Grüns is a US daily nutrition company whose flagship product is a single daily pack of gummies containing 60 ingredients, 21 vitamins and minerals and six grams of prebiotic fiber. Launched in August 2023, the brand was built on Shopify Plus from day one, with its founder personally creating the storefront, email flows, landing pages and subscription programme without an agency or development team.
Shopify's case study reports that Grüns reached a $50 million run rate within its first year of selling, became profitable in August 2024 and raised a Series B at a $500 million valuation in 2025. Subscriptions account for more than 90% of revenue, and the company now runs five brands, each with its own Shopify Plus storefront, while also selling a limited range in more than 7,000 retail locations.
About Grüns
Grüns was founded in 2023 by Chad Janis, a former private equity investor who began an MBA at Stanford in 2022 and launched the company from a Stanford dorm room. The name draws on the German word for green, which Janis encountered while living in Germany and Austria in 2012. He spent about a year formulating the product, contacting around 20 co-manufacturers before finding one willing to produce it. The company operates as Grüns Nutrition, Inc., employs more than 120 people, and the case study notes it has been acquired by Unilever. Its products are sold online at gruns.co and in retailers including Costco, Walmart, Target, Sam's Club and Sprouts.
The Challenge
Unlike many of the brands in this collection, Grüns had no legacy system to migrate. Its challenge was to build a high-growth ecommerce operation from scratch, with subscriptions as the core business model from the very first day. That meant handling high order volumes, encouraging genuine daily usage so that subscribers stayed, and doing all of this with a very lean team.
As the company grew, new demands emerged. Limited-time flavour drops every one to two months had to be offered to existing subscribers without friction. Fraud, including attacks from Amazon resellers, needed to be detected quickly. New sister brands required their own storefronts, email lists and subscriber bases, and the business had to scale past nine figures in revenue before it could justify a dedicated development team, so the platform had to remain manageable by non-specialists for a long time.
- Launch a subscription-first nutrition brand with no agency, developers or legacy platform
- Handle high order volume while driving daily product usage and retention
- Offer frequent limited-edition flavour drops to existing subscribers easily
- Detect and respond to fraud, including reseller attacks, in real time
- Support multiple sister brands with separate storefronts and subscriber bases
The Solution
Janis built the Grüns store himself in the six months before launch, using Shopify Plus as the foundation and adding specialist apps as needs arose. He has said that the core of the website he built in the first week still makes up about 80% of the current site's infrastructure. After the business passed $100 million in revenue, it moved to a hybrid model, adding a custom-coded, headless subscriber experience on top of Shopify while keeping Shopify as the commerce engine.
Shopify Plus, Payments and Shop Pay
Shopify Plus underpins every Grüns storefront. More than 90% of transactions are processed through Shopify Payments, and Shop Pay supports fast repeat checkout for a customer base that buys on a recurring schedule.
Subscriptions with Skio and Postscript
Skio runs the subscription programme. A custom feature built with Skio and Postscript lets subscribers swap their next shipment to a limited-time flavour simply by replying to a text message, turning product drops into a seamless retention tool.
Shopify Flow for fraud protection
Shopify Flow acts as a fraud-protection hub, posting alerts to a Slack channel when issues such as reseller attacks occur, so the team can respond quickly without manual monitoring.
An app ecosystem for scale
Klaviyo handles email, Gladly supports customer service, Junip manages reviews, Loop handles returns, Chargeflow addresses chargebacks, Social Snowball runs referrals, and Fulfil provides ERP. Passport supports international shipping, while Fivetran feeds the data infrastructure.
Multi-brand storefronts
Sister brands Nütrops, Immün, Jüced and a Kids line each run on their own Shopify Plus storefront, with separate email lists and subscriber bases under one company.
Implementation Journey
Grüns launched in August 2023 after a six-month pre-launch build in which subscriptions, email and landing pages were created by the founder. The first hire, about six weeks in, was a customer experience manager rather than a developer. During the growth phase the team layered in apps for reviews, ERP, returns, chargebacks, referrals and international shipping. Nütrops launched in late 2024 as the first sister brand, followed by further brands on their own storefronts. The company scaled past $100 million in revenue before hiring a dedicated development team, at which point it introduced the headless subscriber experience. It now uses Shopify Sidekick for operational insights and is replacing its landing page builder with native Shopify theme architecture.
The Results
The results show how a subscription model can scale quickly on a stable commerce foundation. Grüns reached a $50 million run rate within its first year, before its founder had graduated, and turned profitable in August 2024. More than 90% of revenue comes from subscriptions, and engagement is high: 80% of subscribers take the product daily, and around 96% use it at least four to six times a week. Average order value is close to $100, the company ships about 10 million gummies per day, and it has launched five brands on Shopify Plus. Janis credits the platform with allowing the company to scale fast without issues.
- $50 million run rate within the first year of selling
- Profitable by August 2024, one year after launch
- Over 90% of revenue from subscriptions, with 80% of subscribers taking the product daily
- Average order value of nearly $100 and around 10 million gummies shipped per day
- Five brands running on Shopify Plus storefronts
- Series B at a $500 million valuation in 2025
Key Takeaways for Growing Businesses
Design the model around retention
Grüns made subscriptions and daily usage the centre of its business from day one. Health and wellness brands can build more durable revenue by designing products, messaging and tools that encourage consistent use.
Keep it simple until scale demands otherwise
The founder built most of the site himself and only added headless custom work after passing $100 million in revenue. Growing businesses can delay costly custom development until it is clearly justified.
Automate operations early
Using automation for fraud alerts and text-based subscription changes let a lean team handle rapid growth. Small teams benefit from automating repeatable tasks before volume overwhelms them.
Technology Stack
Shopify Plus, Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shopify Flow, Shopify Sidekick, Skio, Klaviyo, Postscript, Gladly, Junip, Fulfil, Loop, Passport, Fivetran
This story is compiled by the ONEXT DIGITAL editorial team from public sources and is shared as an industry reference. Grüns is not an ONEXT DIGITAL client.
Sources: https://www.shopify.com/case-studies/gruns