who owns more than 70% of the market share, Estrid was an underdog from the start. Through sheer grit, things started to happen. They worked mainly from Ben’s apartment in Södermalm, where he slept in the kitchen next to the cheap 3D printer they’d bought to make razor design samples—in fear of it catching on fire. They took on virtual freelancers from almost every continent—a scrappy community who worked on everything from branding to website code.

It was a bootstraps effort by a small team, fueled by word-of-mouth and a product that spoke to consumers in a language they’d never heard from the big guys before—body-positive, unapologetically inclusive, fun.