From two suitcases in Paris to a $60K/month Shopify bakery: Building a macaron brand from scratch in the U.S.
A scrappy start, real customer feedback, and a focus on doing things in-house turned a simple idea into a fast-growing ecommerce brand – proving that product quality and smart execution still win.
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Meet the brand founder
Anthony Rosemond is the co-founder of Pastreez, a Shopify-powered macaron brand built on a simple idea: make it easy for customers to buy macarons that combine exceptional craftsmanship with smart, customer-first marketing.
The idea was born in 2017 in Paris, after Anthony’s first startup failed. Reflecting on what went wrong, he realized he had been building alone.
So he turned to his wife.
When he asked her what she loved, the answer was simple: baking. Anthony, on the other hand, was passionate about marketing. That combination became the foundation of their next venture.
Instead of waiting for the “perfect” moment, they made a bold move.
They left everything behind and landed in Los Angeles with just two suitcases, an Airbnb rental, one computer – and access to their host’s oven.
The early days were as scrappy as it gets.
They tested their idea at farmers markets and local meetups, baking macarons in small batches and speaking directly with customers. That’s where they saw it: real demand.
People didn’t just like the product – they were excited about it.
That was the signal they needed to keep going.
The first real win
The moment the business started to feel real didn’t come from a gradual increase in sales.
It came all at once.
When Netflix placed a $10,000 order for macarons, everything changed. It was the first clear signal that the brand had the potential to scale beyond local markets.
But that opportunity didn’t come out of nowhere.
The real foundation for early growth was built during those first months of testing.
Farmers markets played a crucial role. They allowed the founders to refine every aspect of the product:
Which flavors people preferred
What colors attracted attention
What price points worked
How customers reacted to different packaging
That direct feedback loop shaped not only the product but also the entire online experience.
When they later built their Shopify store, it wasn’t based on assumptions – it was based on real customer behavior.
How the business runs today
As the business grew, the roles between Anthony and his wife became clearly defined.
Anthony leads marketing and growth, while his wife focuses on production and product quality.
That division has allowed them to scale without losing what made the brand special in the first place.
One of the biggest recent milestones came from rebuilding their Shopify store.
After the redesign, conversion rates improved significantly – and sales increased by 63%.
Today, Anthony focuses heavily on:
Marketing channels and campaign strategy
Launching and promoting seasonal flavors
Improving conversion rates and customer experience
At the same time, the production side has expanded. As demand increased, the team brought in kitchen help to maintain quality while scaling output.
A typical week for Anthony is centered around one key lever: SEO.
Search has been a core growth channel since day one. The strategy has worked so well that the brand was even featured in a video case study by Semrush, highlighting its success in organic growth.
Leveraging experts, agencies & apps
Anthony took a very intentional approach to outsourcing.
He knew he wasn’t a developer – but he also knew exactly what his customers needed.
Instead of handing everything over to an agency, he used platforms like Upwork to find a developer who could execute his vision.
Because Pastreez required custom functionality – like a tailored macaron selection experience – working with a skilled Shopify developer became essential.
That said, almost all marketing has remained in-house.
The philosophy is simple: own the strategy, outsource execution only when necessary.
On the tools side, a few platforms play a critical role in the business:
Klaviyo – used for email, SMS, and even reviews, fully integrated with Shopify
Lucky Orange – used to analyze visitor behavior through session recordings and improve the website experience
Not everything worked, though.
Hiring external ads experts turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments. While many promised strong results, Anthony found that performance improved significantly when he managed campaigns himself.
The reason was simple: no one understands the product and customer better than the founder.
Big challenges
One of the hardest problems to solve wasn’t marketing or product.
It was shipping.
Macarons are fragile. Getting them delivered safely across the country required extensive testing.
The team studied competitors, ordered from other brands, and carefully analyzed what worked – and what didn’t. Then they improved on those solutions.
After about three months of testing packaging, materials, and processes, they found the right setup.
The result?
Nine years without a single complaint about damaged macarons.
That level of operational reliability became a major competitive advantage.
Advice to brands on their way to 7–8 figures
Anthony’s advice to founders is direct and practical:
1. Do as much as possible in-house
The more you understand your business, the stronger your foundation will be. Relying too heavily on agencies can slow learning and reduce control.
2. Own your strategy
Never fully hand over your business direction to an external partner. Even when working with experts, stay involved, ask questions, and challenge assumptions.
3. Treat every expert as a learning opportunity
If you do work with agencies or specialists, use that experience to build your own knowledge so you can improve results over time.
At its core, the philosophy is simple: learn, execute, and stay in control.
What’s next for the brand
Looking ahead, Pastreez is expanding beyond just written content and SEO.
The next step is building a stronger presence on YouTube.
After seeing how effective SEO has been for driving traffic to their Shopify store, the team is now creating video versions of their blog content to reach a broader audience.
The goal is to turn their knowledge – not just their products – into a scalable growth channel.
From a rainy Airbnb kitchen in Los Angeles to a growing e-commerce brand, the journey of Pastreez shows what can happen when product quality and marketing discipline come together.
And in many ways, the story is still just getting started.
Meet the experts behind brands like this
Scaling a Shopify brand takes more than a good idea – it takes the right people, systems, and partners at the right stage. Meet the experts who support brands like this on shopexperts.com