Whitney Tingle was 25 when she and her childhood best friend, Danielle Duboise, started Sakara Life with $700 between them. The idea came out of Tingle’s own struggle with chronic skin issues — she’d spent years cycling through treatments before discovering that what she ate mattered more than what she put on her face, and decided the fix she wanted didn’t exist yet as a business.
So they built it themselves, with no funding, for four years. Sakara delivers organic, plant-rich meals designed around metabolism and gut health, blending nutrition science with older food traditions — a pitch that sounded niche in 2011 and considerably less niche a decade into the wellness industry’s mainstreaming. The company didn’t raise its first outside capital, a $4.8 million Series A, until 2015; by 2021 it had brought in $20 million total, including a $15 million Series B.
The bootstrapped years mattered. By the time Sakara took investment, it wasn’t a pitch deck — it was a business already doing real revenue, and Tingle and Duboise were negotiating from a position most first-time founders never get to occupy. Today, Sakara does roughly $150 million a year in revenue, is profitable, and the two co-founders have kept majority ownership of the company — a rarity at that scale.
Tingle has described the founding insight simply: “Discovering the power of plants completely transformed our bodies and our lives.” She’s since become a national best-selling author with Sakara’s debut cookbook, a certified holistic health coach, and co-host of the Sakara Life podcast — all extensions of the same core bet she made at 25, that credibility built slowly on an actual result beats a growth story built on funding alone.
Sakara isn’t a Silicon Valley story, and that’s the point. It’s proof that a wellness business can start as two friends solving their own problem with $700, refuse outside money until the business earns the right to want it, and still end up worth nine figures a year.
Frequently asked questions
What is Sakara Life?
Sakara Life is a company co-founded by Whitney Tingle and Danielle Duboise that delivers organic, plant-rich meals designed around metabolism and gut health, blending nutrition science with older food traditions.
How did Whitney Tingle and Danielle Duboise fund Sakara Life?
Tingle and Duboise started Sakara Life with $700 between them and ran it with no outside funding for four years, not raising their first outside capital — a $4.8 million Series A — until 2015.
How much revenue does Sakara Life generate today?
Sakara Life does roughly $150 million a year in revenue, is profitable, and Tingle and Duboise have kept majority ownership of the company.