Every day, millions of businesses are literally throwing away their best marketing opportunity. It’s not their social media strategy, their email campaigns, or even their paid advertising. It’s something far simpler—and far more powerful. Packaging.
Phillip Akhzar, founder and CEO of Arka, discovered this hidden goldmine while working at two vastly different companies. The first was Boeing, a massive defense contractor, and iCracked, a small Y Combinator-backed startup that was later acquired by Allstate. Despite their different sizes, resources, and bureaucratic structures, both companies faced the same unsexy problem—packaging procurement was stuck in the Stone Age.
“The process of checking packaging inventory goes back further than the fax machine,” Phillip explains. “In many cases, warehouses have someone walk the floors, count with our eyeballs how many boxes we have, and then order more. Most packaging still gets ordered through catalogs.”
Where others saw an outdated system, Phillip spotted an untapped marketing channel. He realized that packaging is the only thing businesses send to customers with a guaranteed 100% open rate. Unlike emails that get ignored or social media posts that get scrolled past, every single package gets opened.
Ahead, read how Phillip approached building a company that helps brands market through unique and custom packaging.
Utilizing the unsexy goldmine strategy
Phillip’s approach to building Arka reveals a crucial lesson for founders: “Unsexy categories are like goldmines, and the key is seeing the utility where others only see dust.” While investors were initially lukewarm about a packaging company, preferring flashier concepts, they eventually recognized that businesses solving real problems actually make money.
Every physical product needs to be shipped, creating a universal need that spans every industry. By positioning Arka as a platform serving all sub-industries that ship products, Phillip created what he calls a “common sense” business model—though one that wasn’t immediately obvious to everyone else.
The beauty of choosing an unsexy industry is the lack of competition for attention. While everyone else fights over the latest trending sectors, established industries with fundamental needs offer stable, profitable opportunities for innovation.
Building with feedback
Early on, Phillip learned that launching a product isn’t enough. “Build it and they will come is kind of BS,” he says, “but you should also build it and invite people.” This philosophy shaped Arka’s customer acquisition approach, which was decidedly unglamorous but effective.
The company started with door-to-door outreach and word-of-mouth referrals. Phillip and his team would bend over backward for early customers, waiving fees and working around minimum order quantities for friends of friends. This hands-on approach taught them something crucial: Talking to users isn’t just startup advice—it’s the foundation of sustainable growth.
Rather than waiting to perfect their product, they launched early, gathered feedback, and iterated quickly. They understood their customers’ real needs, not their assumed ones.
Turning transactions into marketing moments
One of the biggest breakthroughs came from reframing how businesses think about packaging costs. Instead of viewing custom packaging as an operational expense, Phillip positioned it as marketing spend—specifically, the highest return on investment (ROI) marketing spend most businesses aren’t making.
“If you’re spending money on marketing, you should be spending money on custom packaging,” Phillip says. “It’s replacing the in-store experience, so make it count. It’s the first impression, so make it count.”
To prove this point, Arka offers free samples so businesses can experience the difference before committing. They can then order as few as 10 units, removing the traditional barrier of high minimum orders that kept smaller businesses from accessing custom packaging.
The company tracks the impact through its Shopify Analytics dashboard, observing significant jumps in repeat orders when merchants switch from unbranded to custom packaging. While correlation doesn’t always equal causation, the consistent pattern suggests that memorable unboxing experiences drive customer retention and social sharing.
Leveraging automation
As Arka evolves and scales, Phillip has built systems to maintain his personal connection to the brand and its customers. Every customer receives automated emails throughout their order journey, but feedback emails flow directly to Phillip and his support team. This ensures he stays connected to customer sentiment while building efficient operations.
Looking ahead, he envisions AI transforming how businesses discover and order packaging. Instead of navigating catalogs, customers will simply tell a website’s chatbot what they ship and receive personalized packaging recommendations. A beauty brand, for example, could chat with the system, mention it ships makeup, and receive suggestions for appropriate packaging with protective inserts.
Aligning incentives to create sustainable growth
Perhaps one of Phillip’s most important insights is about incentive alignment. When customers succeed, Arka succeeds. If a business ships more products, they need more packaging. This symbiotic relationship means Arka actively wants its customers to grow, even if it means recommending free USPS boxes for brand-new businesses instead of pushing premium solutions too early.
“There’s nothing altruistic about what we do,” Phillip admits. “We want them to grow because they will literally give us more money and they’ll be able to make more money themselves.” This honest acknowledgment of mutual benefit creates trust that leads to long-term partnerships.
Every business has its equivalent of the 100% open rate opportunity—that touchpoint where they have customers’ complete attention but aren’t maximizing the moment. For ecommerce businesses, it’s packaging. For service businesses, it might be follow-up communications or onboarding sequences. For software companies, it could be the first-use experience.
The question isn’t whether these opportunities exist—it’s whether you’re able to identify and optimize them. Like Phillip’s approach to packaging, the answer often lies not in complex solutions but in bringing intention and care to overlooked interactions.
Your customers are already opening what you send them. The question is: What impression are you making when they do? Catch Phillip’s full interview on Shopify Masters to discover which unsexy categories you may be overlooking.
