Time Is Money. Especially for New Moms
"Having children changes your life, everybody knows that. But when I switched from working about twenty hours per day to maternity, I realized how much time mothers waste on looking for the right product even for the most trivial necessities of their children, first of all nappies", says Martina Cusani (pictured above), Bocconi graduate in Finance and CEO and co-founder of Mukako together with Elisa Tattoni, COO and CLEFIN alumna.
Mukako is an e-commerce website, which along with a range of infant care products, offers a service aimed at saving the precious time of future and new parents. Mukako's best selling product is the time box (a home-delivered nappies supply that resorts to an algorithm in order to identify the most suitable product according to the child's growth), but the website also provides customers with individual advice, through informative articles, reviewed merchandise and live chat.
"Choosing a startup's name is always a complicated matter," explains Elisa Tattoni, former CFO at Privalia (in Milan and in Brazil) and at Savelli Genève. "I have Finnish origins and the Nordic model of family assistance greatly inspired us. Therefore we chose Mukako, which is the blend of two Finnish words – Mukana, which means together, and Laatikko, box. So Mukako is the box that supports parents in bringing up their children".
After graduating and working at UBS Investment Bank in London, Martina Cusano realized that she wanted a job that combined analytical and operational aspects and obtained and MBA at Harvard Business School: "I wanted to see tangible results. At Harvard I developed a passion for entrepreneurship and it was at that time that I started thinking of creating my own startup one day. Together with Elisa we achieved the life change we needed also because we could both count on a long professional experience." Indeed, the two Bocconi alumnae first met each other while working at Privalia. Cusano then became General Manager at Groupalia and contributed to the company's foundation in Spain and Italy.
"Mukako was founded in 2014 and sales started in 2015. In Italy there aren't any other websites that are so specialized in this sector and the aspect of service and consulting is what differentiates us on the European market. Sales have been very satisfying so far and over the next months we will translate the website and start international deliveries", concludes Tattoni.