Redefining tech entrepreneurship with Siraaj Ahmed and Terry McGinnis of Online Shop Inc

The current buzz in the venture capital world is all about the next startup which will receive the blessings of their capital to reach unicorn status and float on a stock exchange. But that buzz also comes with a sheet of reluctance to be the ‘first’ to do so. Hopin, Ripple, Blockchain.com and many more have reached ‘unicorn’ status with relative ease, with many unicorns sharing the same ingredients of their success… hype! 

Investors love hype, and many had based their investment thesis’ off of market reaction alone, companies in the fintech and crypto space saw reality altering valuations such as FTX, others like Hopin used the presented opportunities of lockdowns across the world due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the forced work from home policies to prop up their valuations, and using it as a way to excel this growth at a steady pace even after the last of lockdowns had been ended. But as we all saw not all companies were as lucky, with the aforementioned example of FTX plummeting in value in a mere 24 hours and it’s founder, Samuel Bankman-Fried being mocked across social media channels with many pointing fingers at investors who overvalued the potential and based their investments off of politics and hype alone.

Perhaps a founder who advertises as sleeping on bean bags in the office is not the genius he claims to be? 

Thanks to the antics of founders such as Sam Bankman-Fried and investors who are now left red faced with a red nose on their noses, the upcoming new year seems to be dire for many founders as most investors are now trying to regain their footing and understand what had happened in the last several years. Many are trying to pull out any investments they have had in startups that relied on heavy financing for growth, redefining what a burn rate even is with others stopping all investments all together, leaving some companies that graced the pages of Forbes and columns of Entrepreneur.com in a limbo of either inevitable failure or a saving grace from a firm that could see further potential. 

Unfortunately for many, if you are not in health, auto or have some sort of innovation within machine learning and artificial intelligence fields, the chances of a saving grace or even a first round of funding are slim to none in the current economical climate. Did I mention we’re heading towards one of the worst recessions of all time also? 

How will 95% of Silicon Valley startups survive without continued liquid capital being injected through their collapsing blood vessels? This very sad realization is hitting many founders hard. Many who rely on heavy doses of funding to continue growth and sales of whatever solution they are trying to sell, many now relying on crowdfunding campaigns as a way to continue operation. Perhaps buying that skeleton chair by de Sede for everyone in your leased office wasn’t such a good idea? Considering many founders are now stuck with heavy liabilities for office spaces with little movement or leeway in break clauses, with constant downsizing and much of the work being outsourced ashore, it is baffling to understand how they even raised funding in the first place. 

There does seem to be a company interesting enough to cover, or at least it’s founders. One is a literal, real life Batman and the other is considered to be the real life ‘Q’ from the James Bond movie franchise by his peers. From that one paragraph alone an eye brow can be raised. Mhm… 

So if you put a Batman and a Q together in a room what sort of wonders would they aim to create? A new type of flying car? A gadget that can shrink a normal sized human to the size of an ant, or a cure for an uncurable disease? Well as you probably have read from the title of this column, it’s online shopping. Or more closely, e-commerce. 

Okay, let’s give them a chance before you start snoozing and looking away from your screen with your inside voice telling you “Another e-commerce company? Give me a break.” After speaking with both founders, Batman himself Terry McGinnis and Bond’s most ingenious ally Q, Siraaj Ahmed, that same inside voice was quick to disappear. 

Yes, e-commerce is probably one of the most boring things to talk and write about but it is also the most importantly innovative field of our modern, technologically connected era – besides the more adult, XXX parts of it. Nobody wants to talk about the boring stuff, and many want to work on the exciting new prospects of robotics, self driving cars and artificial intelligence, that we are promised will not become self aware and start producing T-800′s as Toyota produces their Camry’s in mass assembly lines. So it was a little bit surprising to find out someone is adamantly and valiantly trying to innovate one of the most boring fields of technology. 

Terry: “I don’t feel it’s that boring… And if it is, I probably am by definition a very boring person. As one of my good friends, Cillian had once said ‘the more boring you are in real life, the less people are interested in you’, so who is to say? Perhaps it’s a way for us to unexpectedly come out with some crazy new innovation and take the markets by storm!”  

Touché bats, touché…

Both Siraaj and Terry are trying to redefine what entrepreneurship in the tech field mean in the 21st century. They are trying to build a business, and a successful one at that which makes money rather than loses it. I know… blasphemous! A tech company that doesn’t want to lose money and wants to make profit? That’s one way to get yourself blacklisted by Andreessen Horowitz! 

But perhaps this is all an anomaly, after all e-commerce is where all the ‘get rich quick’ schemers go to sell their lazy courses on dropshipping, and unimaginative visions of financial freedom… so with so much buzz of ‘get rich quick’, there must be people who do indeed make money in the field. According to all the Amazon FBA ads I am getting across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram… apparently it is. 

Siraaj and Terry however are on the different spectrum, instead of trying to sell courses they are building something the people who sell the courses will most likely use. For the longest time Shopify, an e-commerce platform that tries to simplify the process of opening one’s own online business, has been the dominant go-to for many, businesses, brands, and even those pesky dropshipper course sellers alike.

So why exactly should people care? Is this not a crowded market with many companies competing against each other for the same audience? 

Terry: “Well this can be said about anything really, would you tell Karl Benz that a horse and a carriage exist already, so why even bother trying? Everything evolves and must evolve or else we will experience stagnation, and when we stagnate as a species, bad things tend to happen. Wouldn’t you agree?” 

Perhaps… but why should someone pick what you are doing over something like Shopify? 

Siraaj: “We are marrying our expertise of technology, marketing, operations and everything else that we had learned over the years through our own independent careers and as a marketplace for the past year into a very easy to use, very affordable and very intuitive solution. The current MVP that we are to release received a lot of praise, even from people you’d expect to not like it.” 

But why e-commerce, what made you choose this, over something like machine learning or artificial intelligence? 

Siraaj: “It’s not something that just came about from thin air, both Terry and I had countless years in the industry, from working with likes of big fashion brands like LVMH to our own businesses. We’ve been at this for a long time, so we are considered experts in the field, so why not work and innovate in a field that you are very close to? We are opening up the opportunity to quickly launch something, at the best possible price. So if you ever wanted to launch your own clothing brand but were put off by the amount of learning, work and time you’d have to sync into something as simple as launching your own shopfront, this barrier is now eliminated, or at least reduced by a very significant margin. This is about to open the floodgates of many who were at first discouraged, confused or being unable to afford or understand e-commerce.” 

Okay I’m with you. So if it’s doing this, why did nobody else do it before you two? 

Terry: “It’s not just this, it’s many things that, lack of better word, work behind the scenes. We have a powerful solution working in the background within our servers, we like to refer to it as our engine. It’s years of learning, innovation, optimization, best practices and algorithms doing things for you automatically. So, for our users, yes it might look very simple indeed, however what happens in the background is what makes us special. We really wanted to take all of the complex elements and features offered by our competitors and put it into one solution, oversimplifying everything for our users and ensuring the very complex and delicate nature of our technology is in the back. I don’t think many people want to hire design agencies to design a simple shopfront for them, or have to learn what SEO is. If that makes sense?”

That does seem interesting and rather fascinating. It reminds me of a quote in the animated show Futurama, where the character Bender, voiced by John DiMaggio, gets flung through space and meets an interpretation of God in their universe where he states “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” It seems like this best describes what you are trying to do here? 

Terry: “Haha. I like that analogy, it’s clever. I do hope that people do see the amount of work and care that goes into everything that we are trying to accomplish. There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing the next big brand, or a leading local business is using what you have created. That’s the best reward you can get.” 

Okay, okay. So if the best reward is the satisfaction of knowing people use you instead of your competitors, why do you like to often times state you’re not like any other startup and instead are a business focusing on profitability? 

Siraaj: “Good question, perhaps it can be a little confusing. What we mean by that is that unlike many startups who find themselves at the mercy of investors and have to grow at all cost for the next round of funding, we believe in being very well orchestrated and lean. Resourcefulness is one of our most important pillars as a business. Due to our long extensive careers, networks and capabilities as business owners we can really understand what is necessary and what is not. Where to spend money, and where not to. This sort of ‘old school’ mentality has enabled us to build a very strong brand with a very strong reputation as a marketplace, and this is now being translated into our shop building solution. We carefully optimized every single line of code, resource and ensured that nothing is going to waste. This is why we are able to offer free lifetime memberships to veterans, university student support for a year and the cheapest and most affordable subscription you’ll ever find – that allows you to run 5 different shops at once, all for $19.99 a month.”

That does sound affordable, and appealing. Perhaps I should find a way to cancel my Shopify subscription that I have not used since my pet clothing knitting venture didn’t pan out! 

So now you have all of this hype and buzz around you, when will you actually launch? 

Terry: “We slated our soft launch to be in January, we had several roadblocks in the way as any business would, but are now ready and eager. There will be a ton of work to do as we launch, and begin our marketing campaigns but hoping the public responds kindly. Haha.”

Well alright, you managed to convince me. I’ll be sure on the lookout to see a new ticker on the Robinhood app once you eventually float. And with a name as simple as Online Shop, I am sure there is no doubt you will.