Community Highlights: Meet Paul Kushnir of PayMore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Kushnir.

Hi Paul, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’m truly living the American Dream. I was born in Ukraine and my family immigrated to Canada when I was 6 years old. When I was graduating highschool my parents informed me we were moving to Kansas City. Seemed crazy to me to move from an incredible city like Toronto, and where all my friends were, to city a barely heard of. Reluctantly I followed my parents and was sure after 4 years at UMKC I would come back to Toronto. Didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Kansas City. The people, the culture and the opportunity were amazing and so here I am 32 years later. Married my soul mate 26 years ago, 3 amazing kids, great friends and several successful businesses all here in KC.

My brother who is 7 years older, and his wife also moved to KC a few years after I did. My brother and I always knew we wanted to build something great together. After many evenings brainstorming ideas we had our first one in 2000. We saw an opportunity to import and distribute cellular accessories to the convenience store industry. We were just missing one thing, money. Fortunately my in-laws were willing to take a chance on us and put a 2nd mortgage on their house to give us the start up captial we needed. Thankfully the business did well and we were able to repay them shortly after. We had good success with the distribution company servicing over 2000 convenience stores before we sold the company in 2005. That gave us the capital to really grow our new venture which we started in 2004.

In 2004 we got a lucky break when my wife was promoted at Sprint and her new job required her to find someone in KC that wanted to open Sprint stores. These stores would look and feel just like corporate Sprint stores but would be privately owned. My brother and I convinced my wife and her boss that we were the right choice. We opened our first store in Independence, MO in August 2004 and little did we know that was the beginning of an incredible ride for our new company, Wireless Lifestyle. We liked what we were doing and Sprint liked how we did it. We began opening more stores and eventually started acquiring other Sprint dealers around the nation. We eventually grew to over 230 locations across 13 states and over 1500 employees. We were fortunate to have hired some amazing people that fueled our rapid expansion. We sold Wireless Lifestyle in 2021, shortly after Sprint and T-Mobile merged. It was the right timing.

While running Wireless Lifestyle we also noticed an emerging market in repairing phones and tablets. In 2014 my brother and I opened Phone Medic in KC. Within a couple of years we had 8 stores covering all corners of the city and established ourselves as the go to place for repair. We made a strategic hire, Christine Ricci, to run Phone Medic and she did an incredible job growing it. After being courted by the 2 largest phone/tablet repair companies in the nation we decided to join uBreakiFix as a franchisee. We continued to grow the company to 17 stores before selling in 2021.

After selling both of our businesses my brother and I created a small venture investment fund with just our money to invest in great ideas and concepts at early stage companies. Our goal was to provide them with needed capital to start up and grow but also to offer our many years of operational experience. We currently have 9 portfolio companies, run by amazing founders and leaders that we work with on a regular basis to help them grow and succeed. It’s extremely gratifying to be a small part of their entrepreneurial journey.

In late 2023 I started searching for another business that I can run again. I had the itch to get back into an operating role. A great new franchise concept came across my desk called PayMore. Fairly new in the franchise world PayMore is a retail concept specializing in buying used consumer electronics and reselling them instore and online. In addition to offering a way for consumers to monetize their old unneeded electronics they also offered free e-waste recycling and data wipe to protect consumers private data on their devices. It was not only a great business model but offered a much needed service to local communities by infusing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually back into consumers pockets and keep thousands of pounds of e-waste out of local landfills. Both of my sons, Ethan (24) and Eli (21), immediately showed interest in the concept and it was always my dream to open a business with my kids. We partnered together and opened our first store in Overland Park in September ’24 followed by Lee’s Summit in November ’24 and currently building our 3rd location in Westport with an open date sometime in mid-June. We plan to open 6 locations in Kansas City and 7 in St. Louis over the next couple of years. It’s extremely exciting for me to embark on this venture with my boys and my hope that this is the first of many ventures together.
I’ve been very fortunate to experience many professional success so far in my life. But the most gratifying thing that I’ve done is give back to the community that has given me so much. While my wife, Shannah, and I have donated and participated in many great charities here in KC the one we’ve really dedicated ourselves to is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City. For the past 17 years I’ve had the privilege of serving 6 years on their board including 1 year as board president. We’ve chaired many of their largest fund raisers and helped start many new initiatives to help children here in our community. Including the most current initiative that Shannah and I launched in 2023 to help the kids in the BBBSKC program with mental health. It’s an incredible organization that I see us continuing to be apart of for many more years to come.

I’ve been fortunate to get to live the American Dream because my parents were brave enough to come to a strange country with no money and couldn’t speak the language. I will forever be grateful to them for their courage to ensure their children had a better life. I plan to continue to open and invest in new businesses in the coming years, hopefully with my kids, and plan to continue to give back to my community I call home.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The journey certainly hasn’t always been smooth. In each of our businesses we’ve experienced times when things really didn’t look good or major mistakes almost burried the company. We were fortunate to be able to navigate through those issues and learn from them. One such isssue came a few years into building Wireless Lifestyle. We were growing rapidily and reinvesting all of our profits into building new stores or aquiring other Sprint dealers. We believed the good times would last forever and we needed to grow as much as possible as fast as possible. The reality hit in 2012 when Sprint made some strategic changes which hit our revenue stream in significant way. Profit quickly turned to loss and up to that point we had not adequatly funded cash reserves to withstand a slow down. We quickly found ourselves in a situation where we needed to adjust our business model, slow down our growth and unfortunately layoff some team members. It was a harsh lesson that cash reserves are critical to any business especially one growing quickly.

Another self inflicted struggle was when we opened Phone Medic. I believed that I could lead as CEO both Wireless Lifestyle, which was growing quickly, and Phone Medic which was start up and needed a great amount of entrepreneurial attention. It quickly become apparent that this was not working. I wasn’t doing either job well and Phone Medic suffered the most because it needed the most attention. This misstep cost us years of growth and screwed up our ultimate goal at the time to take the brand national. Other players were able to achieve a national footprint far ahead of us forcing ultimately to become a franchisee of one of them to be able to compete. We eventually hired Christine Ricci to fun Phone Medic and she took a company that was barely breathing and turned it into a profitable successful business.

Another important early stuggle was working with my brother. It took us several years in business to learn how to work together properly and respect each others talents. We eventually figured this out but not until we had many blow out arguments including an actual fist fight at our office in front of our employees. How embarrassing and unprofessional. But our mutual respect and desire to see our company succeed won over and in time we learned how to better address our concerns and frustrations. We ultimately made a great team and we allowed each other excel in our respective lanes.

As you know, we’re big fans of PayMore. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I’m extemely excited about our new venture as a PayMore franchisee. PayMore has been around since 2012 but only started franchising recently and we were fortunate to find them early and secure the rights to Kansas City and St. Louis. What’s most exciting for me is that I partnered with my two boys Ethan (24) and Eli (21) in this new venture. Always been my dream to operate a business with my kids.

PayMore is a retail concept specializing in buying old consumer electronics such as a laptops, phones, tablets, smart watches, game consoles, games, drones and pretty much anything with an on/off button. We also ensure all customer data is wiped from their devices and we offer free recycling for tech we can’t buy if it’s too old or too beat up.

We fell in love with this concept not only because it’s a great business model but also because it provides every person in the community with a great service. PayMore puts hundreds of thousands of dollars back into consumers pockets in the community annually by turning their old unneeded tech into cash. In addition we keep thousands of pounds of e-waste out of our local community landfills through our recycling program. Up to now there has been no place to conveniently sell and/or dispose of your old electronics. Our stores are located in the same places consumers already shop or eat. Our stores are clean, professional and well lit. More importantly our team members are professional and focused on providing an exceptional customer experience.

We have 2 locations open in KC. Overland Park and Lee’s Summit. Our 3rd location will open in Westport in mid-June. We plan to open 6 locations in the KC metro and 7 in St. Louis in the next couple of years. Our Mission is to become the most trusted source for electronics buyback, resale and recycle in all communities that we serve. Our team is committed to achieving our Mission.

PayMore is our brand but our company name is SPEEKS Technology. www.paymore.com, www.speekstechnology.com

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Oh my, too many to mention but a few definitely stand out.

None of this would have been possible without my amazing wife, Shannah. We’ve been married for 26 years and have 3 kids together. When we met we had nothing and for several years Shannah was the bread winner as I was starting my career and later our businesses. When we were just getting our businesses started it would have been almost impossible to do that if she wasn’t so successful in her career at Sprint. Once Wireless Lifestyle was established and making money Shannah decided to become a stay at home mom and take care of the children and our household. She managed everything related to our family and did an amazing job. If it wasn’t for that I couldn’t have dedicated myself to growing our business the way I did. Her support along the way when I was second guessing myself or unsure of the path forward with my business was instrumental to my sanity. Having a happy home life is critical to a successful business career. She made that happen for me and for us.

My brother was obviously a major part of my success. We were and are partners in all of our businesses and investments except for PayMore which I’m doing with my kids. My brother and I made a great team successfuly complimenting each others skills and energy. While PayMore is the first company we didn’t do together I’m confident that my brother and I will partner again on future ventures.

There are too many team members along the way to call out individually. My brother and I were blessed to have amazing, smart, dedicated team members at every company we operated and invested in. Building a great team is the most important thing you can do as a leader. We were fortunate to have and still have so many in our lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.paymore.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paymoreoverlandpark/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562394180463