A former teacher bootstrapped his protein powder company with $20,000 weeks before COVID. A forced pivot turned it into a seven-figure e-commerce business.

• Jack Schrupp always had a hard time digesting protein powder, so he decided to make his own.
• After years of refining his recipe, he launched Drink Wholesome as a side hustle in 2020.
• After overcoming several business challenges, he quit his teaching job to run the company full-time.

When former collegiate athlete Jack Schrupp couldn't find a protein powder that suited his stomach, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He bought a spice grinder and a small blender, loaded up on ingredients such as oats and eggs at the co-op market a mile from campus, and became a bit of a "mad scientist" in his dorm room. "I would make a powdery mess and, oftentimes, it was on top of a mini fridge — like in a bedroom, not even in the kitchen," the 29-year-old Williams College alum told Business Insider.

The taste "left a lot to be desired," recalled Schrupp, "but it didn't upset my stomach, and that's what mattered most to me."

He graduated in 2018, took a teaching position at a boarding school in New England, and moved onto a different campus, his protein powder equipment and ingredients in tow.

"I lived in the dorm and I didn't have a whole lot of privacy — as in, my life spilled over into the lives of my students and vice versa, so they knew what I was up to, and they were very interested. At some point in time, we had a little tasting, if you will," he said. "And that was honestly very helpful feedback because they are brutally honest."

Schrupp continued tinkering with his recipe, testing variations with honey, date sugar, and maple sugar.

Partnering with a local bakery and spending $20,000 on his first round of inventory

Schrupp figured that other people with sensitive stomachs might be interested in his product. After years of experimentation and recipe refinement, he decided to test his hunch and launch a protein powder company called Drink Wholesome in early 2020.

The first thing he did was cold call manufacturers and ask if they could make his product in bulk. He connected with a small, local granola company that did contract manufacturing for other local businesses, and they agreed to make his first batch in two flavors: mocha and peanut butter coconut.

"In hindsight, those are ridiculous flavors to launch with because, today, 80% of my sales are for vanilla and chocolate," said Schrupp. "But mocha and peanut butter were my favorite flavors. That's just what I liked the best and so that's what I started with."

His startup costs amounted to about $20,000, which he pulled from his savings.

"I didn't make very much money teaching, so it was a very significant investment for me," said Schrupp, who had a loose sales plan of pitching his product to local grocery stores and setting up booths at local sporting events.

Selling online was never on his radar, nor did he want it to be — until the Covid-19 pandemic forced his hand.

Overcoming the 2020 pandemic 'curveball' and the 2021 bird flu outbreak

Schrupp received his first round of inventory in February 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak shut much of the world — and his sales strategy — down.

"The pandemic really threw a curveball my way," he said. Two months into lockdown, "I really had not sold many bags at all, and I was genuinely convinced that I was just going to have to throw it all out and move on with my life."

What initially appeared to be a setback turned into an advantage: His inability to meet with customers in person forced him to turn to online sales. He started selling on WooCommerce and Amazon, and while his initial customers were all friends and family, strangers eventually started finding his product. As of 2025, 99% of his sales come from those two platforms.

As a small-business owner who's never sought capital from investors, he's grown to appreciate e-commerce, even though it's not his ideal way of finding and interacting with customers.

"It allows you to reach an incredibly large number of people with a small, finite amount of resources," said Schrupp. "E-commerce is incredible. What I will say, though, is it's not very rewarding. It's faceless."

His faceless customers kept returning, though, eventually wiping out his initial inventory. He ordered a second round — this time he made vanilla and chocolate flavors — in the summer of 2020. The next year, another unexpected event nearly put him out of business.

"In 2021, there was a massive, unprecedented bird flu outbreak that, almost overnight, drove the price of egg products up in some cases 500%," said Schrupp. "Because I was only selling egg white-based protein powders, my profitable business essentially became unprofitable overnight."

It forced another pivot: He launched a vegan, chickpea-based protein powder that he no longer makes, but it introduced the idea of diversifying his product line. He now makes an almond-based vegan powder and a collagen-based powder.

"Through the challenges, we've adapted, we've iterated, and ultimately come out better, more resilient, more flexible," said Schrupp.

Leaving education to run Drink Wholesome full-time

Schrupp never imagined his life as a full-time entrepreneur running his own business.

"I had this plan to teach for a while and then become an administrator and possibly even head of a school. That was a dream of mine," he said.

After three and a half years of juggling teaching and coaching with a growing business that was starting to feel more like a full-time job than a side hustle, Schrupp had to decide between the two career paths.

"I was doing too much, and I felt like I wasn't doing anything well — or, as well as I could have — and that was discouraging," he said. "I felt like I was just spread too thin. My life was very rich and rewarding, but I wasn't sleeping enough. I was very stressed."

In 2023, at the end of the school year, he quit to run Drink Wholesome full-time.

The decision wasn't challenging from a personal finance standpoint.

"I'd spent five years teaching at boarding schools with free housing. I didn't earn a lot of money, but because I didn't have to pay for housing, which is a huge cost, and I lived pretty modestly, I'd saved money and did certainly have a safety net," he said.

Plus, he could always go back to teaching if he needed to.

Based on the trajectory of his company, which did seven figures in online sales in 2024 according to screenshots of his sales dashboards viewed by BI, he won't need to return to a teaching career anytime soon — but he might want to.

"Running your own business is isolating and, especially if it's a hard journey, which it often is, you feel like you are doing it alone with no one to turn to for help or advice," said Schrupp, who works remotely from his home in Hanover and has one employee: his sister, who is based on the West Coast. "So I wouldn't say that entrepreneurship is like a hack or should be the ultimate goal for everyone. You should definitely, if you're ever considering it, take into account the loneliness that comes along with being an entrepreneur."

There are perks, of course — he says he's earning more money as a business owner and remote work allows him to travel much more than his teaching career did — but he's figuring out if the money and flexibility are worth it.

"It's not so much that I'm lonely, but I'm professionally lonely. That's certainly the case, and I'm OK with it for now," said Schrupp. "But I don't know if I would want to do this for the rest of my life."