In the midst of training for his fight against Mike Tyson, influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul does not have time to buy his own deodorant. Though usually a task often reserved for his assistant, Paul took a rare trip to CVS about a year ago that would do far more than freshen his pits: It would change the course of his career.
“I look in the aisles, and I’m like, How does Axe and Old Spice still have 16 feet of shelf space, and are still like the only products available?” Paul told Fortune. “This aisle looks the same from when I was literally eight years old, buying my first Axe body spray.”
If his laundry list of scandals and controversies is any indication, Paul considers himself a “disruptor” and carries those intentions into his foray into consumer packaged goods: The 27-year-old just launched his personal-care brand W, a collection of deodorants, body spray, and body wash, available in 3,900 Walmart locations. In August, W will expand further, introducing soap, hair gel, and a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. It will also broaden its presence to 4,300 Walmart locations.
The W brand, intended for Gen Z men, contains no parabens—cosmetic preservatives some have associated with breast cancer—but rather additional vitamins to appeal to the young generation’s health-conscious attitudes.
Paul, of course, has not been known for self care. To some, he’s known as an up-and-coming boxer, or at least the guy hoping to knock-out 57-year-old Mike Tyson in the ring later this year. To others, Paul is a former Vine star, Disney actor, and pioneer of the YouTube-infamous content house Team 10, which has scored him 47 million followers across YouTube and Instagram over the past decade.
But for the young entrepreneur, his new W brand is less about building a hygiene empire and more about cementing himself as a force to be reckoned with—not just in the ring, but in the world of business. Aware of the controversies and career pivots that have given him a complicated legacy, Paul sees his soaps and deodorant as a clean slate.
“It’s really just a testament of 1,000 failures beforehand,” he said.
A ‘winning’ mentality
W, backed by venture capital firm Anti Fund, is a testament to Paul’s own career perseverance, as well as his boxing record of nine wins and one loss. It’s also an homage to popular Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang, with Twitch streamers asking viewers to put their “W’s in the chat” following a victory.
“It’s just wild to me that a brand has never been built around winning, or just like being a winner in general,” Paul said.
But his embrace of online slang aligns with his vision of success for the budding company, a rejection of conventional business in exchange for a series of products Paul really cares about.
“It’s 60-year-old CEOs trying to make products for growth and margins and reporting to their boards. And they just learned looking at spreadsheets versus having their finger on the pulse of what’s going on,” Paul said. “This is a brand built by me. It’s my idea; I came up with everything—pretty much the name down to the category, down to strategies. This is from my heart.”
While Paul is the brand’s founder, Woodie Hillyard, who has worked with celebrities like Kris Jenner on their own consumer brands, is W’s CEO. He told Fortune Paul’s passion is what will catapult W to success.
“What really excited me about starting this brand with Jake is it just felt so authentic, and there’s just a clear need in this category,” Hillyard said. “It wasn’t Jake wanting to start another alcohol brand or start another energy drink brand or clothing brand.”
Paul’s authenticity extends to his own relationship with his past failures, including his idea for a social-media site called “Locker Room,” which segregated users by gender, creating a platform for just boys and just girls to interact on the app. The site got only 500 downloads, and Paul soon gave up on the idea.
Though he talks smack about boxing opponent Tyson ahead of their November 15 match, Paul draws on Tyson’s wisdom of, “You only lose when you quit.” For a guy who’s made a career of getting up after being knocked down, Paul has internalized the same idea in all aspects of his life.
“You have to go through those moments where you lose money, your idea isn’t as good as you thought it was,” he said. “Those are the things that make you in the long run.”
Against the odds
Paul’s brand may carry the promise of a massive Walmart deal and a built-in fan-following, but he’s hardly the first content creator to launch a consumer brand.
“Content creators, or celebrities in general, think it’s a free money grab,” Geoffrey Woo, Anti Fund’s co-founder, told Fortune.
In some ways, celebrities really do have a leg-up on competition in the consumer goods space, according to Amanda Russell, marketing consultant and author of The Influencer Code: How to Unlock the Power of Influencer Marketing. In such a crowded field, having a built-in audience and emotional connection to a person behind a product is a real asset to brands.
“It’s harder and harder for brands to break through,” Russell told Fortune. “Everything is a commodity now unless consumers have a connection with the product. People don’t really resonate with brands; they resonate with people.”
While celebrity brands often have a head start breaking through the noise, they often swifty return to earth after their meteoric rise. Sometimes, the business has trouble scaling; other times, it can’t churn out enough content to sustain relevancy to their target audiences of mostly young people, who have a tendency to quickly outgrow and shed brands.
Paul needs not look further than his older brother Logan, who launched his Prime energy drinks in 2022 alongside boxer KSI, racking up $250 million in sales in its first year, only for the drink to gather dust on Tesco sales shelves in the U.K. just over a year later. In April, the company was hit with a lawsuit alleging it contained “forever chemicals” and more caffeine than the label indicated.
W has taken measures to avoid this outcome, according to Hillyard. Paul is the face behind the brand, but you won’t find his name plastered by its logo. He’s just a guy who wears deodorant and understands that other members of his Gen Z cohort want personal care products that are affordable and branded as better-for-you.
“Our goal is to really start creating cultural moments with the brand that will authentically resonate with the consumer, so it can sustain itself,” Hillyard said.
The truth hurts
Paul’s business is complicated by his own reputation. In addition to allegations of sexual assault (which he denied), use of racial slurs in old YouTube videos, and throwing raucous parties at the height of the pandemic, Paul has real baggage attached to his past ventures. He launched online platform Edfluence in 2018 as a series of instructional videos on successfully becoming an influencer. Users paid $7 to unlock the videos, but instead found just a few video previews. Users then had to pay an additional $57 to unlock all videos. In March 2023, he paid a $400,000 fee to the SEC for promoting an alleged cryptocurrency scam.
But Paul has shrugged off scrutiny and criticism.
“When you’re doing something amazing, everyone’s going to try and stop you,” he said.
Paul isn’t all bluster or bravado, as it may appear on social media sometimes: He’s advocated for closing the gender pay gap in boxing, co-founded a company to help discover young female boxers, and founded another initiative to help instill confidence and leadership skills in young people through the sport.
For Paul, the noise associated with his personal brand and venture capital firm hasn’t hurt his business ventures; if anything, it’s kept him relevant, and may have even helped him.
“Nowadays content is king,” Paul said. “The most important thing is eyeballs and marketing and exposure.”
Russell isn’t surprised by Paul’s reaction to his own controversy. The aphorism of “all press is good press” is context-dependent, she said, but continuing to share a consistent message, even if it alienates some fans, is helpful in preserving a strong brand.
“The more you stand for something, the more that you create a cult-like following,” she said.
Paul certainly checks the box of standing for something. He calls himself a “realistic role model,” eschewing people-pleasers. Everyone makes mistakes, he argued, and he just happened to make them in the public eye.
“I don’t personally think I’m controversial. I tell the truth and people don’t like the truth in today’s world because the truth hurts,” Paul said. “I wasn’t never afraid to ruffle any feathers or speak what’s on my mind.”
Despite being the third highest-paid content creator with earnings tallying up to $38 million in 2023, Paul uses his past fumbles as justification for an underdog narrative. Wins are always sweeter after a tough battle, and Paul isn’t afraid to take a beating.
“At the end of the day, I’m a kid from Ohio with extreme ambition,” he said. “And was destined to change the world.”
