There’s an expression tech executives use to prove their ideas’ worth, according to former PayPal executive and new Miami resident Keith Rabois: At the end of the day, a founder must be able to “eat his own dog food” to show the world that it’s good.
Which is why Rabois is now launching OpenStore, a platform that allows Shopify digital store owners to sell their companies, from Miami: To show the world — and, more pointedly, his fellow techies — that billion-dollar ideas can be executed from the Magic City.
Rabois has been one of the loudest voices in tech making the case for Miami as the next great tech hub. Since at least last fall, Rabois has tweeted to his 252,000 followers about the virtues of Miami as compared with his prior Bay Area haunt. As he summarized in an email to the Miami Herald in November: “The monopoly on building the future is now ended so people have the freedom to raise families in environments elsewhere that value prosperity, liberty, safety, educational excellence and affordable housing options.”
“If I’m saying this is the best place to build a company, I should be building my own company in Miami,” Rabois said in a new interview.
OpenStore is designed to let online business owners operating on the Shopify platform sell their small digital businesses outright. The OpenStore platform prompts owners to enter key metrics about their online businesses and get an automated offer from OpenStore’s algorithm.
With 1.7 million online storefronts, there is a vast market for OpenStore to tap.
“So business owners will now have liquidity for their family,” Rabois said. “Typically, these owners have not raised any outside capital.”
Bloomberg News reported in June that OpenStore has already raised $17.5 million, and that over the next year it will purchase dozens of companies to create an entity with more than $1 billion in sales. Rabois said OpenStore already has 16 employees operating out of Wynwood offices it is sharing with Rabois’ main firm, Founders Fund, where he serves as general partner; and Atomic, whose CEO, Jack Abraham, is serving as OpenStore’s co-founder.
In a statement, Abraham said he wants OpenStore to be the fastest growing Miami-based technology company in history.
“We’re aggressively building out our team here with many open roles in engineering, finance, operations among others,” Abraham said. “Today we officially opened OpenStore and e-commerce merchants can now come to OpenStore and get an offer to buy their business in only one business day, rather than deal with a broker for three to six months and give up 10% of the sale price to them.”
Rabois said OpenStore plans to bring on as many as 40 people over the short term.
“We’re already outgrowing our footprint,” Rabois said.