Who is Giorgia?

Meet Giorgia Granata, Founder of Wype!

About Wype

Founded by Giorgia Granata and Eli Khrapko, Wype makes a gentle, eco-friendly cleansing gel that can be applied to toilet paper. The brand’s intimate care products are certified organic and come in a sustainable aluminum container with applicator that can be refilled. With the support of health and science experts, comfortable conversation, and a little humor, Wype is changing the way we talk about ‘below the waist wellness.’

Giorgia’s Journey

After moving from Italy to the UK to work on her MBA seven years ago, Giorgia became preoccupied with personal hygiene. She explains, “In Italy, bidets are a staple of personal care. In stores, there is a whole section of products dedicated to your bidet.” She began looking at the market, specifically how cross-cultural globalization was introducing new concepts in beauty, health, and wellness. Her research concluded that there was a ‘market gap’ in intimate hygiene when it came to sustainability.

Founding a Sustainable E-commerce Company

Giorgia set out to make a solution that was both eco-friendly and gentle on the skin. “The idea was to create a gel formulation that you could apply to toilet tissue to boost its cleansing power,” she says. “Wype comes in an aluminum container with an applicator that can be refilled. Zero waste.” They bootstrapped their first year to prove product market fit and received an overwhelmingly positive reception.

In 2022, Giorgia was invited to present Wype on Dragon’s Den (UK’s version of Shark Tank). “The appearance fast-tracked our growth and visibility,” she says. “We were covered in the UK’s top publications, The Economist, Evening Standard, and The Times.” Currently, Wype is sold direct-to-consumer. While there's a possibility that they may launch retail, Giorgia likes how e-commerce has allowed Wype to establish close relationships with their customers.

Developing an All-Natural Product

Giorgia believes that a brand’s commitment to sustainability must be ingrained in its core foundation. Discussing what sets Wype apart from other intimate hygiene products, she says they worked diligently from the beginning to develop an all-natural, eco-friendly formula. Wype received the COSMOS certification from the Soil Association, which means its ingredients follow the most stringent natural/organic guidelines from where they are sourced to manufacturing.

The Team at Wype

Wype is headed by Giorgia and Co-Founder, Eli Khrapko. Like many thriving start-ups, the company is small, but dynamic with a core team of six full-time members. Additional support comes from part-time employees, agencies, and collaborators. 

Business Growth and Revenue Strategies

Capitalizing on a Direct-to-Consumer Model

Because the topic of intimate hygiene is taboo, Giorgia admits they’ve faced significant challenges getting their message across in the public sphere. “While customers are open, and interested in products addressing their pain points, when we are talking to retailers, investors, or at an event or conference, it's not always an easy conversation", she adds.

Giorgia goes on to say, “However, as a direct-to-consumer company, eventually we were able to have real discussions and people started responding to the product. Luckily, our customers respond positively to the product. There is a lot of transparency and openness in their relationship with us as a brand” Wype has taken thoughtful measures to make people feel more relaxed talking about ‘below the waist wellness.’ Emails, newsletters, and blog posts are sent out regularly with informative and engaging content. “Customers write us back,” Giorgia happily reveals. “Our community is vibrant and open.”

Marketing and Brand Values

After thorough research, Giorgia concluded that a combined approach of humor and expertise was the best way to market Wype. “Humor breaks down taboos. If something is embarrassing, having a laugh makes us feel better about it.” 

The brand’s expertise derives from support by health care professionals along with rigorous scientific research and data. Information is presented in a way that is approachable and considerate to customers. “We clearly explain the aspects of intimate hygiene that are important for you to know,” Giorgia adds.

Prioritizing Customer Retention

Wype is seeing more customer retention as it gains trust from customers. Providing adequate information about the product and how it’s used along with information relating to health and intimate hygiene is important. Additionally, Giorgia believes that engaging with customers in a way that they feel comfortable has been critical for retention. 

Wype understands that customers' needs for its product differ greatly. “We have to be really flexible with subscriptions,” Giorgia says. “We found that trying to lock people when there is such great behavioral variability is not the silver bullet for us. It’s making a lot of different options available.”

KPIs Giorgia is Tracking

Like many founders of a growing brand, Giorgia pays attention to CPAs and repeat purchases. She notes that Wype’s newsletter is an important revenue driver, so monthly they look at open rates and where people are clicking. They rely heavily on post-purchase surveys for attribution. “If we get a spike in sales and don’t know where it came from, post-purchase surveys help us figure out what may be going on, or where we were mentioned,” Giorgia says.

The CX Philosophy at Wype

Because Wype is a small company, evolving the CX journey is a constant work in progress. Giorgia explains, “We are a lean team, so it’s been difficult to move forward with agility and speed that matches our growth.”

They have taken strong measures to connect with the older demographic who make up a large part of their customer base. In addition to a website that is easy to navigate and read, one team member focuses exclusively on customer service answering emails and providing support with any issues or questions people may have. 

Innovation and Adaptability

“We’ve learned that many of our customers have health concerns that affect their bottoms,” Giorgia notes. “In the past year, we’ve concentrated on the aspect of health and are putting together a Scientific Advisory Board.” Moving forward, Wype is focusing on the anatomical and psychological understanding through all stages of life. Giorgia adds, “We want to be the brand known for bottom care done well, in an innovative and sustainable way. To do that, we have to become specialists in our subject matter, and we are investing a lot of time and effort into that.”

Wype’s Growth Strategies

When it comes to growth and increasing visibility, Wype has found that a multi-strategy approach works best. “If you are using Meta for advertising, you must step up your creative game. You must think of creatives that feel native to the platform,” Giorgia says.  Wype sees the greatest response to creatives that have been carefully crafted and fully thought through. Additionally, they employ referral programs and strategies directing users to landing pages. “Constantly be on the lookout for fresh ideas and new ways of doing things,” she reminds. “Once you become complacent, it’s going to be a bad day for business.

Tech Stack

Shopify

Gorgias “We use Gorgias for customer service.”

Lifetimely “We use Lifetimely to measure our performance.”

TripleWhale “We use TripleWhale to measure our performance.”

Recharge “We use Recharge for our subscription.”