Poppi Founder on Brand-First Growth, Shark Tank, and Going Viral
“People think there’s a magic sauce. Honestly, it’s the person. It’s the entrepreneur. It’s the idea. It’s the passion. It’s the grit.”
— Allison Ellsworth, Founder of Poppi
Allison Ellsworth didn’t have a background in beverage. She didn’t have an MBA or deep-pocketed investors behind her when she started brewing a health soda in her kitchen. What she had was a health problem, an idea, and a SodaStream.
Eight years later, she sold Poppi — a gut-friendly, apple cider vinegar-based soda — to PepsiCo for $1.9 billion.
In her wide-ranging conversation with Emma Grede on Aspire, Ellsworth unpacked the real journey behind the headline. No fluff, no overnight success — just a masterclass in founder grit, branding genius, and the modern playbook for building a consumer product company from scratch.
🚀 From Gut Issues to Grocery Shelves: Solving a Personal Problem First
Poppi didn’t begin as a business. It started as Allison’s attempt to fix her chronic health issues.
“I was drinking apple cider vinegar — and it tasted disgusting,” she recalls. “So I went to my kitchen and started mixing ingredients.”
Armed with Google, a scale, and a SodaStream, she and her husband started brewing batches at home. Within three weeks of selling at a Dallas farmer’s market, Whole Foods showed up — and Allison knew she had something bigger on her hands.
“I looked at my husband and said, ‘We're putting our life savings into this.’ We went all in with $90,000.”
🦈 Shark Tank Wasn’t the Plan — It Was the Lifeline
By year one, Poppi (then called Mother Beverage) had done ~$200K in revenue, all bootstrapped. But the couple was exhausted and broke.
“We had nothing left,” she said. “It was either Shark Tank or we go out of business.”
Allison pitched the business while nine months pregnant, landed $400K for 25% from Rohan Oza, and got a brutally honest but critical insight:
“You have a great product — but your branding is crap.”
That moment triggered a full rebrand, a new name (“Poppi,” a play on “soda pop”), and a colorful, joy-filled identity that helped define a new category: modern soda.
📈 Then Came TikTok — and a Virality Lesson in Realness
Allison was early to TikTok — and ignored everyone who told her it was “just dancing kids.”
She posted consistently for three months before one raw, makeup-free video of her telling Poppi’s origin story exploded. The next morning? $100K in sales on Amazon.
Poppi leaned all in. Today, their content has been viewed over 3 billion times on TikTok. A third of the platform has seen Allison’s face at least seven times.
“We were one of the first brands to take TikTok seriously — by not taking ourselves too seriously.”
🧃 Building the Brand Before the Business (But Not Forever)
Poppi was a brand-first company from day one — and it paid off. But Ellsworth is candid about the costs of being too obsessed with the aesthetic.
“We kept our expensive sleeved cans for a year too long — that mistake alone cost us over $15 million,” she admitted.
Lesson: Brand comes first. But you have to scale your operations and margins if you want to stay alive.
🧠 Scaling Smarter: Know What You Don’t Know
Allison brought in a CEO in year two. A CMO followed.
“I wasn’t good at process. And I shouldn’t be running a P&L, even if I can read one,” she said. “But I cried. A lot. Letting go was hard.”
She didn’t just survive the power shift — she thrived. Staying involved in creative, culture, and brand while letting others build infrastructure helped Poppi scale into national retail, run Super Bowl ads, and attract PepsiCo without losing its soul.
💰 Why She Sold (And Why It Wasn’t “Selling Out”)
In early 2024, Poppi sold to PepsiCo for $1.9 billion in one of the largest CPG exits in recent memory. Pepsi bought 100% of the company, but kept Ellsworth on as a creative advisor.
“Some people say we sold out,” she said. “But this is how we make Poppi a household name. It’s the American dream.”
And what did the freedom of that exit feel like?
“Freedom. That’s the overwhelming emotion. I can do whatever I want.”
🎯 Takeaways for Early-Stage Founders
- Test the product yourself — don’t outsource it until you understand it.
- Brand first. Then ops. Then scale.
- Virality doesn’t come from polish, it comes from truth.
- If you’re not a process person, find one. And trust them.
- Plan your exit from the start, including wealth management.
- Stay grounded. Make your money work. Then go back and build again.
🧃 The Most Underrated Advice She Gives Founders?
“Don’t lose your voice in your company. You started this. You know what you’re doing.”
Why Lyft CEO David Risher Thinks “Inertia, Not Uber” Is His Real Competition
