Firas Balaffou always dreamed of starting a successful online business — he just didn’t know what product he wanted to sell.

After researching, he identified a gap in the pillow and sleep hygiene industry and decided to address a common pain in the neck (literally) with Necklow.

Within just three months of going live in 2020, the orthopedic neck pillow hit $1 million in revenue.

Less than three years later, Balaffou sold Necklow to OpenStore for $380,000 cash, plus $30,000 in inventory.

How this pillow founder bootstrapped his e-commerce store

In 2018, Balaffou, who’s from an island off Tunisia, discovered dropshipping. He purchased items from the online marketplace AliExpress and sold them to buyers in France and the U.S., he told CoZi. Initially, he sold only about one item a week, but as he learned more about marketing, his sales ticked up.

For three years, he saved his money and learned as much as he could about e-commerce by reading books and joining online communities, OpenStore wrote.

After experimenting with dropshipping, Balaffou decided to build a branded product with proprietary design and direct sourcing. Market research led him to a neck pillow. He scoured Amazon reviews of similar products to understand what consumers wanted and how he could create the ultimate pillow.

From this research — and knowing he needed a unique selling point — Balaffou designed a pillow with millions of micro-air balls suited for multiple sleeping positions. He reached out to a connection in his network who helped run a manufacturing facility in China to create samples, he told OpenStore. The result? A beanbag-like orthopedic pillow.

Once he received the samples, Balaffou hired his first employee, his girlfriend, who helped with advertising and marketing. They listed the pillow on Necklow.co and ran paid ads primarily on Facebook and Google. Within three months, revenue reached $1 million — but because of the cost of the product and the ads, they were just breaking even.

Realizing he needed to implement a more intentional strategy, he researched successful direct-to-consumer brands with similar audiences and studied their most popular ads by headlines, narrative flows, testimonials, copywriting, product demo footage and more. Armed with this intel, he created a new framework for Necklow’s ads that led to more profitability.

He estimated three of every five ads were profitable. The first ad to go viral accumulated more than 3 million views and was still profitable a year after it went live. Balaffou aimed to test at least one new ad every two weeks to ensure fresh, new ads were always running.

“I advise learning from existing brands with similar audiences,” he said. “It’s a shortcut that can save a lot of trial and error in figuring out what ad styles work for you.”

By May 2022 — less than three years after launch — Necklow had sold to around 80,000 customers. The company remained bootstrapped and was operated by Balaffou and a team of six contractors: three customer support representatives, two marketers and one operations manager.

How he found a buyer for his e-commerce shop

Balaffou began considering selling Necklow so he could start a new venture. Plus, he didn’t think he was the right person to scale the brand.

“The business was growing, but the operational and scaling challenges became overwhelming,” he told They Got Acquired. “I lacked the experience to solve certain issues efficiently, and it was becoming stressful.”

He heard about OpenStore from another e-commerce founder, who posted on X that he sold to the aggregator of Shopify brands in just 48 hours, Balaffou told OpenStore. Balaffou was drawn to the idea of selling quickly because it “felt like the wisest path — to cash out and free myself up for the next chapter,” he said.

He requested an offer and heard back within 24 hours. After walking through the details with people in his network, he negotiated a 15% increase. Once both parties agreed, there was a two-week validation period followed by a four-week due diligence phase.

“Traditional due diligence often takes months, but OpenStore’s promise of closing in about four weeks was a major selling point, even though the valuation multiple was on the lower end,” Balaffou said.

Balaffou told They Got Acquired that selling Necklow felt scary — “like giving away your child, but you appreciate it later when you see the cash land in your bank account,” he said.

In May 2022, Necklow sold to OpenStore for $380,000 cash. Balaffou also received $30,000 for the remaining inventory, bringing the total transaction to $410,000.

After selling, Balaffou took six months off before pursuing his new business, TheraPetMD, which specializes in calming diffusers for pets. Within its first year, TheraPetMD hit 8 figures in revenue, Balaffou shared.

“My experience with Necklow helped a lot with launching TheraPetMD, especially around ad scaling and landing page optimization,” he said. “That said, we’re now operating at an entirely different level. I’d say I’ve gained 100x more skills, and the company is significantly larger. We’re currently aiming for a high 8-figure exit with this brand.”

His ultimate takeaway from this experience? Don’t be afraid to sell.

“If you need the cash, feel stuck not growing much, go for it,” he said. “New ventures will come later — bigger and more successful.”