Innovating Ecommerce and the Employee Experience
Since its launch in 2021, OpenStore has inspired entrepreneurs and shoppers to find something new. With over 40 brands and 100,000 products in its portfolio, OpenStore has continued a trajectory of rapid growth that continues to both challenge and motivate its team. We recently met up with Chris Dobbins, Head of People, and Jack Randall, Head of Communications, to learn how the OpenStore team manages vast complexity and delivers a unique digital employee experience that supports its talented and driven employee community.
While many things make OpenStore an exceptional place to work, for Randall, a few stood out above the rest.
“OpenStore is an exciting place to be because we’re a B2B [Business to Business] company serving small business entrepreneurs, and we also have a B2C [Business to Consumer] component that reaches millions of consumers across the United States, helping them discover new products.”
And while a unique challenge is often a great source of intrinsic motivation, Randall also found himself inspired by the unique blend of talent among his colleagues.
“We have a healthy mix of engineers and operators from venture-backed startups combined with e-commerce experts from traditional retail and DTC [Direct to Consumer] brands. It's a really unique blend of perspectives and domain expertise.”
While the challenges OpenStore set out to solve are unique and interesting on their own, Dobbins touched on another aspect that drew him to the organization.
“An integral piece of me stepping into this company, and something I still enjoy, is its stage,” he explained. “When I joined, there were about 100 full-time employees. That unlocked a new perspective of building things truly from the ground up, and uncovered parts of my domain that I’d never considered.”
Dobbins also shared that while a unique set of challenges and opportunities drew him to OpenStore, the authentic environment of psychological safety and mutual esteem among colleagues helps foster innovation and engagement.
“I also feel fortunate for the cross-functional partners I’ve had the opportunity to work with to deliver the programs that exist in my domain. It’s been such a pleasant collaborative experience. In many cases, we’re doing something for the first time. Being able to riff and play off of one another, to feel safe making mistakes while growing and learning together—that’s been the absolute joy behind some of the challenges a company at our stage navigates.”
E-commerce isn’t new, but OpenStore’s approach to it is. As Dobbins explained, the innovative nature of OpenStore’s model means there aren’t well-worn playbooks to follow when it comes to hiring.
“In the past, people have tried to build something similar to the product we’re delivering and haven’t succeeded. When I think about the product we aspire to build and the people who are doing the work behind it and making the engine hum—they’re all high-potential talent. Because it’s never been done before, there’s no precedent or profile for the person who can deliver and build what we’re striving to achieve.
So, as it relates to talent, we don’t hire for y-intercept; we hire for slope. We look for people with the skills, passion, and drive to help bring us to the next level, and navigate the iterations we’ll experience as a company as we evolve. Revealing that path in front of us becomes both a compelling draw both for new talent, and for retaining team members because they’re truly given opportunities to succeed and grow.”
Each member of the organization brings a significant amount of knowledge, experience, and creative solutions with them. But as Dobbins explained, that energy needs a home, and unified goals.
“When I think about the digital employee experience, at least from my own vantage point, you can have extraordinary talent, experts in their craft—that doesn’t mean much without shared knowledge, goals, and aspirations.
And as you’re thinking about the best way to illustrate the throughline that unifies those things with each team’s priorities, it’s all about context: How do you ensure everyone has context and insight into the impact of the work each team is doing, and how their goals align.”
That sort of organizational scaffolding doesn’t build itself. Even with open lines of communication among departments and team members, it’s still vital to have an intentionally designed space where ideas and paths merge.
“One of our biggest opportunities for our digital employee experience was building connective tissue between our teams. We were using Notion as our knowledge base. There was tons of information in there, but people struggled to find what they needed. There was nothing to bridge the gap between teams,” Dobbins recalled.
With that core challenge driving them forward, Dobbins and the OpenStore team began exploring options.
“To me,” Dobbins shared, “that knowledge gap represented a simple, low-hanging fruit opportunity for us to build a more cohesive space where people can learn and access pertinent information, and ensure they’re aligned and moving in the same direction as cross-functional partners.
Our initial goal was to shore up our knowledge base and the content within it. It was saturated, lacked cohesion and relevance, and had outdated information.”
As this search for a solution for knowledge management evolved, it revealed additional needs, and the potential benefits of a comprehensive, digital home base.
“We had to decide whether to redesign that space, or consider a different platform that could serve as our knowledge base, but also unlock opportunities in other areas,“ Dobbins shared.
This expanded perspective ultimately led the OpenStore team to explore modern intranets, like Haystack, as a multipurpose solution.
“Reviewing Haystack, it seemed like it could serve us really well as a knowledge management tool, a top-down comms tool, event management, and an employee directory. We also considered any areas within knowledge management where Haystack might provide additional benefits.
The ability to manage content and avoid having it go stale over time stood out as a really compelling feature set within the knowledge base that we loved about Haystack. Those freshness scores, and expert-certified content were X factors that helped differentiate Haystack from a tool like Notion.”
After a comprehensive search and evaluation process, OpenStore adopted Haystack as its new digital HQ, dubbing it OpenSource.
Randall noted that bringing this new, well-governed, and cohesive space provided benefits that not only empowered the team to be more efficient, but also more creative.
“Now that we’re on Haystack, searching through historical information, documents, and policies is a breeze.
To unlock creativity and move fast, you have to remove the barrier to accessing information. Haystack is a very intuitive platform, and having information accessible, up-to-date, and easily digestible allows us to move fast and be creative.”
After deploying Haystack, Randall, Dobbins, and the team were quick to solicit feedback from their colleagues.
“Of course, I checked in with people to confirm, ‘does this feel natural and relevant?’ and all the feedback was positive,” Dobbins said. “But as someone working closely with this initiative, I wanted to confirm I was getting an unbiased perspective, so we turned to the engagement data.”
Randall received similar feedback from the team during his own post-launch evaluation.
“I checked in with my Communications team once we rolled it out, and their quick feedback reflected my own experience,” he said. “The ease of use paired with the mobile app is a welcome change. I also love that it provides some separation between tools like Notion that I still use in a personal capacity, and those I use for work.”
While this initial feedback was encouraging, Dobbins and Randall were keen to combine the qualitative data they’d received from colleagues and match it up with quantitative user engagement metrics, in order to gain a more objective measure of the initiative’s success.
“When we looked at the numbers on engagement in Notion vs what we saw in Haystack, it was dramatic,” Dobbins said. “We saw over 400% more activity, sustained over time. The data told us that people were getting value from Haystack, not just at launch, but month over month. That finding was validating and reassuring. It motivated us to double down and continue investing into the content and management.”
While Haystack did become the central source of truth for people, information, and resources, as Dobbins shared, it meshed well with other tools and processes, rather than overriding them.
“It’s worth mentioning that a subset of our teams still do leverage Notion for specific aspects of their work, and it’s very different from the way we’ve built out our knowledge base. By not conflating the two, each space can stay focused and meaningful.
When content reaches company-level, it always lives in Haystack.”
In addition to the core feature set the OpenStore team set out to solve for, additional tools and features within the newly deployed OpenSource surfaced as team favorites.
“The name game jumped out immediately as a compelling feature,” Dobbins said. “People love it, I think, because it humanizes and brings character into our space.”
“For me specifically, it’s the elegant feature set around posts, and the way you can drive push notifications to mobile devices so easily.”
As a communicator and curator of OpenStore’s new digital home, Randall mentioned his favorite feature. “The fact that we can customize all the cards was really appealing to me. The ability to switch around and customize our homepage at will is really powerful.”
As an organization working at the edge of innovation, OpenStore does need to move fast, and transparency continues to support that goal. Employees who are well-informed about organizational goals can contribute to them more effectively. As such, OpenStore continues to support that value in numerous ways, as Randall explained.
“OpenStore does a great job of practicing and defaulting to transparency. We use Haystack, email, Slack, and a weekly All Hands meeting as mechanisms for ensuring all employees are informed and inspired about our progress and mission. That manifests itself in a lot of ways,” he said.
“For example, after our board meetings, our CEO and executive team walk through the same, unedited slides exactly as they did in the board meeting. We also share questions and feedback that the Board members wanted to dive deeper into.
After our weekly All Hands meetings, we make the slides and recording available on Haystack, so that people who missed it can get up to speed.”
Lateral communication and knowledge sharing is also essential, and the OpenStore team was able to use OpenSource to support that as well.
“After major departmental meetings like Quarterly Business Reviews, we share recordings and slides, in case anyone missed that meeting or needs context from it. If something took place in that meeting that is pertinent to their role, they can easily access that information from OpenSource,” Randall said.
As OpenStore continues its trajectory of rapid growth, processes and spaces expand and become more sophisticated. As Dobbins explained, that trend extends from the physical to the digital realm.
“In the past, we communicated largely through tools like Slack and email, but it wasn’t organized or mature prior to Jack joining. Haystack provides a sense of credibility by enabling us to deliver clean and elegant company-wide comms that signal we’re in a mature company. Similarly to stepping through our door in our Miami HQ—one wouldn’t think we’re a Series B startup. In many ways, how we communicate engages our employees, and Haystack gives us that element of elegance.”
As things continue to move at lightning speed for the OpenStore team, Dobbins touched on the increasingly vital importance of recording, cataloging, and sharing organizational knowledge.
“We’re still in a growth stage, and as we continue to communicate, posterity is something we’re always mindful of,’ he began. “When we think of any type of broad-stroke communication, it’s important that people can reach back easily to find, consume, and digest content that they otherwise would’ve missed. That’s how I think about the variety of posts and content that we power through Haystack.
In the case when important comms originate in Slack or in email, we’ll still recreate them in Haystack for the sake of posterity, because it provides an opportunity for people to find that content easily.”
Randall echoed that sentiment, reinforcing the importance of having a single source of truth that is accessible to everyone, easy to use, and easy to search.
“For OpenStore, Haystack is the first place you would search for key documents and materials. Even though those things may also have been shared somewhere like Slack, going to Haystack first will yield you a faster result.”
As part of a team that deployed and developed a successful, highly-engaged digital HQ, Dobbins shared some helpful advice for those working to achieve the same goal.
“Allow yourself to be vulnerable. We leaned on experts like [Haystack Director of Customer Success] Alison and her team to unlock the true potential of what a real intranet could do for us.
I worked closely with Alison. She has a very strategic, consultative approach to how she thinks about landing and implementing a platform like Haystack. For me, it meant abandoning a lot of assumptions about things like curating content, or phasing it from launch to V2. It also meant considering the overall strategy as it relates to managing features and what makes the most sense for us here at OpenStore.”
Working, evolving, and growing alongside innovative organizations like OpenStore is a powerful source of motivation and inspiration for our own team, and we look forward to seeing the future innovations they bring to e-commerce and the employee experience.
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