Latest news with #Khaykin
Newsweek
20-07-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
At 23, he built a $400 business in mom's basement—then sold it for millions
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. In 2014, Feliks Khaykin was 23 years old and working out of his mother's basement with $400 and a vision. Now, he has sold the business he started then for over $4 million. Khaykin, 34, from New Jersey, began startup DankStop as a direct-to-consumer online retailer for cannabis accessories. "At the time, cannabis was still very much taboo," he told Newsweek. "There were no online retailers taking it seriously yet. We saw the growing popularity and acceptance and wanted to provide a clean, modern, professional outlet." DankStop launched in April 2014 and quickly scaled into a full-fledged operation: warehouse logistics, wholesale distribution, private label brands. By 2020, the company was generating $5 million in annual revenue. A picture of the DankStop warehouse, left, and Feliks Khaykin poses in cap and shades, right. A picture of the DankStop warehouse, left, and Feliks Khaykin poses in cap and shades, right. Feliks Khaykin North America's legal cannabis sector has experienced massive growth over the past decade, fueled primarily by legalization of cannabis in the U.S. and Canada. From roughly $5 billion in 2015 to almost $45 billion in 2024, the sector is set to surge further to $355 billion by 2033. But the journey wasn't smooth. "It was our first real business, and the learning curve was brutal," Khaykin said. One of the biggest hurdles came when Google's algorithm changes wiped DankStop from search results—the company's primary traffic source. "We went from $600k/month to $100k/month overnight. It was devastating," he said. From left: The interior of the DankStop warehouse is seen before the sale. From left: The interior of the DankStop warehouse is seen before the sale. Feliks Khaykin Forced to cut costs and staff, Khaykin changed things. DankStop transformed into a third-party dropship marketplace, allowing brands to list products and fulfill orders directly. "It was a survival move that became our new model," Khaykin said. It paid off. In 2021, Canadian cannabis giant High Tide approached Khaykin with an acquisition offer. The company was buying up U.S.-based eCommerce platforms to build market share ahead of federal legalization. "It was aggressive, and we felt the timing was right," Khaykin said. DankStop sold for $4 million. Khaykin recently shared his experience in a Reddit post, inviting people to ask him anything about his experience. Here, users asked questions from the revenue and profit margins to first products and marketing approaches. Now, with a return of 999,900 percent on his original $400 investment, Khaykin isn't finished with business. He had his team had built custom software to run DankStop's operations and post-sale, and they spun those tools into a new venture: CrowdShip, a dropshipping automation platform now used by major cannabis retailers across North America. His latest project, another eCommerce solution, launched just two weeks ago. "DankStop was the beginning," Khaykin said. "But the real legacy is the software we built along the way."
CBS News
12-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Mobile Museum of Tolerance makes its inaugural visit to the Bay Area
The Simon Wiesenthal Center now has a mobile Museum of Tolerance that is touring across California for those who can't visit the center in Los Angeles. The mobile museum made its debut in the Bay Area during the first week of March. Educational leaders said they are looking forward to expanding its Holocaust education outreach to other parts of California in the coming weeks. "Here it says, 'Education is key to breaking the cycle of hatred.' It's from Simon Wiesenthal, who is the namesake of our organization. He was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. And I think the key to this is just understanding that through knowledge, through education, understanding what is going on, we really can bring these cycles of hatred and discrimination that is happening in our world," Elizabeth Blair, an education associate with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told CBS News Bay Area. There are 10 mobile museum buses that are taking the message of the Museum of Tolerance on the road. The California bus is the newest addition, making stops across the state beginning this year. Officials with the center are collaborating with communities and school districts across the state. "Looking at fact versus fiction, misinformation, disinformation," Blair said. Students from the Piedmont School District stepped into the bus, and stepped back into history last week. Blair led a session about the life of Anne Frank inside the bus. Vlad Khaykin, the executive vice president of social impact and partnerships at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said expanding the outreach is important now more than ever. "They help them understand how to live in a multiethnic, multiracial democracy and these lessons help them to be better citizens, global citizens, global netizens," Khaykin said. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in California there were more than 2,100 cases of hate crimes reported in 2023. Of that, more than 430 cases were bias against religion. Officials said hate crimes against race, ethnicity or ancestry topped the list with more than 1,100 reports. "This is a critical moment in our country, in our world today. Hate is rising, a lot of communities are being targeted by hateful rhetoric both online and offline. And so this is one intervention, we really feel that education is one of the best schools we have to fight hate and build tolerance," Khaykin said. "If we can use this exhibit as a tool to connect those topics to students' own lives, for students to use those lessons and to make a difference in a world around them, we've really achieved our goal with this," Blair said. Officials also said that the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles sees more than 100,000 visitors every year. And they are looking forward to making stops across the Golden State, with the next stop in San Francisco.
