Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, but you're buying.
Valco is a 14-person company from Oulu, Finland. We don't have a 47-storey headquarters with some suit standing in the lobby who doesn't know what the company actually does. We have an office that smells like coffee and where someone has always forgotten yesterday's lunch in the microwave.
Henri can be found, if the Alfa Romeo starts
Henri is Valco's CEO. He drives an Alfa Romeo that breaks down roughly once a month, so you'll find him either at the office, on the side of the road, or at the mechanic's. He answers emails, attends trade shows, and is an actual real human being. No wall of secretaries, no PR department filtering everything.
Try sending Sony's CEO a message saying "Fancy a pint?". You'll get an auto-reply that directs you to a form, which directs you to another form, which directs you to a third form, and at the end it says "Thank you for contacting us".
With us, you can actually send a message to info@valco.fi and suggest a meetup. We can't promise Henri will show up – he's got a company to run and a Death Star to build – but your message goes to a real person, not an algorithm.
Jasse's ears are insured, so they must be protected
Jasse is our sound designer. He tunes every headphone model with his ears, which are insured. Don't invite Jasse to a place that plays loud bad music. A quiet pub, absolutely.
Other than that, the crew is small, so the odds of bumping into one of us in Oulu city centre are pretty decent. You won't recognise us by a branded polo shirt, but if someone's sitting at a hot dog stand with a mustard stain on their chest scrolling through headphone reviews on their phone, that's probably one of us.
Why this matters
We're not faceless. That's the whole point. When you buy Valco headphones and they break, you're not sending them to some logistics centre in the Czech Republic where a robot scans a barcode and fires off an automated message. You send them to Kajaani, where a real person opens the package, fixes the device, and sends it back.
The same goes for everything else. Want to give feedback? It goes to a human. Want to suggest a feature? It goes to a human. Want to complain? That also goes to a human, who might even agree with you.
14 people. No middlemen. No PR department. No "our values guide our customer experience" waffle.
How to reach us
- Email: info@valco.fi – goes to actual humans
- Online store: valco.fi
- Support: valco.support
- Beer invitations: send an email and see what happens
Every message is read. Every purchase funds 0.000001% of our Death Star. Cheers for the money.
