Shopify have announced the winners of the 2011 Build-a-Business Competiton. The competition was entered by over 3,000 entrepreneurs who created brand new online stores and sold over $12 million during the competition period. The grand prize is $100,000 cash, along with VIP trips to New York City and San Francisco to meet with Timothy Ferriss, Seth Godin, and Gary Vaynerchuk.

The best part is the Opena® Case won it's category! Whoooo hoooo!!! We are super stoked to have taken out the category prize for the “Other” section of the competition and couldn't have done it with out the support from our great customers! The category prize is pretty awesome too with some decent prize money, a VIP trip to New York, a power session to Seth Godin and a heap of Google AdWords credit!

It’s also worth noting that 3 out of the 8 winners were funded on Kickstarter which shows just how may great Sartups are emerging from Kickstarter. We also love the fact that only 8% of the entrepreneurs who entered the competition were from Australia, but that 38% of the winners are Australian including Flock-stocks, My Footy Boots and Opena Case. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!!!

 Ross and John from Melbourne’s 3AW have taken an interest in the Opena® Case. Chris was on the radio this morning discussing the product and its launch on Kickstarter. Listen to the MP3 below.

Opena® Case on 3AW (Mp3 - 2Mb)

 

The wait is finally over, our shipments have landed, and we are NOW SHIPPING Opena Cases! Woooo hooooo!!! Once we get through our long list of pre-orders we will be shipping orders within 24 hours of placement. If you haven't already ordered your Opena Case, do it now!  

It's been a busy last couple of weeks at Opena HQ. We have almost finalised the tooling and are ready to hit the GO button on production. Our factory tells us we'll be looking at 10-15 days of manufacturing, packing and shipping off to our distribution centre in LA. Once the parts hit the distribution centre its going to take a good week to get all the orders processed and sent out to all you guys so we're still on schedule to ship in August but you might not receive your Opena's until early September. We're doing out best to speed this up as much as is humanly possible.

Until then.... 

 Stay cool

  

T2 sample parts fresh out of the tool! 

On Friday the 8th of July our Kickstarter project was completed and we raised well about our goal of $15,000! The good news is the Opena is now GO! With the additional money we raised we are now able to offer the Opena in white as well as black. We're busy working hard getting the Opena's manufactured to the highest quality and working with fulfillment companies to make sure we can get the Opena's out to all our kickstarter backer and people that have pre-ordered through this site. Keep checking this site as we'll keep you updated with the progress.

The Opena was featured in the Age this morning. (One of Australia's biggest newspapers!)

 We made it! At 4:34pm on Monday the 27th of June we crossed our goal of $15,000 which means the Opena is now a reality! Whoo hoo! A huge thank you to all our backers! You're all awesome and all really really good looking people. You've have helped make the Opena a reality. As for manufacturing we have pushed the go button for the tooling to be started and we're doing our best to get your Opena's to you ASAP, so sit tight, and keep spreading the word. Stay tuned for details on our funding party which will be some time in the next week or two. In the words of Big Kev "I'M EXCITIED".