How one of Miami’s buzziest startups could be producing the next generation of #MiamiTech leaders
By Riley Kaminer
The year is 2002. eBay acquires PayPal, turning some of the world’s leading startup talent into free agents. This diaspora, later dubbed the “PayPal Mafia,” included some now globally-recognizable names such as David Sacks, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk.
And Keith Rabois.
Three years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, Rabois made a splash in the #MiamiTech ecosystem by vocally supporting our fledgling but rapidly-growing ecosystem.
Since then, he’s made a point to support our local innovation ecosystem in various ways – first and foremost, through his X account. Rabois then opened an office for Founders Fund, the venture capital firm where he is a partner.
In 2021, when Rabois decided to jump back into a CEO role after focusing primarily on investing, he set up shop in Miami. His latest venture, OpenStore, focuses on acquiring and growing online brands. It offers Shopify entrepreneurs a way to sell their businesses quickly with a cash offer, aiming to provide a less stressful experience than traditional sales processes. As of its latest funding round, OpenStore was valued at $970 million.
Earlier this year, OpenStore quite literally doubled down on its Miami presence by doubling its office space to 27,000 square feet at its current location in Wynwood. 81 of OpenStore’s 125 team members are based in Miami, with 75% having relocated to the city specifically to join the company. OpenStore’s significant investment in office space and community engagement initiatives affirm its bullish outlook on Miami as a tech hub.
Just in its few years of existence, OpenStore alumni have already gone on to build venture-backed startups of their own. Might this be Miami’s “PayPal Mafia” in the making? It’s still too early to tell for sure, of course. But we sat down with some of the most enterprising OpenStore alumni to shed light on what exactly makes OpenStore such a startup-producing powerhouse.
Attracting top talent to Miami
All founders we spoke to noted just how high caliber the OpenStore talent is.
“I’ve worked at four startups and OpenStore hired the highest density of exceptionally smart, motivated, entrepreneurial people I’ve ever seen,” said Quinn Li O’Shea, co-founder of Braid, which is building a personalized social game. “Given that we were working together every day in an intense environment, we naturally started recognizing the cofounder potential around us.”
“OpenStore attracted folks who are ambitious and risk-seeking,” said Soren Larson, co-founder and CEO of personal data manager Crosshatch. “Many of us moved from New York and San Francisco to build something big and new with an incredible founding team.” Larson and co-founder Jesse Halpern continue to build in Miami, as do most of the founders who spun-out of OpenStore.
Jesse Halpern
“Many of us joined OpenStore with the intention of meeting our future co-founders and learning how to build a company to eventually start one ourselves,” noted Joe Betesh, co-founder and CEO of online storefront building platform Pocketshop. “That’s exactly what my co-founder [Miami native Aaron Shakib] and I did.”
Attracting and supporting risk takers
“75% of the people at OpenStore (when I worked there) had moved to Miami without knowing a single person in the city,” shared Dara Ladjevardian, co-founder of AI-powered digital twin platform Delphi. “Think about that. The type of person that is willing to move their entire life to a new city is a risk taker. Risk takers make great entrepreneurs.”
“We all got to know each other very well because we all were open to making friends in this new exciting city,” Ladjevardian continued. “On top of that, we were learning from one of the smartest people in tech: Keith Rabois.”
Ladjevardian met co-founder Samuel Spelsberg through OpenStore’s book club. “With OpenStore’s book club, [Rabois] instilled a culture of learning and self-betterment.”
Betesh echoed these sentiments: “Most people at [OpenStore] moved from different corners of the country to work in person, during a time when it was the consensus in Silicon Valley to work remotely. To succeed, OpenStore needed to attract talent who were crazy enough to drop their personal lives and move to a new city in pursuit of opportunity. Naturally, the environment was entrepreneurial and the energy contagious.”
Building an in-person culture
Another major way OpenStore attracted this talent was through its in-person environment.
“OpenStore was started in 2021 as an in-person company and many of us felt the excitement of ‘We finally get to physically be with people again after COVID lockdowns!’” noted Jared McCluskey, founder of game development platform The Mirror. “Combine this with high quality, fun, and extremely-experienced team members in a vibrant tech city, and it sparks significant entrepreneurial energy.”
“Being in person in Miami was a real catalyst and accelerant,” added O’Shea. “I think everything from forming relationships to ideating to building our companies would’ve taken longer (or not happened at all) if we weren’t here in person.” It was through this environment that O’Shea connected with co-founder Kavi Mathur.
Rabois himself was a major pull. According to Betesh: “Most of the early team, including myself, learned about OpenStore from Keith’s Twitter posts. We didn’t move across the country to work at just any interesting technology company – we did so to learn from the best.”
“Since OpenStore’s inception, we have aimed to attract extremely talented, ambitious, and tenacious people, then nurture them in our high-performance culture,” Rabois told Refresh Miami. “This approach has undoubtedly served as a magnet and catalyst for founder types.”
Much more is to come soon from the venerable halls of OpenStore Wynwood, we’re sure.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Cue the kombucha: OpenStore’s recently expanded office is oh-so-Miami
- With $150M in tow, OpenStore expands mission to bring serendipity to online shopping
- Miami’s next unicorn? OpenStore closes $32M funding round at $970M valuation
- Jeb Bush, Keith Rabois, and more discuss the intersection of tech and policy at Miami Tech Summit
- OpenStore Live puts spotlight on the journeys and learnings of eCommerce rockstars
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