Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur Paul Shrater co-founded Minimus.biz, the consumer products e-commerce startup in 2004. Shrater quickly grew Minimus.biz to be ranked in Internet Retailer’s Top 1000 highest grossing B2C e-commerce businesses in the U.S., and top 300 in their B2B ranking. Minimus has received several awards for customer service.  It has also shipped fruitcake to the International Space Station... twice. 

Shrater leads the third party logistics (3PL) division of Minimus that provides fulfillment services for other brands (MinimusFulfillment.biz). The company works with many high profile celebrities, startups, and mid-sized brands in food, beauty, apparel, and more.  It's entrepreneurial approach uses a "micro-warehousing" setup where the teams of pick/pack staff have their set of clients so they intimately know each of the brands they are working on.  And, the company provides public-facing customer service for many of its clients. 

In 2008, Shrater launched Minimus Products (MinimusProducts.biz), an organic and kosher certified contract packaging company that provides food, beauty, supplements, and personal care packaging services to numerous brands via its own facilities and over 80 pieces of equipment. It has unique wide-ranging capabilities to package liquids, powders, and particulates into packets, stick-packs, bottles, jars, bags, cans, and more.  

Expanding further, in 2017 Shrater launched the Minimus Distribution company (MinimusDistribution.biz) to bridge a growing gap in foodservice distribution and its need for nimble distribution support – signing on several of the world’s largest food brands (and new smaller brands) and large national operators and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to support their distribution needs. It current services a program that distributes snacks from disadvantaged brands owners to hundreds of corporate, university, and hospital cafeterias around the U.S.  

In 2024, Shrater partnered in the DigitalCommerceAgency.com, an agency working with creator/celebrity talent and consumer products brands to support their e-commerce and live-selling presence on TikTok. Shrater works directly with TikTok corporate executives to help grow the TikTok Shop program in the U.S., and is focused on bringing a sense of entertainment and storytelling to the traditional high pressure approach of online live-selling.  The company also operates its own live-selling production studio.  

Minimus Brands (MinimusBrands.biz) was launched in 2019 to support the growing desire among celebrities and creators to own equity in brands via leveraging the Minimus family of companies operational infrastructure and ability to develop innovative products through its network of inventors, food scientists, chemists, and global manufacturers. One of these is Drink from Home at DFHCocktails.com, alongside celebrity Ariana Madix.  

As an investor, Shrater grew the startup Ink-Eeze, to become the tattoo industry’s top brand in the world, selling his stake in the company in 2017 for a significant return. And, in 2016, he invested in a groundbreaking supplement brand, Stabilicinn, developed by a prominent biochemist who holds over 30 patents on cancer drugs, that launched in Q4 of 2019 and has been available nationwide at Vitamin Shoppe. 

Shrater is a co-owner of The Clean Art Collective, a collection of artists doing print art for major national retailers; and more.  Their specialty is to create customized artwork based on the needs of the retailer.  With their pulse on the art community and consumer behavior, they have had great success increasing the sell-through rate at one major national retailer through selecting the art to be offered in the stores. 

Early on in its evolution, Minimus grew additional expansion divisions in the promotional products industry (MinimusPromos.com) that provides custom kitting services for other brands. In 2010, Shrater was named to the promotional products industry magazine’s Hot 40 list of innovators to watch in the industry.  

Shrater has brought his entrepreneurship to the non-profit The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education with the creation of HeartMindBox.com where the program acts as a fundraiser for the Center.  
Shrater is also on the board of Homes for Generations of Ventura County that is a non-profit land housing trust that works with low income housing, and has served on the Thousand Oaks General Plan Advisory Committee to help provide input to the City's General Plan that will be the guide for the City Council for the next 25 years.