After Scaling Future Kind, Founder Shaun Cunningham Turned to OpenStore to Exit

Frank Kosarek, Business Development

Jun 25, 2024

Serial entrepreneur Shaun Cunningham has sold multiple businesses and most recently, sold his vegan supplement brand Future Kind to OpenStore. When comparing this acquisition to others, Shaun says: “with these guys, it was pretty seamless…the whole thing was more of a breeze to be honest than previous sales that we've done.”

OpenStore acquired Future Kind, a 100% vegan, sustainability-oriented supplement brand, in April 2024, five years after Shaun and his brother Eliot started the company. The brothers received multiple offers for acquisitions but ultimately decided to sell to OpenStore because they were ready to move on to something new. They knew they could trust OpenStore because they were handing their business to people who are “actually operating businesses.” 

A hunger for sustainability

Before starting Future Kind, Shaun and Eliot built and sold Aussie Health Co., another health-minded brand. They sold that brand in 2019, and then started Future Kind. The idea for Future Kind originated from the brothers’ struggle to find vegan supplements to support their plant-based diets. They aimed to create a line of supplements they would personally recommend to their loved ones. 

Future Kind supplements are made with vegan, cruelty-free, dietician-approved ingredients. Committed to sustainability, Future Kind also uses recyclable packaging whenever possible. 

Their resilience paid off. In four years, the brothers managed to scale Future Kind to nearly $4 million in annual sales. 

Shaun chose OpenStore because of our team, experience, and terms

When OpenStore first reached out to Shaun and Eliot, they weren’t really interested in selling Future Kind. But eventually, the brothers felt like they were done growing Future Kind and were ready to start something new. “We felt that we had delivered in our key areas of strength in terms of what stage we can grow the business and it was sort of at that time that we felt alright, let's take this conversation a bit more seriously,” Shaun says. 

Even more growth for Future Kind

Since acquiring Future Kind, our team has continued to grow the brand, by expanding our marketing efforts and testing new channels. Only 30 days after selling to OpenStore, Future Kind’s net sales are up 6% year-over-year. AOV (average order value) has also grown 21% year-over-year. 

We’ve increased our investment in paid search, scaling Google Ads spend 9% between Q1 and Q2 of 2024. We made optimizations such as refreshing ad copy to achieve an excellent ad rating. These changes helped increase Future Kind’s CTR (click-through rate) and CVR (conversion rate) on Google Ads by 9% and 26%, respectively, from Q1 to Q2. 

Also on Google Ads, we tested a segmented campaign strategy in which we funneled ad spend to top-converting products. By doing this, the top product—the Essential Vegan Multi—saw a 152% increase in CVR and a 66% increase in ROAS (return on ad spend). 

We’ve also integrated Future Kind into our affiliate marketing program. Looping them into our affiliate dashboards allows us to optimize their affiliate program. In the two months since assuming ownership of Future Kind, traffic to the site from affiliates is up 185%. Revenue from affiliates is also up 35% since March.

What’s next for Shaun?

Now that Shaun and Eliot have sold Future Kind, they’re taking some time off to recharge. But selling Future Kind doesn’t mean Shaun’s out of the entrepreneurial game for good. “I've been in ecommerce for about nine years and part of me wouldn't mind the challenge of a new industry. But then on the other hand, maybe straight back into it. So we'll see. Who knows?” Shaun says. 

When we asked him how his OpenStore experience has been so far, Shaun shared: “Honestly, I don't want to jinx it, but really good. Just good people who get it who are actually operating businesses.”