LOPEZ ISLAND, Wash. — On a blustery afternoon in December, Scott Meyers mingled in a pasture with a herd of black cattle, sweet-talking them as if they were family dogs with a weakness for flattery. He scratched their backs, hugged them and rattled off their names: Chocolate, Fudge, Honey.

From these pampered creatures, Mr. Meyers produces grass-fed Wagyu beef, celebrated for a buttery flavor that comes from the Japanese breed’s intense fat marbling.

It used to be that to get beef from Mr. Meyers’s Sweet Grass Farm, customers had to order it directly from him in freezer-busting quantities, like a 30-pound variety pack or a quarter of a cow. Then they had to pick the meat up on designated dates at one of two locations outside Seattle, or take the 40-minute ferry ride to this island.

But about a year ago, Mr. Meyers connected with some Seattle tech entrepreneurs who had just created a start-up called Crowd Cow. The online service sells whole cows from small ranchers, divided into manageable orders, usually about 10 to 12 pounds, and delivered to homes as frozen, vacuum-sealed cuts. The beef from Mr. Meyers’s first animal sold out on Crowd Cow within a couple of hours.