In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona managing director, Scott Jacobson sits down with serial founder and CEO of Crowd Cow, Joe Heitzeberg. They discuss how Crowd Cow was able to build their own supply chain to elevate a culture of transparent and conscious protein consumption. The two also talk about how, through a global pandemic that has rocked the meat industry, the company was able to build resilience. Give it a listen! Joe’s retelling of how Crowd Cow came to be will not disappoint.
As Ethan and Joe, the founders of CrowdCow.com, were brainstorming ideas for a new business, their friend Brendan stumbled in with his passion for grass fed beef.
After careful consideration, they realized that not only was farm-sourced beef growing in popularity, it already had a solid devoted following, and market trends that indicated it would be a fantastic opportunity there and then.
Before embarking on the mission, they surveyed their friends and realized there was a lot of unrealized demand. People were already looking CrowdCow, all they had to do was make it a reality.
Crowdcow has the best assortment of meat and sea food in United States, sourced from local farms across the country.
They've built an entirely new supply chain for the quality and product that was not accessible in this way ever before.
Crowd Cow does not raise or butcher the cows, but they do take care of orders, picking, packing and shipping the cow bits.
Virtual inventory of cow parts is a lot more complicated than what is possible with traditional online commerce sites like Shopify, and this is part of the secret sauce that Crowd Cow had to develop over time in order to make sure that orders placed today can get to your door within a day.
The meat plans that have been setup to provide super-scale commodity state to the grocery story cannot work efficiently in the pandemic.
On top of that, home-cooked meals have increased dramatically as meals used to be consumed at home and at work has gone away.
People are looking for new solutions to their daily consumption, and Crowd Cow fits nicely into the new norm.
A startup is a multi-year adventure and you really want to ask yourself - Why are you doing this? Choose carefully.
Also, demand is the most important thing when you are starting out. Validate fast. Don't even worry about building anything. Pick up the phone and call people.
When it comes time to find investors, prioritize those that have founder empathy.