He Took Nature’s Pantry From Side Hustle to a $3 Million Business

At age 20, Brian Lizama thought his future was in medicine. He spent his days learning pre-med coursework, memorizing formulas and studying the human body. He wanted to make his parents, who were first-generation immigrants to Los Angeles from Mexico and Guatemala, proud. 

However, financial pressures changed his life trajectory. Lizama took on a part-time job selling life insurance while he was still a full-time student, where he quickly realized he had a knack for entrepreneurship and sales. 

“I just knew I wanted to help people and make an impact on others, and at the same time, I wanted to help give back to my parents too,” he tells Entrepreneur in a new interview.

He eventually dropped out of college to pursue insurance full-time. By his mid-to-late 20s, he had climbed into leadership, first as a vice president and then senior vice president, managing more than 300 agents and working 16-hour days.

After over a decade in insurance sales, in 2023, Lizama walked away from a comfortable career to build a sea salt brand, Nature’s Pantry, out of his garage.  

The idea for Nature’s Pantry

Lizama dove into a wellness journey in 2023 and discovered that plain, purified water often lacks minerals that help the body absorb hydration. Natural sea salt, however, provides a natural source of minerals. He did research on the best type of sea salt for hydration, which led him to French sea salt from the Celtic region of Brittany. The salt there, he found, was rich in natural minerals and traditionally hand-harvested.

The problem was that Lizama couldn’t find French sea salt at local stores when he went searching for it. “That’s when I got the idea of actually creating my own brand that’s going to be able to provide that French sea salt to people everywhere,” he says. 

Nature’s Pantry started humbly: in his kitchen. Lizama, the founder and CEO of the company, ordered two pallets of French sea salt in August 2023. He and his father stood at the counter, hand-filling bags, weighing them and sealing them one by one. As demand grew, the kitchen operation spilled into the garage, and he brought in cousins and helpers to keep up with orders.

Early traction

Initially, Lizama viewed Nature’s Pantry as a side hustle, something small that could give people more natural ingredients in their pantry. But the early traction surprised him. By the second or third month of selling the product online, monthly revenue hit the mid–four figures, then low five figures. 

Within about two months of launching the product, in October 2023, he made a decisive move and quit his job in insurance sales. “Once I saw the results of it being sold online, and that actually, there’s a lot of demand for it, I went all in on this business,” he says. 

For years, fulfillment happened at home. Lizama operated from his garage until November 2025, when he finally moved into a warehouse in Paramount, California. “I didn’t see it going from something small in the kitchen to actually having a warehouse,” he says.

Nature’s Pantry now not only has its own warehouse where production happens, but it also has its own offices where its social media team and assistants work. The brand has expanded its offerings from French gray sea salt to HydroCelt, an electrolyte drink mix.

Scaling to 3,000 stores in a year

Growth came from aggressive outreach and an old-school sales mentality. Lizama walked into stores in person, educating owners about French sea salt, hydration and why natural sea salt differs from typical table salt. “Salt is different, you know, you can see it, you can taste it, you can touch it,” he says, contrasting it with intangible life insurance.

Face-to-face communication remains central to his philosophy: “Your excitement, your passion, and your belief in your product… that alone is a huge difference compared to just sending an email and hoping they’ll see it,” he explains.

One major inflection point was exhibiting at Natural Products Expo West in March 2025, where his team of six to eight people worked the booth nonstop. From that show, they secured distributors in Canada, Texas, and Chicago, and later partnered with national natural products distributor KeHE, which selected Nature’s Pantry as a “golden ticket” brand for its growth potential. Today, Nature’s Pantry is in more than 2,000 U.S. stores plus roughly 1,000 in Canada, for a total of about 3,000 locations. 

Hard lessons and advice for founders 

Rapid growth came with operational stress, especially in inventory. Twice, Nature’s Pantry ran out of product for weeks because shipments from France, requiring 12 to 16 weeks for production, packaging and overseas transport, arrived late. 

Lizama personally called retailers to explain the delays and promised to prevent repeats by ordering more aggressively and diversifying suppliers. “We have to have product now that we needed to order four months ago,” he says, adding that they’ve since secured relationships with multiple salt farmers to keep up with demand.

Lizama’s goal is to reach 20,000 stores by year-end. To achieve this, he is building a sales team to duplicate his early outreach, calling on markets across the country. “It’s heavy on the outreach,” he says. “That’s what helped us scale from a garage to now having a warehouse.” The company did $700,000 in revenue last year and is on track for $3 million in revenue this year.

Lizama’s advice for founders is to act before they have everything figured out. Rather than being paralyzed by not knowing every detail, he believes founders should move, learn from mistakes and refuse to let setbacks weigh them down.

“I’m a big believer in you take the shot, go for it and figure it out along the way,” he says.

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At age 20, Brian Lizama thought his future was in medicine. He spent his days learning pre-med coursework, memorizing formulas and studying the human body. He wanted to make his parents, who were first-generation immigrants to Los Angeles from Mexico and Guatemala, proud. 

However, financial pressures changed his life trajectory. Lizama took on a part-time job selling life insurance while he was still a full-time student, where he quickly realized he had a knack for entrepreneurship and sales.