What does it actually take to go from knowing nothing about e-commerce to running your own online store?

We decided to find out — on camera, in real time.

Meet Hernan. A few weeks ago, he had never built a store, never written a product page, and never touched the back end of Shopify. Today, he’s building opnsound.ca from the ground up with the help of Randmar — and he’s documenting every single step, all the way to his first sale.

This is the story of week one.

The challenge: a store, a beginner, and a goal

The premise is simple. Hand a complete beginner a real store and the Randmar toolkit, then see how far he can get. No prior experience, no shortcuts hidden from view — just the same tools, courses, and support available to anyone who joins Randmar Academy. The finish line: his first real sale.

If you’ve ever told yourself you’d start an online business “once you learn enough,” this is for you. Hernan didn’t wait until he was ready. He started, and he’s figuring it out as he goes.

Step one: deciding what the store stands for

Before touching a single setting, Hernan started with the most important question: what is this store actually about? The answer became OPN Sound — a brand built around open-ear and bone-conduction headphones designed to let you enjoy your audio while staying aware of the world around you. Perfect for runners, cyclists, commuters, and anyone who works with one ear on their surroundings.

Instead of jumping straight to products, he wrote a full brand definition first: who the customer is, what they care about, and what the brand believes. One line captured the whole idea:

“Technology should enhance your reality, not isolate you from it.”

It’s a small step that most first-timers skip — and it’s exactly what makes the rest of the build easier. Once you know who you’re talking to, every decision after that gets simpler.

Learning the tools without the overwhelm

Next came the part that scares most beginners: the back end. Hernan spent his first days getting oriented — clicking through the Randmar partner dashboard, learning how distribution and fulfillment actually work, and understanding how the pieces fit together. The moment it clicked for him was realizing how much of the hard, technical work is handled for you when you build on top of Randmar’s platform.

You don’t need to be technical to start. You need a guide — and a system that removes the parts you’d otherwise get stuck on.

Where AI did the heavy lifting

This is where week one got fun. Two tools turned days of work into minutes:

• Building the storefront with AI. Using Shopify’s built-in assistant, Hernan set up a clean, modern storefront — theme, colours, layout, and navigation — by simply describing what he wanted.

• Writing product pages in one click. With Randmar’s product-writing tool, he generated full, benefit-led descriptions for six products at once — the kind of copy that would normally take a full day to write by hand.

The takeaway isn’t “AI does everything.” It’s that the busywork that used to stop beginners in their tracks — the blank page, the empty store — is no longer the obstacle it once was. Hernan’s job became editing and refining, not starting from zero.

The honest part: it wasn’t all smooth

We’re not going to pretend week one was perfect. There were moments of real frustration — settings that didn’t behave, features that took a few tries, that familiar “why isn’t this working” feeling every new store owner knows. Hernan kept those moments in the footage on purpose, because they’re the truth of the process. The point of this series isn’t to show a flawless launch. It’s to show that you can push through the messy middle and keep moving forward.

What’s next

With the foundation set and the store taking shape, the coming weeks are about making OPN Sound something a stranger would trust and buy from: polishing the product pages, building out the About and policy pages, going live, and turning on marketing — including letting Randmar’s ad tools help drive the first visitors. And then the moment the whole series is building toward: the first sale.

Follow along — and start your own

We’ll be sharing Hernan’s progress every step of the way, wins and setbacks included. If watching a real beginner build a store from scratch makes you think “I could do that too” — that’s the whole point.

The same tools, courses, and community Hernan is using are available inside Randmar Academy. Whether you’re starting your first store or growing one you already have, this is the place to do it. Follow the journey, and when you’re ready, come start yours.