The best headphones you can afford

I'm regularly asked how Valco's headphones differ from competitors. Apparently, the expected answer is an engineering lecture or at least a comparison chart where we have slightly more decibels and megapixels.

It's understandable, because in Finland, things are traditionally examined based on what can be measured, not on what can be experienced.

The answer, however, is much more mundane, and that's precisely why it feels confusing to many:

"I don't know. And I don't really think about it very often."

Valco's products stand up to comparison with any competitor, and that's enough. This isn't indifference, nor a sign that we don't invest in quality. It's the starting point for why Valco is built differently than many assume.

Over the years, I've developed my own logic about the secret to a company's success. Its cornerstones are marketing, product, and trust.

Marketing in this whole is the first glance — a bit like a dating app profile that might spark interest and lead to a first date.

The product must then satisfy the customer in every possible way, but technical perfection alone isn't enough to carry the relationship very far.

These two are talked about everywhere, but continuity ultimately comes from the third: trust.

The relationship between the company and the customer only begins when the product is put to use. And the relationship is tested in those moments that no one wishes for but cannot avoid: when something breaks, when delivery is delayed, or when the product doesn't work as expected.

At that time, a company's value isn't measured by the cleverness of marketing messages or the comprehensiveness of technical features, but by how the company responds to the situation and what kind of response the customer receives.

For us, this understanding didn't come theoretically but through practice, when the year 2021 forced us to face a situation we hadn't hoped for and didn't really know to fear.

A small and initially almost unnoticeable component defect turned into a problem over weeks, affecting thousands of headphones and coinciding with pandemic-era delivery difficulties, rising costs, and general uncertainty.

The situation wasn't exactly helped by the fact that I had just bought a house and my partner was expecting a child. The conditions were in every way ripe for the problems to feel big, and they did.

When every single headphone in a product batch turned out to be faulty in one way or another, marketing, products, and brand talk instantly lost all significance.

The only essential question left was how we act in a situation that couldn't be bypassed or outsourced, and wasn't improved by explanations.

The only possible way forward was to start fixing as much as possible, as quickly as circumstances allowed, and to openly share everything that was happening.

We did it as well as we knew how at the time. It wasn't perfect, but we didn't leave the customer alone at a moment when their trust was being tested.

And even though the situation was expensive, burdensome, and in many ways unpleasant, it was at the same time the only way to act in a manner I could stand behind as an entrepreneur.

Over the years, this idea has become the core of Valco's operating model. When something goes wrong, it's taken care of. When something works poorly, it's improved. And when a customer contacts us with a problem, they get a response from Jouni, not ticket #473758 from a faceless system. Even if there's a streamlined customer service system and a finely-tuned process in the background.

We don't claim to be perfect. We've messed up quite admirably even recently, but every mistake has brought with it a push to do better next time.

We are constantly improving quality, and our goal is that the service department mostly drinks coffee, watches Netflix, and occasionally fixes a headphone that a dog has eaten. But we're not under the illusion that mistakes will disappear completely. They are part of life and business.

When this is done consistently, the result shows up in everyday places. According to a survey we conducted at the checkout, over 26% of customers (with more than 4000 respondents) say they heard about us from a friend and ended up choosing Valco because of it. It's the single largest channel.

The NPS, which measures customers' willingness to recommend, stays above 80 year after year, and the average customer satisfaction is 9.35 on a scale of 0–10. Perhaps the most telling measure of success, however, is a customer who tattoos the Valco logo on themselves. A bit crazy, but I appreciate it.

If I were selling a self-help lecture to companies, it would be tempting to claim that all this is based on some great insight or a carefully planned operating model according to which I've purposefully built Valco.

The truth is more mundane and less heroic: I simply can't sell anything I don't believe in myself. For some reason, I don't have the moral flexibility that would allow me to embellish or build a brand on nothing. So the only option left is to do things as honestly as they can be done and communicate just as directly.

Luckily, I haven't done this alone. I founded Valco with another equally peculiar person, which made this way of operating practically a given from the start. Over the years, we've also found people with an excellent value base. Not because we specifically looked for it, but because this way of working seems to attract the right kind of crowd.

This inevitably shows in the way we talk about our operations and products. If something goes wrong, we don't know how to hide it. If something works well, we tell it like it is. The VMK15 model is a good example of this: it was released for those with small heads and those who can't afford the VMK25 headphones.

Many find it funny marketing, but primarily it's completely true. I'm actually not a very funny person. I'm just honest, and that happens to sound humorous in today's society.

That's why we also don't market Valco headphones as being technically more miraculous than the competition. They're not. They're made largely from the same top components as, say, B&O, Bose, or Sennheiser, and that's no secret.

Our slogan “the best headphones you can afford” doesn't just refer to insanely good sound quality. As the saying goes, the poor can't afford to buy bad. When you buy Valcos, you're also buying the assurance that you'll be taken care of, even if something breaks. That ultimately makes the product always cheaper than an alternative that leaves the customer alone.

This is also why we don't primarily consider Valco a headphone company, even though we sell headphones. If we ever sold leather hand-warming gloves or Valco wine, we'd do everything exactly the same way. The product changes, the principle doesn't.

Headphones are our product. Trust is the foundation of our existence, and the people around us build it.