Luda's Dumpling

Background

Luda’s Dumpling is a family-made frozen dumpling brand run by Eugene. At the start, family members made the dumplings by hand. The brand sells DTC and through about 150 retail stores, with healthy order economics on six-packs. Its core community is Russian-speaking customers across the 16 states it can ship to by cold chain.

This was an 11-month partnership in two phases. The second phase is the part most case studies skip.

Phase 1: Diagnose and Stabilize (Jul–Nov 2025)

The problem

Eugene had six months of solid Facebook click-through rates but poor website conversion. Google Analytics was misconfigured: it showed 2 sessions against 41 actual purchases. The Russian-speaking community converted well, but on-site social proof didn’t reflect that.

Then summer hit. Insulation problems delayed packages, ad spend was cut from April highs to a minimum, and the business ran near break-even.

What we did

• Audience analysis. Buyers aged 35–44 dominated, while women aged 18–24 clicked but didn’t buy. We reshaped creative around the segment that converted.
• Creative format. In October we switched from video to carousel with better food photography. CAC fell from $23–27 to $15–18.
• Black Friday. A low-budget direct-offer campaign drove blended CAC well below target. Every Black Friday offer defaulted to a 6-week subscription.
• Email sequence for 230+ quiz respondents. Day 1: 15% off plus bestsellers. Day 3: five new ways to cook dumplings. Day 6: customer reviews. Then a subscription push.
• Fixes and expansion. Subscription emails were showing app-store branding instead of Luda’s, so we fixed them. As temperatures cooled, shipping expanded from 11 to 16 states.

Phase 1 result: MRR grew roughly 2.5× over four months.

Phase 2: Scale and Systematize (Jan 2026 onward)

The problem

Phase 1 worked, but operations were straining. By January there was a 174-order backlog from a missed production schedule. Email flows were broken in several places. The Facebook pixel was over-reporting: 224 events against 186 real orders from Jan 9 to 15. Blended CAC was above target.

Eugene wanted a real partnership, not weekly advice.

What we did

• Server-side tracking fixed Facebook over-reporting, so conversion signals became accurate.
• Checkout redesign. Shipping charges became visible up front. Price, checkout button and progress bar now sit together. Dedicated product and bundle pages took ad traffic.
• Subject-line testing. A discount in the subject line beat generic subjects decisively, so we restructured every campaign template.
• Instagram. One video hit 75K views against a typical 2–3K. We started organizing content by shoot date and message type to feed Facebook a wider range of creative.
• Retention dashboard (June 2026). Reorder timing showed clear spikes at 28, 42 and 56 days, matching the 4-, 6- and 8-week subscription cycles. One-time buyers spread across 40+ days, with most activity in the first two weeks. A day-36 spike lined up with second-shipment reminders.
• Daily digest. A 9 AM automated report with “3 things to know” and “3 things to do,” wired into Slack.

Phase 2 result: MRR roughly doubled over four months at the same CAC. Email went from $0 to a meaningful monthly revenue line.

Results

Over 11 months, Luda’s Dumpling grew MRR roughly 5× through two growth phases, each built on what the one before had stabilized.

“The daily digest is the first thing I check in the morning. Three things to know, three things to do — that’s how I run the business now.” — Eugene, co-founder, Luda’s Dumpling

Results are specific to this client and engagement, not typical or guaranteed outcomes.