Well, Well, Well.ca Finally Launches

After much work behind the scenes, Guelph, Ont.-based Well.ca has finally opened its doors officially - hoping to carve out a niche within the large online pharmacy market.
I asked Ali Asaria, Well.ca’s managing director and founder, some questions about the company’s roots and strategic plans.

Q: So, tell me about you. What’s your background?
A: I did computer engineering at the University of Waterloo. I am best known as the author of BrickBreaker for RIM Blackberries :) I am involved in the startup community here, and serve as one of the co-organizers of DemoCamp Guelph and StartupCamp Waterloo.

Q: What’s the history of Well.ca?
A: I started this project as an experiment out of an unused closet in the back of a pharmacy. We didn’t know if people would really buy health products online. The test site grew and grew to a point where we had so many boxes that we had to use ladders to pile them up against all the walls (and even against the only exit door).

Q: You must be excited about finally launching the site?
A: We’ve been waiting to launch our site, Well.ca, for so long now. Chris, our lead programmer, and I have been designing it from scratch, and building health-specific features and product linking. It is always a great feeling to get a finished product out the door. It’s also a bit scary as we find new bugs that we have to fix as the traffic grows.

Q: Is there one thing you’re really stoked about?
A: The big thing we were excited to launch was our new beauty and cosmetics subsite, well.ca/beauty — we didn’t realize how many women there are online, hungry for beauty products!

Q: What have sales been like so far?
A: Our sales are already higher than expected, which has helped us bootstrap to this point. Online drugstores in the States do more than $1 billion in sales per year, and there’s no one doing this in Canada — so we’re just working on growing it right, while still maintaining our vision of being an honest, super-friendly store that spreads wellness.

Q: What’s in store down the road?
A: We’ve got big plans for the future in terms of building communities, increasing personalization, and making the site easier to use.