Revenue Benny hit within two years, built by two college friends.
Julie Letizia and Paige Cey met in college at the University of Victoria with the same frustration: every energy drink on the shelf either wired them up and crashed them or was packed with sugar and junk. They could not find one that made them feel their best, so they decided to make it.
They built the drink they wanted. The two created Benny, short for benefits, a naturopath-formulated energy drink built on yerba mate for about 80 milligrams of caffeine, plus adaptogens like lion's mane and reishi, at only a few calories and a gram or two of sugar per can, designed for steady energy without the jitters or the crash.
The market agreed. Benny hit 1 million dollars in revenue within two years of launching, a real milestone for a young, women-owned startup, and landed Letizia and Cey on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Food and Drink list for 2026.
"They could not find the drink they wanted, so they formulated it themselves."
The most common startup origin is not a market analysis, it is a personal frustration someone refuses to keep living with. Letizia and Cey turned theirs into a formula, a brand, and a million dollars in sales, which is the whole distance between complaining about a category and rebuilding it.
This is the founder move ANF keeps spotlighting. The product you wish existed is a business plan. Letizia and Cey drank the proof.
Nothing on the shelf worked for them. So they put something better on it.
