Learn how first-time entrepreneurs launched the supplement brand Cowboy Colostrum and chose ShipBob as their scalable fulfilment solution.
Customer Profile
Colostrum is the first form of milk produced by mammals immediately after giving birth. It is known as “liquid gold” for its nutrient-dense properties that offer health benefits like the ability to reduce infections, improve immunity, and more. Cowboy Colostrum partners with US dairy farms to up-cycle the surplus of colostrum produced by cows to create their premium supplement. Cowboy Colostrum’s supplement can be consumed in many ways, including being added to smoothies, coffee, matcha, or just mixed in with water.
Key metrics
- 5-month-old business
- 2x order volume MoM
- 3 customisation touch points per order
About Cowboy Colostrum
Toronto natives Jessy Shenfeld and Stephanie Stoikos met in Byron Bay, Australia seven years ago and became best friends. In the years since, the pair moved to the US and often dreamed of starting a business together. They knew that if they could nail down which product they wanted to sell, they could create a unique and interesting brand.
Inspired by their love of health and wellness, Jessy and Steph set their sights on curating a brand in that space. The two had run the gamut of trendy diets and exercises, from going vegan to eating a carnivore diet, from cold plunging to sitting in saunas.
Eventually, Jessy and Steph heard about colostrum, the first form of milk produced by cows just before giving birth to their calves. They dove into learning more about the superfood and its benefits (which include being incredibly nutrient-dense and packed with antibodies). During their research, Jessy and Steph noticed that the colostrum supplement market was relatively untouched. There were a handful of mom-and-pop brands, but nothing that truly tapped into the branding potential that Jessy and Steph knew they could create. It was then that they began developing Cowboy Colostrum.
Soon after, colostrum began springing up on the radar of every health influencer and wellness guru, and Cowboy Colostrum started to scale. Despite being first-time entrepreneurs, Jessy and Steph did their research and knew they needed to swiftly outsource fulfilment. That’s when they tapped ShipBob for their order fulfilment.
Read on to learn more about how ShipBob fulfils Cowboy Colostrum’s order as they have launched and grown their brand.
Experiencing explosive growth right out of the gate
As told to ShipBob by Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum.
We started Cowboy Colostrum in December 2023, and we didn’t have a hard launch plan. We planned to have a soft launch with our friends, family, and a few influencers. That was really the only marketing method we planned on using because we didn’t have the funds to do anything else. Plus, we wanted to see what kinks we’d need to iron out (trying out a fulfilment partner, for example).
Turns out, the influencers really loved the product and were posting about it organically. About a month after launching our DTC sales, we began our retail relationship with Erewhon and our products were getting stocked on their shelves. Soon after, Erewhon asked us if they could use our colostrum in their featured smoothie by Sophia Richie.
Being featured in that smoothie was a major marketing push for us. By the end of February, we were basically doubling our orders month over month, which was incredible.
But we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves or shoot ourselves in the foot by running out of inventory. We did a lot of research in our pre-launch phase and didn’t cut corners. We listened to podcasts featuring brands we admired and spoke with ecommerce founders to learn about the things that they did wrong.
“Many of the founders told me that they had a rocky first year because they tried to do order fulfilment from their home and didn’t get set up with a fulfilment partner. They eventually did and everything worked out fine, but it took a while to get the wheels off the ground because they didn’t have a fulfilment partner in place.”
– Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum
That’s why we signed on with ShipBob so early.
I think it’s really important that when you believe in the business you’re starting and you think it has a chance to be really successful, it’s incredibly important to have a fulfilment partner in place from the beginning.
Choosing a long-term scalable fulfilment partner for ease of expansion
We work with a CPG manufacturing company that helps us source, develop, and package our product. They knew we were looking for a fulfilment partner and referred us to ShipBob and another 3PL. The other 3PL was great, but they were more of a boutique style, and we weren’t sure that we would be able to scale with them.
If I knew the business was going to stay a certain size, maybe their solution would have worked for us. But we saw where Cowboy Colostrum was going, and we knew we wanted a partner that would be able to keep up with our growth and there wouldn’t be any hiccups along the way.
“What ShipBob offers is really cool. They are able to cater to a small operation like we had when we first got started, but as we grow – and hopefully reach hundreds of millions in revenue someday – we know that ShipBob will be able to manage our growth seamlessly.”
– Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum
So far, we’ve grown together at a nice steady pace.
When we were looking at fulfilment partners, we were looking into the future and thinking about features we knew we’d need one day. We could really envision what this brand was going to be, and we wanted to set ourselves up for success with a solid partner early on. Changing fulfilment providers is a major pain and we didn’t want to have to do that as we grew.
“Being able to send products from the US to Canada was really important to us. A lot of other fulfilment providers don’t have an option for Delivered Duties Paid (DDP). We use ShipBob DDP to reach customers in Canada, but also so our friends and family there can buy our product. We definitely plan on going international eventually and we’re glad ShipBob has several options for us to leverage when we need them.”
– Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum
DTC is really important to us. So, we love how ShipBob has multiple fulfilment centres to make reaching our customers easier. Soon, we’ll be expanding into additional fulfilment centres.
Also, ShipBob has such a big network of partners that I’ve been able to be in touch with all kinds of different people, which is nice to have as we continue to grow.
Customising each order the way we envisioned via our luxury brand standards
When we launched and were first sending out PR packages to influencers, my co-founder Steph would prepare most of those at her house and ship them out. I saw firsthand how intensive the customisation process is and I got a good sense of how difficult it would have been for us to do that for every order. It would have absolutely slowed us down.
In the beginning of our relationship with ShipBob, we were concerned whether they would be able to pack the boxes in the way we wanted to translate our brand to customers. We wrote out specific details for how we wanted boxes packed; we wanted the colostrum to be in one place and the frother to be in another. We didn’t know the people packing the boxes, and we didn’t know if they would kit them according to our instructions.
Our branding is really important to us, so we wanted to convey that during unboxing. We wanted to create an intimate experience with our cute welcome card, custom boxes, and carefully placed products.
“ShipBob has done such a great job at customising our orders the way we envisioned. We trust ShipBob to send out our orders exactly the way we want. So much so that now almost all of our influencer orders go through ShipBob. Cowboy Colostrum is a luxury brand and ShipBob has helped us maintain our brand aesthetic.”
– Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum
Getting helpful support from all corners of ShipBob
We had a great Implementation Specialist named Neal, who was so helpful and is an incredible person. He made the onboarding process really easy for us. Bill, our Account Executive, has been great to answer my questions when I reach out, even though the sales cycle has ended. Everyone we’ve worked with at ShipBob has been great.
Plus, ShipBob has so many support articles that address every problem you might have. Their support hub really helps you troubleshoot problems. The articles are straightforward and easy to understand, even for people who are navigating logistics and fulfilment for the first time.
When we got started, we were able to connect our Shopify store and other plugins to ShipBob really easily. We use Stay.AI for subscriptions and that setup was very seamless. All of our subscription orders have gone through ShipBob without a hitch.
“We intended to set up our business in such a way that it was as seamless as possible, and we could grow without big roadblocks – ShipBob has helped us do that. ShipBob has made the process really easy.”
– Jessy Shenfeld, co-founder of Cowboy Colostrum
What’s next for Cowboy Colostrum
This summer is going to be big for us. We have a ton of inventory coming in which will be good. We’ve exceeded our predictions so we’re going to continue to push for more growth. We hope to keep growing at this pace, which will be fun for us. We’re excited about how ShipBob will help us reach our goals this year and in the years to come.
Cowboy Colostrum’s team at ShipBob
Bill Shipley
Bill is the Enterprise Account Executive who helped bring Cowboy Colostrum into ShipBob.
Neal Rodgers
Neal is the Sr. Implementation Specialist who onboarded Cowboy Colostrum with ShipBob.
Lauren Hellstern
Lauren is Cowboy Colostrum’s Merchant Success Manager and supports them through their ShipBob journey.
Get started with ShipBob
If your brand is looking for a scalable fulfilment provider that can offer premium customisation, request a quote to connect with the ShipBob team.
