Luca Gualco was born in Genoa, Italy. He is a former “professional water polo player.”
Upon his retirement, Luca Gualco finished his doctorate in economics and started a career in banking.
In his new career, Luca Gualco started “developing financial loan opportunities to help people cope with their financial burdens.” Then he decided to go to the next level.
In 2005, Luca Gualco started Ferrari Financial Services, “developing financial instruments tailored to Ferrari’s client base.” Later, Fiat Chrysler acquired the company.
Five years later, Luca Gualco left Ferrari to earn his MBA at Stanford University. He also taught economics there. When he graduated, he “went on to help lead growth at startups including Uber, WeWork, and Acorns.”
With co-founder Alexi Suvacioglu, Luca Gualco started Because Market, “based on a mission that started long ago for them: to help older adults live active and vibrant lives.”
Luca Gualco saved “all the money I made playing” and applied to Stanford for his MBA. He had been rejected 3 times, but the university ultimately accepted him.
His tenure at Stanford helped Luca Gualco “believe that I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal.”
Luca Gualco also says that he was “fortunate to be an integral part of the growth of Uber, WeWork and Acorns.”
Check out more interviews with athletes turned executives here.
My time at Stanford helped me believe I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal. Luca Gualco, Because Market
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Luca Gualco: I jumped from a professional sports career to the luxury industry in Europe to Silicon Valley.
Back when I was in Italy training 8 hours a day, it would have seemed impossible to think I’d end up here.
I grew up in the water in Portofino, training and playing water polo till dusk; I was an adventurous kid that loved to be a part of any team.
Besides Water Polo, I was also on the soccer, diving, scuba, track and field and horse polo teams.
As my dad taught me, people and friends are everything and we loved to create connections.
I saved all the money I made playing and I applied to Stanford MBA until they accepted me after 3 rejections.
My time at Stanford helped me believe I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal.
I was fortunate to be an integral part of the growth of Uber, WeWork and Acorns after which I felt I had enough credibility to win the support of incredible partners at venture capitalists (VCs) and pursue my dream of starting a company to help the ones who gave us our wisdom in the first place, our grandparents.
With my co-founder Alexi, we launched Because Market to help older adults live the fullest lives possible and regain independence.
Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?
Luca Gualco: It all started with our own families — we were helping our grandparents and I remember driving to lots of different stores searching for supplies for them.
We often came up short, unable to find all the necessary products at the supermarkets and pharmacies.
Alexi and I had a conversation about this and realized we had stumbled upon something untouched.
We both did some research and found out that incontinence impacts about 25 million people in the US — and most people go through it alone.
That didn’t sit well with us and we thought the world needed to be different. We believe that we should care more about older adults like they cared for us.
Retail products, we noticed, revert to the average — average sizes, average tastes.
For most products and services, while a 20 year old doesn’t behave so differently than a 30 year old, a 60 year old may be worlds apart from someone who is 70.
Alexi and I decided we wanted to build an authentically curated one-stop-shop where older adults can find the exact products they need.
We wanted to put individuality back in the formula.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Luca Gualco: In the beginning, we considered giving up every day. We aren’t the kind of people who fool themselves, thinking we have some kind of invincible powers that could make this work.
To build a company for older adults, you have to go through a very deep self reflection. You have to become more vulnerable, to think like older adults.
We considered vulnerability to be a gift and embraced that failure is a real possibility. Everyday we thought about that risk and how to mitigate it.
We started in a small studio in Palo Alto, with boxes of product surrounding our little office.
There were plenty of moments when we looked at each other and said “what are we doing?”
It seemed absurd to try and build a company for older adults, when all of Silicon Valley was going after Millennials and Gen Z.
The older adult market is difficult and an unpaved path, especially in Silicon Valley.
If not for the support from our investors, we would have failed 20 times over.
We realized that we were building three companies: one for 60 to 70 year olds, one for 70 to 80 year olds and the last one for 80 to 100 year olds — each with diverse needs and attitudes.
Additionally, this past year has been especially challenging for obvious reasons.
COVID-19 has forced us all to work with resilience — remote working, shipping services being overwhelmed and an unexpected surge in demand created potential roadblocks for our company.
What keeps our team driving forward stems from the original purpose of Because Market — serving our customers, who are also at a greater risk during this time.
We refused to give up on the people who need us the most. With that determination from our whole team, we doubled our business in the last year.
Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Luca Gualco: Before Because, senior personal care products had not seen any innovations in decades.
Older adults were left with limited selection, lack of informed advice and poor product design.
If e-commerce left anyone behind, it was the senior citizen community!
When we started, very few focused on this market. Now people have come to realize that the senior market has been underserved.
We knew at the time that it was going to take longer and it was important to invest in building a team that would push through any failure.
First, everyone in our team had some exposure to the caring of their older parents and grandparents.
I think everyone keeps that in mind when they show up everyday, working harder than anyone else out there. It’s why we’re here.
Secondly, Alexi and I were able to channel our experience as tech and e-commerce founders to support a fantastic team of believers with amazing investors who supported us and saw the opportunity in what we’re building.
We knew that success would only come after a lot of research.
We invested our own money and conducted years of research with tens of thousands of consumers, resulting in hundreds of product iterations.
We were working towards restoring dignity and confidence to the millions of people living with incontinence.
We eventually built a gigantic focus group that could tell us first-hand what was needed — this became our members’ community.
When we felt comfortable that we could do it for the long run (and do so profitably), we added a layer of awesome tech to enhance our ability to listen to feedback and extract even more insight from a simple buyer-seller transaction.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Luca Gualco: I recall one situation, back when we had a small customer service team in charge of taking care of every single call and request.
We accidentally sent 300 bags of a product to a consumer instead of the three ordered.
All the products arrived at the customer’s door in sequence for a few days. First a few bags, then a few more and so on.
I believe the customers called us after the 30th bag.
We could not stop the shipments from arriving! He even got a call from the local post office, telling him that he had a couple hundred waiting to be delivered.
Thankfully, our products ship in boxes that conceal the content, so the customer didn’t feel embarrassed.
Of course, the customer wasn’t charged for any of this. He took it well and he wound up giving the excess products to charity.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a few examples of tools or software that you think can dramatically empower emerging eCommerce brands to be more effective and more successful?
Luca Gualco: A great library of products will only get you so far in e-commerce.
Without accessible and quick customer service, your brand can quickly fall to the wayside and a few bad customer experiences can tarnish your reputation rapidly.
At Because, we pride ourselves on great customer service and have many options for our customers including chatbots (powered by Chatra), emails and traditional phone support with a live customer support representative to answer any questions.
We knew that success would only come after a lot of research.
Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies an eCommerce business should use to increase conversion rates?
Luca Gualco: There are numerous tools to help e-commerce companies increase their conversion rate, but here are a few that I’ve found the most useful for Because:
- Google Analytics — allows you to see what parts of the website are driving the most traffic and what types of keywords they’re searching for, allowing you to optimize your pages and make it easier for customers to find the right products quicker.
- High Quality Product Images — Of course you want your customers to see the best side of the products you’re selling, so take the time to produce high quality images for your e-commerce site.
- Free Shipping and Coupon Codes — Customers are sensitive to shipping costs to the point where it will greatly influence where they end up making their purchase.Prioritize offering free shipping, especially for customers making large purchases.
Jerome Knyszewski: Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that an eCommerce business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?
Speaking to your customers, hearing them and engaging with them is a great way to build your reputation.
Specifically, with our customers’ age group, they still want and need the human connection of picking up the phone and talking to customer service, sharing their gripes and likes — and we genuinely listen, hear them and take their feedback to heart and put it into action.
Speaking to your customers, hearing them and engaging with them is a great way to build your reputation. Luca Gualco
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful e-commerce business? Please share a story or an example for each.
Luca Gualco: Anticipate your customers’ needs (and be able to pivot to accommodate)
- From the beginning, we realized that we could only build a company for older adults by creating a brand that resonated with their experiences and reflected their values.We started to take calls as customer service agents.
Listening to a few calls per week was not enough.
I started out working in the customer service room and wound up being either on the phone with customers all day or listening live to calls.
- Most of the time, customer service is seen as a cost center, something that you need to have but you try to keep the cost as low as you can.We believe that talking and listening to our customers is a worthwhile investment.
In fact, many of the features of the products we launch are derived directly from customer feedback.
The most active members are offered to become part of an always-increasing group that test products before launch.
Look for gaps in the market and work to fill the gaps in a unique/useful way
- More and more brands are being born and many are successful.They all focus on an unmet need and they speak more to the language of their audience compared to big brands. Big brands have an obvious advantage.
They are established in retail, they can afford big advertising budgets and most of the time they have an advantage on production economies of scale.
- The passion that is put behind many digitally-native brands can do an exceptional job at enticing a demographic.If you solve its needs in a better way, or the values of your brand relate more with them, that’s an opportunity for a win!
- We have been able to constantly carve out more margins out of the “non-core” part of the business.Being able to execute on that is sometimes as important as having a wonderful brand or the right price.
Look people in the eye
- This can be taken literally but also more figuratively, as in taking a problem head on! Look directly at the problem and immediately face uncomfortable situations.Don’t find the solution before you talk about the problem, look people in the eye and find a solution together.
Sing in the shower
- For us, it means to always be ready to find the funny side in any situation. A way to demystify demons is to laugh at them.If when you wake up and take a shower and you are not able to sing (even in your mind), we believe you are set for a very hard day.
Have ambition
- For how much everyone tells you that you have to be humble, don’t forget to also dream big. We started a brand rooted in incontinence!Everyone made jokes about us in the beginning but we had a secret ambition. We knew we were building a brand that resonated with our customers.
- Investors didn’t see an incontinence company. they saw two bold entrepreneurs that dared to venture where nobody wanted to.Because Market is becoming the leading digitally-native brand for older adults today. We thank our team and their ambition to be part of our mission.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Luca Gualco: You can check out the assortment of products we offer at our website and follow us on Facebook.
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
Luca Gualco: Thank you!
