‘Fraternal Twins’ Turned Business Partners
Saika Esani and Veni Peter, who founded Lizzie’s Gourmet Grains, met in Houston in March 2024 during their first week of classes in Rice University’s MBA program.
“We clicked immediately,” says Esani, COO. “A few people there started calling us ‘fraternal twins,’ which
honestly tracks — same energy, very different back stories.”
Esani, a first-generation college student born in Mumbai, India, studied biology, microbiology and infectious diseases in college. Peter is a three-time entrepreneur who studied computer science engineering and claims to be a “startup junkie.”
“[Saika and I] bonded over our business dreams in a class called New Enterprises by Michael Sklar, which is
essentially a real-life simulation of founding a business. It was phenomenal!” adds Peter, CEO. Named after Peter’s middle name — Elizabeth — Lizzie’s Gourmet Grains was founded in January 2025. The company makes high-
protein, ready-to-eat, savory dips with 30 grams of protein per tub, clean ingredients and multiple flavors. Learn more about the co-founders and why they started the business.
Veni Peter and Saika Esani founded the company.
(Courtesy of Saika Esani and Veni Peter/Lizzie's Gourmet Grains)
Before starting Lizzie’s, what did you do for a living?
Esani: Short answer: ‘corporate slavery.’ Detailed answer: medical affairs and pharma compliance for six years.
Peter: I worked at Amazon in financial risk management and went on to become a CEO of a telepsychiatry startup for five years.
Where did the idea for Lizzie’s come from?
Esani: Here’s the honest version: I was picky. I was obsessed with protein, and everything that existed either tasted like medicine or required me to cook. Protein has a formatting problem. Shakes, bars, meal prep; none of it fits how people actually live. And ‘healthy’ food has spent years optimizing for macros while completely ignoring whether anyone actually enjoys eating it. Lizzie’s fixes that. We make high-protein, ready-to-eat savory dips with 30 grams of protein per tub, clean ingredients and flavors like Garlic Parmesan, Neapolitan Pizza, Green Goddess and Chimichurri. They taste like a real dip. Creamy, indulgent, familiar; not like a supplement.
For almost 10 months, we were at gyms, fairs and fitness events giving away samples and having real conversations — over 3,000 of them. Most feedback was positive. But the signal that told us this was real? Someone looked at us and said, ‘I need this now.’ That’s a different category of responses.
There are roughly 40 million regular gym-goers in the U.S., many spending hundreds of dollars a year on protein snacks. We’re going after an about $25 billion market, and it’s accelerating with GLP-1 adoption. People are eating differently. Protein needs a new format. We built it.
Why was Lizzie’s founded?
Esani: Veni and I bonded over a shared hatred of bland food. That sounds like a joke, but it’s genuinely where this started. We both wanted to eat well, enjoy what we ate and not have to choose between the two. The protein snack industry had been adding protein isolate to
everything and calling it innovation. It tastes like it sounds. We wanted to actually do it right with real ingredients, real nutritional science and food that doesn’t make you feel like you’re doing penance for enjoying your life.”
Peter: We are essentially tired of a crappy protein, and so is the market. We would be fools not to partake.
How did you secure initial funding?
Esani: Rice’s accelerators, OwlSpark and LILIE Launchpad, believed in us when we were just an idea. They gave us our first real push, and being in that ecosystem opened a lot of doors we didn’t have to knock on twice. Veni also put in personal capital to get things moving.
Peter: We also got a lot of free resources through Rice’s ecosystem that helped move us along.
Where can I purchase Lizzie’s Gourmet Grains?
Esani: We’ll be in Houston gyms’ 24 Hour Fitness locations very soon. Direct-to-customer online is coming shortly after. Subscribe to our list if you don’t want to miss it. Subscribe online: Lizziesgourmetgains.com.
How would you describe the success of the business today?
Esani: In the U.S., we have 15 flavors, and we’ve finished longevity testing and initial user validation, and we’re ready. We’re looking for a small, nondilutive funding push for go-to-market, and then the plan is simple: Be in every fridge that matters.
“In India, we run a separate brand called Doc&Chef, which currently sells high-protein pasta. That one is already making revenue — getting venture capital interest — and just landed a significant government grant from India to fund research and development. Two markets, two brands, a lot of momentum.
Anything new or exciting coming for Lizzie’s?
Esani: We have a whole binder of ideas, and not enough hours in the day. Right now, our dips are vegetarian but not vegan, and we have heard enough demand during our discovery conversations that we’re developing an experimental vegan flavor. Join the waitlist if you want first dibs. We’re also close to creamy, high-protein soups. That one’s going to be good.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Esani: Build emotional resilience before you need it, because you will need it. You can have a great idea, execute well and still get rejected — sometimes all in the same week. That’s not failure, that’s just the process. Love your idea fiercely. But not so much that you stop listening. The moment your conviction makes you deaf to what the market is telling you, you’re done. The job is to hold both at the same time — total belief and total honesty.
Peter: Get someone who isn’t obligated to be nice (but not someone who hates you) to listen to you pitch. Give them your idea, your business, what have you, and let them ask you the hard questions. If it’s something you can defend against the attacks and really sell, then you should MVP [minimum viable product] it immediately. In the era of AI, there is literally nothing you can’t find out. It is a truly phenomenal time to start a business — about anything.