Lucas Carvalho Piccinin, CEO and Founding Partner of NetConv Shop, found his business idea in a problem the supermarket industry had decided was too hard to fix. He disagreed.
Lucas Carvalho Piccinin did not set out to disrupt retail technology. He set out to solve a problem, one that most in the industry had either overlooked or chosen to work around. At NetConv Shop, which operates across Brazil and the USA, his focus is expiration date transparency in e-commerce grocery, a capability gap he identified early and built his entire operational model around. The result is a software category he believes is still largely unclaimed.
You built NetConv Shop around a problem the industry had largely ignored. Where did that insight come from?
I have always valued reacting positively for the long run, even when difficult things happen in the short term, because that is how we secure a better future. Right at the beginning of my career, I experienced a rupture with my previous beliefs, triggered by intense pain I was enduring at the time, which compelled me to reflect deeply on the meaning of life. I ultimately arrived at the conclusion that, in order to secure a better future, we must react positively with a long-term perspective, even when difficulties arise in the short term.
What exactly is the blind spot you identified, and why has no one solved it properly?
The opportunity is the freshness marketability unlocked by expiration date transparency in e-commerce. It is a new software category because of its unique capabilities. The operational design uses stock only for e-commerce, with no counter operations because if the same stock is used for both counter and e-commerce, the problem becomes significantly more demanding to solve. It is very common, as a first supermarket thought on selling online, to use the same stock for both operations, making freshness transparency a problem that is hard to solve. This becomes a blind spot where solutions are developed above it, lacking this critical information.
What was the decision that locked in your approach and what did it cost you to commit to it?
It was deciding to solve the lack of expiry date information in e-commerce at the very beginning of the organisation, and to use stock only for online operations. If the wrong course is taken, the software ends up with restricted capabilities. This taught me that choices are free but consequences are certain, and that problems are sources of innovation, so it is important to pay close attention to them and react positively for the long run, even when difficulties arise in the short term.
NetConv connects supply and demand to reduce waste and combat hunger. How does growth serve that mission?
NetConv has a mission to explore the connection between supply and demand to reduce waste and combat hunger. We focus on that and use creativity and customer feedback to guide us with evolving needs and expectations.
What would you tell a founder who does not yet know what problem they want to solve?
One piece of advice I would share is to identify the problem you want to solve and use creativity to develop a solution. But if you do not know the problem yet, just start doing it and keep your eyes and ears wide open because opportunities often arrive disguised as problems.
