OpenStore reviews: 4 founders who sold their Shopify stores

Adrian Alfieri

May 12, 2023

At OpenStore, we're committed to helping Shopify founders easily sell their store or turn their store into passive income. Store owners can sell their business to OpenStore outright or let us run it for them while receiving passive income through OpenStore Drive.

We sat down with the founders of TheSTEMKids, Necklow, Jack Archer, Wearva, and Yogaste to learn why they had sold their brands to us — and why they will likely do it again.

We'll cover four of the major components that set us apart: our all-cash, no-fee offer, our rapid turnaround time, our team,and how we free founders up to move on to their next ventures. 

1. An all-cash offer with no broker fees attached

Selling your brand isn't as attractive when faced with uncertain offers and broker fees that cut into the chunk of capital you hoped to walk away with. 

Before finding OpenStore, Necklow's founder, Firas Balaffou, had heard horror stories of acquisitions taking up to six months. 

He knew many founders who had waited months to get paid, juggling their company's operations with the added pressure of maintaining solid metrics in the likely scenario that their deal is reconsidered. 

Firas knew all too well that the e-commerce acquisition landscape could be volatile. The uncertainty associated with traditional buyers was compounded by a potential 10% cut for the brokers. 

By avoiding this kind of drawn-out, complicated process where Firas wouldn't even gain 100% of his valuation, he’d be able to quickly pursue what's next with more capital. 

OpenStore allowed him to do just that. 

He received $380,000 in cash for Necklow last year, no broker fees attached.

Quick cash for Shopify stores at any stage

Immediate payout in the bank doesn't just enable founders to walk away from their companies to embark on their next journey. 

It also helps them keep scaling brands they aren't through with.

Miguel Facussé, founder of Jack Archer, needed cash fast to keep scaling orders after making $1.2 million in sales during the brand's first two months. 

However, he had one major roadblock: No one wanted to invest in a two-month-old company. 

Banks were a no-go, and investors wanted a sizable chunk of the business. 

He decided to open himself up to offers but had previously heard troubling stories about traditional brokers. He eventually found OpenStore through an Instagram ad.

While he'd efficiently launched the brand, Miguel knew it was time for someone with the skills and capital to take it further, so he submitted a link to Jack Archer's Shopify store. 

He received a valuation of $837,000 just 24 hours later. 

2. Rapid turnaround times for every offer

When Max Medroso, founder of TheSTEMKids, reached out to OpenStore, he wasn't expecting his entire application to simply require submitting links to a website.

Spoiler alert: Getting your offer from OpenStore really is that easy.

Selling to OpenStore is fast and efficient. 

Founders go to our website and follow a few steps to receive their acquisition offers:

1. Enter their site URL and email address

2. Upload their P&L statements and relevant documents 

3. Connect their Facebook and Google ad accounts to prove their marketing stats

When Max did this, OpenStore presented him with an offer that included both TheSTEMKids' existing inventory and the base price of selling the business. 

The submission process took 10 minutes. The response turnaround was 24 hours. 

Even if you're a merchant who's not truly ready to sell, Max recommends using an offer from OpenStore as an easy comparison point for other brokers or to gauge your company's health.

In the end, OpenStore was the right choice because the process is intentionally rapid and accessible. Max didn't want to stagnate for months while waiting for his sale to close.

With OpenStore, he closed within a week of reaching out. 

3. OpenStore’s internal team of experts

Navigating the world of brand buyers is murky, but proof of OpenStore's credibility is a Google search away and backed up by their track record. 

As told by Chris Heckman, co-founder of Yogaste: "We knew OpenStore was legit the moment we dug deeper." He adds that he can't say the same for other brokers, acquirers, and aggregators in the e-commerce ecosystem.

After opening up to potential buyers on an exchange, Brendan and Chris encountered candidates including everyone from mom-and-pop shops to non-serious askers. 

In other words: It requires an exorbitant amount of time and energy to vet interested parties. 

When it came to OpenStore, they could easily get the rundown on our team members — leading repeat founders and top talent within e-commerce — and access our track record of acquisitions and successful exits, funding raised, press coverage, and more. 

Choosing OpenStore ensures legitimacy & connections

In addition to the practicality of selling to OpenStore, Firas highlights the draw of being acquired by names like Keith Rabois, our co-founder & CEO, who's made defining investments in DoorDash, Affirm, Stripe, and other leading companies. 

In his words, this made the acquisition something to be genuinely proud of. 

Beyond the clout, OpenStore’s roster assured him that Necklow's future success was secure. 

The team he'd be handing it to had decades of successful enterprise experience. And they had a history of truly growing acquisitions — not just leaving them on a shelf. 

Even in a scenario where another buyer may have offered more money for Necklow, Firas affirms that he'd choose OpenStore for its mission, team, and streamlined exit flow. 

OpenStore's algorithmic offers ensure fairness

Unlike in his previous conversations about selling his brand to brokers, Manny Estrada,founder of Wearva, didn't feel the tension of having to aggressively pitch his brand to OpenStore or negotiate for a higher estimate. 

Instead, the offer process was rendered frictionless by OpenStore's data-based algorithm, which computes for the most accurate, real-time valuation possible. 

In addition, these algorithmic valuation offers are then audited by industry analysts embedded in the OpenStore team.

Manny knew that no other buyer would be able to offer him a fairer or more transparent valuation price based entirely on due diligence on Wearva's (impressive) numbers.

4. Giving founders the financial freedom to move on

Beyond fast money and service, OpenStore also offers founders something far rarer: the freedom to move on from their companies and the peace of mind to do so happily. 

Testimonies from numerous OpenStore founders affirm that use case. 

The freedom to get back to building

Thanks to the liquidity that OpenStore offers serial entrepreneurs like Miguel, he can now focus on getting back to what he loves: launching and scaling e-commerce stores. 

Since selling, he’s started a new service-based business that helps brands grow. 

Ultimately OpenStore has empowered Miguel with the liquidity and flexibility to choose his next path, whether that means:

• Continuing to do what he's gifted at: building and selling more brands

• Or entering a founder's "retirement" to teach others his unique skill set
  
  

At the moment, he's leaning toward the latter, ready to continue leveraging his frameworks for sustainable hyper-scaling and to teach them to future founders. 

OpenStore’s capital funds entrepreneurial dreams

Manny is proud to have experienced a quick and profitable exit, courtesy of OpenStore, following two years of brutal, solitary, heads-down building. 

Manny adds that OpenStore has single-handedly equipped him with the necessary capital to move on from Wearva and continue living out his entrepreneurial dream scenario. 

Before, he didn't have the time, capital, or freedom to launch multiple new ventures in tandem.

Now, with an exit fresh in hand, he plans to continue building e-commerce brands in new niches, all while diversifying revenue streams by entering real estate, consulting, or new industries entirely. 

Clearing the way for the next passion project

Max's departure from TheSTEMKids was ultimately mission-driven.

He wanted to transition from education to the health and wellness space to focus on his love for fitness, exercise, and improving people's health. 

At the time, his girlfriend's frustrations with menstrual cramps also helped him realize there were no reliable, natural period pain solutions on the market. This gave him a common problem to solve — and selling to OpenStore gave him the necessary funds to pursue that path. 

The transition period only took two months, with little lift from Max and 80% of the money upfront and 20% at the tail end. 

That swiftness was invaluable in keeping him mentally sane between projects. 

Even more, inventory is a complex variable to handle when selling a company. Some brokers don't buy existing product stock at cost, but OpenStore liquidated all of Max's inventory. 

Max happily dedicated that freed up mental energy to his next project.

Be the next success story to sell to OpenStore

Firas has some parting advice for any e-commerce founders: check out OpenStore. 

The beauty of the process is that it takes minutes and is ultimately free and non-binding. 

Beyond that, having a valuation in hand in less than 24 hours is informative, even if it doesn’t progress further. Founders simply have nothing to lose by applying, and undergoing the OpenStore process can only be helpful in the long run.

In Firas' case, a few minutes resulted in a life-changing sale that kickstarted the journey of a serial entrepreneur.