Hims is cozying up to retail investors

On August 10, a retail trader on X tagged Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum in a post saying they would “buy all in your stock” if he responded “hello.”

Dudum obliged:

The same day, the CEO replied to a Hims & Hers customer who was complaining about his gummies melting during shipping. “On it. What state?” Dudum wrote in response to the customer, whose bio says they’re “just a long term investor in high growth stocks with personal opinions.” A few hours later, the customer posted that Dudum’s responsiveness “has sold me on $HIMS stock. I’ll be investing tomorrow.” 

Hims has emerged as a darling among retail investors, in part because its stock is volatile and the company frequently makes market-moving news. Dudum told Sherwood News earlier this year that he believes Hims retail investors are likely people who have used the service and had good experiences with it. 

“That’s one of the beautiful parts of our business in the public markets,” he said at the time. “People who know the product, who know the service, who have experienced it and have been empowered by it and feeling better, those are the people going and buying shares of the stock. It’s actually just that they love the product.”

Hims stock has swung wildly this year, trading as high as nearly $70 and as low as just over $25. As some Wall Street analysts have become more bearish on the stock — three of the 16 analysts covering Hims have a “sell” rating on the stock, compared to none a year ago — Hims has leaned even more into the retail-investing community. 

Dudum recently thanked Hims House, a bullish daily blog for the company’s retail investors, after it wished him a happy birthday. He responded with a laughing emoji to an investor’s post speculating that hormone treatments would launch that week. The post was paired with a GIF of a marmot screaming “ANDREW,” which has become a staple among Hims investors online. 

This year, the company started regularly taking questions during earnings calls from Hims House. The blog first submitted questions in Q3 2024, but the company didn’t take them, said Jonathan Stern, who authors the blog. As retail interest grew, the company began asking Hims House for questions when it reported Q4 earnings in February, Stern said. Hims has answered questions from Hims House during the two earnings calls since. 

Dudum opened things up even more broadly earlier this month, soliciting questions for the earnings call from the retail community on X days before Hims’ earnings report. 

The company also sends press statements to Hims House, which are typically telegraphed in full on X. On Thursday, after Bloomberg reported that the FTC was still probing Hims, they did not respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg (or Sherwood) but sent a statement to Hims House.

While Dudum is busy embracing his investor community, his family trust has sold some of its shares in the company. Filings show that the trust sold 660,000 shares of Hims stock for $33.5 million last week, marking the largest open-market insider sale of Hims stock since the company went public in 2021.

A spokesperson for the company said Dudum remains the company’s largest shareholder and is “committed to the company’s long-term growth.” The spokesperson added, “The referenced sales were indirectly associated with Mr. Dudum, outside of his personal holdings, for tax and philanthropic purposes.” 

It’s not uncommon for CEOs to embrace retail investors, especially if they’re bullish and less critical than analysts from the Street. Perhaps the most prominent example is Palantir and its CEO, Alex Karp. 

Palantir has cultivated one of Wall Street’s most devoted retail followings through frequent, bite-sized announcements and direct engagement from the company’s social media accounts. Hims does this as well, teasing the launch of Hers gummies and dropping hints of potential partnerships via X.

Like Hims, Palantir also takes questions from retail investors on its earnings calls. Karp hasn’t hidden his disdain for Wall Street analysts, who he says underestimate the company.

At the end of Palantir’s most recent earnings call on August 4, Karp gave a message to retail investors: “Maybe stop talking to all the haters. They’re suffering.”

Hims didn't respond to questions for this article as of publication.