Replay: Inside Poppi's Early Playbook & The Moves That Led To A Big Exit

0:10Hello, friends. I'm Ray Lateef, and you're tuned in to Taste Radio, the leading podcast for entrepreneurs, makers, and innovators in the food and beverage industry. Before we hit play, here's the headline. Arguably the biggest in CPG in 2025, and one you already know. PepsiCo acquired Better For You soda brand Poppy for nearly$2 billion. What follows is a replay of a 2023 Taste Radio interview with founders Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, recorded back when Poppy was still firmly in disruptor mode, scaling fast, breaking rules, and taking direct aim at big soda. In the conversation, the Ellsworths trace Poppy's evolution from a scrappy gut health drink into a modern soda brand built for culture, not compromise.

1:04They discuss launching amid the chaos of COVID, betting early on TikTok, and choosing bold cans and great taste over health halo minimalism. You'll also hear a rare, candid take on founder ego, why they handed CEO reins to an experienced operator, how they professionalized early, and what it takes to really scale from zero to thousands of doors without losing the magic. Listen closely and you'll hear the blueprint for the PepsiCo deal years before it happened. A brand that tastes great, moves at the speed of culture, wins both online and in-store and isn't afraid to call itself soda again. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio.

1:50Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with the founders of one of the hottest brands in the beverage industry, that's Poppy. And that's Stephen Ellsworth and Alison Ellsworth as the founders. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Ray. Good morning. Good morning indeed here in Austin, Texas in a building or at least in a shared space called the Bond Collective. And we're in a podcast room studio. That's about, let's see, 10 by 10. Is that right? Sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah, we're close together. Which is great. You know, I like the sort of intimacy of this.

2:24It makes it feel like there are no secrets in this room. We have to share everything that we know and believe about the brand. And I'm going to hit you with some hard hitting questions that I just... We're ready for it, Ray. Let's go. No, no. Let's go. In all seriousness, it's been a long road. We last spoke for Taste Radio three years ago. We published that episode in May of 2020, very different time in everyone's lives. You have all since moved from Dallas to Austin. We did. And it is a beautiful place in Austin versus Dallas, but we just love Texas. Yeah, I mean, what precipitated the move to Austin?

3:01I think just the energy down here in Austin has been really nice. There's a lot of other founders, a lot of other companies in CPG, and the networking is just A+. Yeah, absolutely. It's really young-minded, very outdoor and active, very entrepreneurial. We love it. Absolutely. One of the other big things that's happened in your lives is that you had your third child last year. You were both at BevNet Live Summer 2022. With children in tow, was it just your one-year-olds? Yeah, it's interesting with our new one. And he's about a year old. And in his first year, he did fly with me about 20 times by the time he was six months old.

3:43So I think he was three months old last year when I was at Bevna. And he was at the hotel, like always. Different from the first year. He was actually at the show in 2016 when we did the showdown. He was like in the lobby. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So this time, our third one was with us, but we kept him at the hotel. Amazing. I mean, your children are still young, but do they know what you do for a living? Do they know that you're, you know, entrepreneurs? They do. And I said to my oldest one, I said, Theo, do you know that I love you? And he goes, yeah. And I said, how do you know that I love you?

4:17He goes, because you make poppy so good. That's really great. I think, though, on top of it, they know we make poppy. But then every time we go to the store, they'll pick up another beverage and be like, do you make this too? So, you know, still young at one, four and six, but love that we can represent and show them that they can build something. Yeah. And you're building something for them. I mean, you're building something for your family and you've been doing it for seven years now. It's probably it's hard. Yeah. Right. I know. Right. Because we look at it, you know, it's something we were talking about on the way here is Poppy launched in March of 2020.

4:54Right. So it's a little over three years, but really we've been in it seven years now. And so I think that doesn't go unnoticed to me and Steven, but Poppy's growth in general in three years has been insane. You differentiate between when the company was Mother Beverage to what it is now, Poppy. Big time. Yeah. And it is a very, very different kind of brand. It's a very different drinking experience. I mean, one was essentially, I don't know, like a tonic. Right. And the other, what is now Poppy is a soda. Right. But, you know, just thinking back to all that time of creating your initial beverage, having a production facility with Mother Beverage, and now running a company that is doing incredibly well.

5:35And I don't know if I you can share sales numbers at this point, but feel free to. It's got to be a trip. I mean, if just reflecting, if you can, what has been sort of the biggest learnings? What have been the biggest learnings over these past seven years? Yeah, I think from the start in the last seven years is it never gets easier. There's always an obstacle. But with that, it takes a lot of learning opportunities to get better every single day. And I think something with Poppy in particular, you know, with it launching in March of 2020, what was beautiful that we learned really quick and that we still instill today is being a digital first brand.

6:15When you launch, you don't have demos. You don't have any sampling opportunities really for the first two years of business for us. So it's been interesting because even in the last seven years on social digital has changed. And then even in the last three years, it's changed. So we're always changing, always getting better. You know, some of the biggest challenges for us, we launched during COVID. And I think the decision to move to aluminum cans was a great decision. But, you know, fast forward to COVID, aluminum cans were like the hardest thing to get. Right. You know, and so I think for us, Mother Beverage and Poppy are two very different businesses.

6:51And so it's been difficult for us to really build the supply chain during COVID and then also continue to put the pedal to the metal as the brand continues to just like accelerate it at rapid pace. One of the other big things that's changed over the past three years is your roles. Steven, you had been the CEO of the company when we last spoke in 2020. Your role is now chief product officer. Allison, your role or your, I guess your title is chief brand officer. How have those changes impacted how your day-to-day works? For me, I really get to focus on the things that I love to do. You know, Allison and I have formulated every product that's ever been launched.

7:35And that's really been a passion project. Like, you know, it's always been something that I've been passionate about. And Allison, actually, I pull her in and she's very much involved in that side as well. But, you know, from a day to day, I think Allison and I both recognize that we had something special here. And to say that I wasn't capable of doing it, I can't sit here and say, oh, I didn't think I was capable of doing it. But is there someone out there that's done it before that can scale the business quicker, that has relationships, and that can make fewer mistakes and ultimately cost the business less money?

8:11You know, that I can say, yes, there was someone out there that's done it before, you know. And so I think the great thing is, as Allison and I talked about it, and we talked about it with Ro and the board, and we went through a couple different people before we ultimately landed on Chris. but in part of that discussion it was really this this partnership where chris is ceo he's got the reins but as far as my involvement and really having a seat at the table it's it's very you know there's still that position for me so i think it's been really a really great transition you know there's some things i've i've honestly learned a lot from him but i think it's it's been really great.

8:52And what we've been able to do under his leadership over the last year has just been incredible. What it sounds like is that you're both leaders of the company, but the sort of day-to-day operations, the grind is in Chris's hands. I mean, the pressure. Right. Yeah. And I think sometimes I can imagine if I were an entrepreneur, I'd be like, yeah, great. You know, do it. You know, especially if it's someone who is a seasoned operator and someone who does understand, you know, the, I guess, managing the insane opportunity that Poppy has. All that being said, you know, understanding that you need to go from where you were when you launched Poppy in March 2020 to an organization that is aiming for 30 ,000 doors by the end of 2023 requires an understanding that you need to professionalize at every level.

9:44What did Poppy need, you know, past that first year, what did Poppy need in March 2021? Because that first year, so much of the business was direct to consumer, so much of it was Amazon, just because of the pandemic and just the difficulty in getting into retail. But how did you know and what did you think you needed to have throughout the organization and at different levels of the organization to get to where you are today? We just needed more structure, just like you scale supply chain, right? You've got to lay down some processes and structure as you scale the organization. So I think that that was the biggest thing that we, you know, saw as an opportunity to really professionalize the organization.

10:26We wanted to make sure that we had the right people on board. When you're, when you're young and you're starting up, everybody in the company has a relationship with the founders. So it's easy to like instill that in them and get them all fired up. And they're, you know, they're on mission, they're working for a purpose. We're building something together. And so I think people, you know, feel that they see that it's like this tight knit group. And as you scale the business, it's just not scalable. While we want to work with everybody and get to know everyone, we get to know them, but we don't work with them.

10:58It's just not the way you scale the company. And so I think that that was the biggest thing is just providing that structure, you know, so that people can ultimately be held accountable. We're no longer in this small situation where people are just fired up because they're working for the founders. They're now looking at Poppy as this once-in-a-lifetime career-building opportunity. So it's a bit of a different dynamic. And they're here because they believe in what we do. But there's also an element where they believe that this is a great opportunity for them as well to build their career. I would say, just for context, Poppy had two employees in February of 2020.

11:37And that was Stephen and I. Now, three years later, we have 100. You know, and then on top of it, we're growing at a rate that nobody really is seeing, including Rohan. We're growing faster than by vitamin water and Red Bull, Monster. No one's seen this kind of growth from zero to three years in such a quick time. So to put those processes in place so early on was really effective in allowing us to scale to where we are today. To that point, it was a joint decision to bring in Chris. We talked to the board. We talked to Rohan. It wasn't something that was like forced on us that I think is on a lot of other founders.

12:23And I think that's a lot of advice that we give to other founders is like it's almost like detrimental if you hold on too long. what that is, is that's your ego at the end of the day. And it's really, really hard because I wouldn't even say it was, it was hard. Yeah, it was really hard. It was a hard transition. But to have a seat at the table and be part of that transition is really nice versus being pushed out, not knowing what's going on, because that would be really, really, I don't know, just really hard. Yeah, for sure. And I think I think you said it best. It's like, there's been plenty of examples where a CEO is brought in for a turnaround situation, where the company is hemorrhaging cash, you know, velocities aren't what they thought it was going to be.

13:07Sales are based on new distribution as opposed to actual velocity gains, you know, and that just, it wasn't the case of Poppy. Things were trending in the right direction, path towards profitability, velocities are increasing, you know, so I think it was, It was a really good time. It's not to discount for, you know, like I said, for all of the other founders out there that it's not to say that it was an easy transition, but it was the right transition and it was the right decision ultimately for the business and ultimately for me and Allison and our family long term. When you say it was kind of a hard transition, was it because you had differing opinions about where the company or what the brand should represent?

13:47Or was it more about like business decisions, you know, what the company should be doing on the ground and in store? I think Chris came in right up front and said, look, I don't want to change anything here at Poppy. Something that he did really good was saying, I want to put three things in place, people, product and platform. He didn't care so much about like the vision and the sizzle, right? We have that. That's something that Poppy was really good at. And that's something that he valued in us as founders. So I don't think that that in particular was the hard part. I think it goes back to that thing and that dream you have as an entrepreneur growing up where you're like, I'm going to take this company and I'm going to run it and I'm going to see it be successful personally.

14:31And it goes back to that ego thing that I said earlier, like that is that what's best for the business? So that was the hard part because I'll be honest, Chris has been a wonderful partner and still allowing us to be poppy. And I think that was why we wanted to work with him and bring him on because he saw that value. Yeah, it was just all ego. Just being honest, you know. It's crazy as I dig into these things, it's really funny what ego can do to a person. You know, so I think if people can get their ego in check, I guess not to say that you become spineless and you don't have a backbone, but I think if you can get your ego in check, it just allows you to work more collaboratively.

15:12It allows you to hear others and what they're saying so that you can take the best of their idea, the best of your idea and come up with the greatest idea. Right. I'll be honest because both Stephen and I, we never had a real job before this in a corporate America where you're like reporting into people, right? You have that mentality. It's not true. Don't tell me what to do. Totally. And so that has been an interesting learning as well. And something that both Stephen and I have done is we've gotten executive coaches to help learn, you know, how to be a leader, how to be more collaborative. You know, what is an org structure and why is that important?

15:49Why is process important, right? Working through those things and we've put the work in and we're learning and evolving and it's fun. I love learning. I love actually process now, which I really never thought I would say that. But I think if you go at it with this like positive intent and attitude, it's just a lot healthier for honestly, your mental health as well. You even see this with folks, there's really two different sort of skill sets. It's like the startup mode, and build it to 50 million or something like that build it to 100 million. And then there's a skill set to scale it from 100 million and beyond, whatever that looks like.

16:27And so I think we're in this rare opportunity where we get to do both. And I think it's those people that are able to start something from nothing and scale it all the way through to the end you know you look at micropole like look what he's been able to do there's very few micropoleys out there you know and so yeah it's a great opportunity we're having tons of fun steven as you mentioned earlier chris wasn't walking to a business that was a turnaround project you were doing quite well in 2021 you were seeing strong velocities you know that transition from being a d2c brand into retail to being a retail brand was already happening and there There were signs that Poppy could be where it is, the kind of brand that it is today.

17:06What was driving that interest in the brand? Why was the brand resonating with consumers? Who are your consumers? And has that sort of changed? Has that evolved over the past couple of years? Yeah, so super early on, when we launched in March of 2020, there's a few things that happened that I think led to where we're at today. And one moment, I think, is we had an update on Shark Tank Air in April of 2020. And I always say, you know, how often is everyone sitting at home on a Friday night, but second month of lockdown, right? We had a national commercial and it was one of the most viewed Shark Tank episodes.

17:44Our website broke. We went from$9 ,000 in March to literally a few months later, well over$250 ,000. In the first few months, this is just on Amazon, right? On top of it, I think when the episode aired, we trended higher than Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump. We hit number one on Amazon's hot new product list. Like there was all these things that kind of just like started happening. And then what's interesting that's connected to that is in December of 2019, I downloaded the app TikTok. And this was honestly before a lot of people were even on the platform. And at the time it was, you know, everyone kept saying, oh, it's a bunch of young kids dancing.

18:23and then COVID hit and everyone got on the platform. And I was really lucky to have got on early as a brand. And I'll never forget Rohan and multiple other people like Allison, no TikTok, like Instagram, that's where it's at. There's no place for this as a brand on this platform. And I said, look, I'm not gonna take any resources from the company. I will do this on my nights and weekends. I just have to figure out what's going on here. There's just so much organic reach. This is different. So same thing. I just started posting. And within two months of posting, I had gone viral. Same thing. Went to bed, woke up the next day, had done over$100 ,000.

19:04We were sleeping. I think that video that I originally posted has 90 million views now. And I'm proud to say in the last two years, we have over a billion views on TikTok. Wow. So it was an interesting eye opener to one, a lot of other brands that are now on the platform, but it was to Poppy and it kind of changed the way we marketed the brand to the consumer. And what it has done is it allowed us to build this really insane community on an authentic level. They feel like they know us, they know Poppy, they know the employees that work here. If they're going to find out where to buy us, they're going to go to our TikTok and we We see it drive in-store velocities.

19:47It drives our Amazon business, but it's just a different digital first way of thinking. And it's just wild what we've seen happen. Yeah, Poppy, we like to say we move at the speed of culture. And I think because we have that mindset, we can connect with this Gen Z consumer. We can connect with the Gen Xennial consumer, the millennial consumer. All of those people are on TikTok. It's not just Gen Z. And so I think because, I don't know, that's just part of me and Allison's DNA. I think it's natural for us to move at the speed of culture and to really connect with people. That's what we love doing.

20:23So if I'm hearing this correctly, the big driver of interest in Poppy is that you're a fun brand. You're a soda brand for this generation of consumers. And I got to think, however, there's a taste component. There's a health component because both are very applicable to what you sell. You're a prebiotic soda brand. You taste great. But how do those two things factor into consumer demand and interest? Yeah, you know, we've done a lot of brand lift studies. We've done a lot of studies now to date to dig into who our consumer is and why they're drinking poppy. And consistently in every study across the board, the number one reason people drink poppy is because it tastes good.

21:04And that's intentional through everything that we do. Yes, we are better for you. We're great for gut health. We have all of these other amazing attributes, but it goes back to we're going after big soda. And to truly be a soda, you have to taste good. And I think the consumer, they're finicky, especially Gen Z, right? They aren't as loyal as say like millennials and baby boomers. And it's one of those things that if you taste good, that's why they're gonna drink you. And we do that through our marketing, through our packaging, right? with the beautiful colored cans and in store with the merchandising of it.

21:41But we're getting data back and 86 % of people that try Poppy moved to conversion, right? And then we have... Wait a second. Let's back up for a second. You say 86 % of people who try it, buy it. And then we have a crazy repeat rate of over 66 % after that. So basically, if you hear about it, You're going to move 86 % of those people are going to move to conversion to trial. And then after that, they're going to stick around at a really high rate. You know, and we see that online with our monthly subscribers to in-store. And I think it goes back to we taste good. They feel authentically connected to the brand.

22:23And the brand, at the end of the day, it's cute, right? It's the branding. It's part of fashion. It's part of culture. It's modern soda for the next generation. And it's now that it's time for disruption. And we're seeing it in culture. I think sometimes the simple is the most brilliant. It's not difficult to understand what you're selling. You use words that everyone understands. Soda, fun, and flavors that everyone knows. Grape is your latest flavor. But it surprises me sometimes when entrepreneurs make things too complex, make things a little too sophisticated for the mainstream consumer. with flavors that they may not understand, mainstream consumers, that is, with functional benefits that they may not understand, with sort of a staid and unfun kind of approach to branding and marketing.

23:15And if you want to go broad, if you want to go big, you can't do any of that. It's been proven over and over again, simple, easily understood, and great tasting sales. Think about poppy as a simple proposition or trying to make it as easy for a consumer to understand. Do you think that's as much of the genius behind the brand as anything? I do. And I think we had the benefit of old brand new brand. Yeah. Right. And those transitions were very intentional. We had a pretty heated conversation when we were going from glass bottles, white label to super colorful labels, design and cans. Right. That heated conversation included whom?

23:56Oh, just a few small personalities. Yeah. Yeah, we were split against like half were for the white and half were for the color. Because if you think of like the white, you think of like healthy halo. It's better for you. Apple cider vinegar. Founder story. I started this because of my health problems. Right. And then you have the color, which screams taste, fun, flavor, you know, all those things that you guys were speaking to. And I'm glad that the flavor and fun worked out. And I'm, you know, I say now I was I was wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it was very intentional that we took apple cider vinegar off the front of pack and we moved it to the back.

24:32And it goes back to meeting the consumer where they are. We want consumers to look at the packaging and pick it up because it looks amazing. We want them to then crack the can open and drink it. And they're like, oh, my gosh, this tastes incredible. And then as they're drinking it, they turn it to the side. Oh, my gosh, this has prebiotics. This has apple cider vinegar. Wait, only five grams of sugar? Like, this is insane. Sometimes there's a lot of consumers that if it's marketed and pushed to them as healthy, it's automatically it's going to taste bad. So it's basically tricking them saying like, this product tastes amazing.

25:05And oh, by the way, these ingredients are actually good for you. Not just the absence of bad, but also the presence of good. And I think that for us as entrepreneurs, we've always wanted to make a positive impact on the world. In order to make the greatest positive impact, people have to buy into it. If you have a product that's so hard to understand or the taste is so off-putting, how many people are ultimately going to try it? How big of an impact can you ultimately drive if it's not meeting the consumer where they are? And you look at all of the big beverage brands and it's they're 10 percent better than the competition, 15 percent better than the competition.

25:41You know, it's not like they're trying to throw the kitchen sink into a bottle and say, here, trust me, this tastes good. Like you're going to love it. You know, consumers just aren't going to aren't going to get there. But I think to your question earlier is like when we did first launch, it was all about gut health, right? It was coming off of the wave of kombucha. We were spearheading a brand new category, right? Functional pop. And back then it was a little bit more geared even when we first launched poppy to gut health. And now it's all about soda and taste and how anytime you drink, people ask us like, when do you drink a poppy?

26:17Well, when would you have a soda? If you have a soda at 9 a.m., that's when you drink a poppy. Is it with a burger and fries for lunch? That's when you drink a poppy. So even messaging across the company, we're actually doing a brand refresh on our can messaging right now, going through that. Because after three years, we have a lot of data and we've dug into the consumer and why people drink it with the number one bean taste. So we're really leaning in and we're seeing that we are being seen as a soda. That's a really interesting insight because soda had been a four-letter word. And it's come back to this place where, well, people still drink a lot of soda.