Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, A.
Speaker 2: Pool behind us, lots of people around us. There's a
Speaker 2: lot going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people drinking poppy too. Did you
Speaker 1: see that.
Speaker 2: I did see that.
Speaker 1: Lots of people are drinking poppy. You know, find a
Speaker 1: problem and fix it. That's the context of talking about
Speaker 1: this company.
Speaker 2: How many times when we talked to you venture capitalists
Speaker 2: like they say, that's what people have to do, that's
Speaker 2: how you have to think about starting a company. And
Speaker 2: that's exactly what our next guest has done. And sometimes
Speaker 2: it's a personal like problem or situation that leads you
Speaker 2: to creating an amazing company, one that actually gets bought
Speaker 2: out by PepsiCo for one point ninety five billion dollars,
Speaker 2: and that happened last year. We're talking about Poppy. Allison
Speaker 2: Ellsworth is co founder of the company, and she joins
Speaker 2: us here and uncharted. Welcome, Welcome, Nice to have you
Speaker 2: here with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, and hey, let's call it two billion right.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, we're round up. We're good.
Speaker 1: We're good.
Speaker 3: Round up.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of money. Tell us though, I love
Speaker 2: the backstories I watch these guys. Know Shark Tank a
Speaker 2: lot that was certainly something that played in But tell
Speaker 2: us about how you came to create this company.
Speaker 3: I think, like most great things, I created it because
Speaker 3: I had a personal problem. I had some gel gut
Speaker 3: health problems. I started drinking apple cider vinegar. Hated the taste,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to create something that tasted better. Have
Speaker 3: you guys ever taken a shot of apple cider vinegar? No?
Speaker 1: I have not.
Speaker 2: I know lots of people who have.
Speaker 3: It's disgusting. So I went to my kitchen and I
Speaker 3: created the first version of Poppy, went on to get
Speaker 3: a deal on Shark Tank, and now we're in every
Speaker 3: grocery store in the nation. It's wild.
Speaker 2: It is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: It's a really crowded space, and it's hard. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could walk in into any sort of convenience store
Speaker 1: or grocery store and those are the companies that have
Speaker 1: succeeded in getting the shelf space. Just getting the shelf
Speaker 1: space is difficult. How did you do that?
Speaker 3: In the beginning, we hired really smart people. So after
Speaker 3: getting a deal in Shark Tank, our network was opened up.
Speaker 1: So that's where everything changed.
Speaker 3: You bring in people that know the industry. Beverage is
Speaker 3: really hard. Someone downstairs just asked me they wanted to
Speaker 3: do a beverage, and I said, what, it's capital intensive.
Speaker 3: You have to have a lot of money. You're shipping
Speaker 3: liquid across the US, manufacturing shelf life. There's so many
Speaker 3: things that go into it, and you really want to
Speaker 3: surround yourself with smart people and the beverage industry small
Speaker 3: so network, network network.
Speaker 2: It's really about who you know in the beverage really,
Speaker 2: because you're fighting for shelf space essentially, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you're working with the retaillers and we
Speaker 3: were before the time, like we were calling ourself soda.
Speaker 3: We were revolutionizing sofa the next generation, and they were
Speaker 3: like that's hilarious, you know, And so they didn't know
Speaker 3: where to put us on the shelf stacks. Like basically
Speaker 3: we're in the sparkling water set. We were, you know,
Speaker 3: in enhanced water. They didn't know what we were. It
Speaker 3: was hard.
Speaker 1: Well, now, the idea of a functional beverage, like everybody
Speaker 1: kind of knows about that. You guys were early to that.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm curious what you see out the landscape
Speaker 1: right now that is missing, Like if you were to
Speaker 1: develop something right now, what.
Speaker 3: Would it be well, I am developing something right now
Speaker 3: and we're launching the fall to fit that gap. But
Speaker 3: it's what it is is it has to be better
Speaker 3: for you and not so better for you that it's
Speaker 3: just like people don't understand and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: adaptogens and all of these things. Protein is really big
Speaker 3: right now, but I don't know. Would you like to
Speaker 3: drink a carbonated protein drink.
Speaker 1: I've tried a carbonated protein drink. It wasn't easy to drink.
Speaker 3: It's tough. I'm telling you, I wouldn't do that, but
Speaker 3: I will say something that's just a little bit better.
Speaker 3: And that's what we did at Poppy.
Speaker 1: So have you figured it out?
Speaker 3: I have figured out we're launching in the fall.
Speaker 1: But launching as is right now? Or do you still
Speaker 1: have to iterate on the product? Now?
Speaker 3: We're loaded, we're hiring, we're going And it's one of
Speaker 3: those things that what we have so much we learned
Speaker 3: at Poppy from building team and scaling that, like why
Speaker 3: would we not do it again?
Speaker 1: Are you raising money for it? Are you bootstrapping it?
Speaker 3: A little bit of both? Right now, we're going to
Speaker 3: use our own money for about you know, two point
Speaker 3: five million or so, and then I would love to
Speaker 3: de risk and bring in strategic partners that can help
Speaker 3: really catapult the business.
Speaker 2: What are you learning about the marketplace in terms of products,
Speaker 2: types of products that people want today?
Speaker 3: You know, it's that movement within MAHA that we're really
Speaker 3: seeing no dies, no artificial ingredients. It like actually drives
Speaker 3: me insane when like have cheetohs or doritos and Pepsi's
Speaker 3: changing that, right, They're taking the dice out of it.
Speaker 3: So I think it has to be just ten percent
Speaker 3: better or thirty percent better. It can't be one hundred
Speaker 3: percent better for you. People still want full flavor. America
Speaker 3: likes flavor. It has to taste good and that has
Speaker 3: to be king. Taste is king?
Speaker 2: Is it more expensive to do things so expensive? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And without all these additives are.
Speaker 3: It really is cut And people get really confused around
Speaker 3: the word like natural flavors.
Speaker 2: Natural makes nothing.
Speaker 3: It's very confusing and how it's made and what are
Speaker 3: in the natural flavors? No, it is, but if you
Speaker 3: think of like, you're not organic, it's not non gmo.
Speaker 3: There's so many things that go into it. So I
Speaker 3: think it just has to be better for you. I
Speaker 3: do think non GMO is important and people are reading
Speaker 3: labels more than ever.
Speaker 2: Is it more expensive to do though, It's absolutely more expensive.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, artificial ingredients, all of those things are really cheap.
Speaker 3: But really what the most expensive thing is the packaging.
Speaker 3: The packaging more so than what goes into it, and
Speaker 3: then the shipping cost and all of that goes into it.
Speaker 1: We're speaking to Allison elsewhereth the co founder of Poppy,
Speaker 1: which she sold for two billion dollars to PEPSI. We'll
Speaker 1: call it that last year. She joins U at the
Speaker 1: Uncharted Summit.
Speaker 2: You can round it up. You are so right.
Speaker 1: You're doing this for a second time, essentially, and I'd
Speaker 1: imagine you learned a ton the first time you did this.
Speaker 1: What are you doing differently to get this product onto
Speaker 1: the shelves, to get into the hands of consumers, to
Speaker 1: get consumer and brand awareness across the country that you
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily know how to do until you maybe failed
Speaker 1: at doing this or found the right niche for it
Speaker 1: with Poppy.
Speaker 3: Where entrepreneurs fail a lot of times as they refuse
Speaker 3: to professionalize their business. So the first thing we're starting
Speaker 3: with this time as an ORG chart, we're seeing what
Speaker 3: can we do to build an incredible team around us,
Speaker 3: and you hire eighteen months ahead. You don't hire for now,
Speaker 3: and you don't let your ego get in the way
Speaker 3: of growth of like I need to do, I need
Speaker 3: to do every job. And that's one of the biggest
Speaker 3: mistakes the entrepreneurs do is they don't hire people smarter
Speaker 3: than them because they think they know everything. So for us,
Speaker 3: that's one of the biggest lessons is professionalize the business,
Speaker 3: bring in like incredible people and build a platform that
Speaker 3: can scale.
Speaker 2: What is it like to sell a business that's been
Speaker 2: you know, your baby and you created it and it
Speaker 2: was really personal for you. I've talked to lots of founders,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of them have their name on
Speaker 2: the company. And when you let go, you know, initially
Speaker 2: it's great because it's a lot of work, a lot
Speaker 2: of hard work, and your whole life is the business.
Speaker 2: But at some point it's like it's hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean essentially it was ten years of my life,
Speaker 3: never taking vacations. I had three kids while doing it,
Speaker 3: and then you're gone, right, the business has gone overnight.
Speaker 3: You're no longer in eighty hours a week and people
Speaker 3: don't talk about the post exit blues. It's a real thing.
Speaker 3: It's an emotional roller coaster. And look, money gives you
Speaker 3: freedom to do what you want, when you want, with
Speaker 3: whomever you want, but it doesn't give you purpose. So
Speaker 3: find your purpose and that's what we're doing again, because
Speaker 3: if you find your purpose, money will come.
Speaker 2: How soon did you have to find your purpose after something?
Speaker 3: I mean it took us. I've cy goll for like
Speaker 3: four months and then I was like, okay, I beat
Speaker 3: my husband a couple times. I was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 3: over this, and uh, you know, we had fun, but
Speaker 3: I've really missed the team. I missed the build. It's
Speaker 3: just the entrepreneurialism that people have. That's the craziness, right,
Speaker 3: It's why we do it.
Speaker 1: What's it like raising money this time around it? Because
Speaker 1: you don't I'm guessing you don't really have to be
Speaker 1: proactive about it. People are knocking down the door after
Speaker 1: an exit like that.
Speaker 3: It's actually like so many people are like bagging to
Speaker 3: actually invest, but for me, we are only going to
Speaker 3: take strategic money that can actually make a move. And
Speaker 3: it's when I say strategic, it's the network. It's how
Speaker 3: can we network in them.
Speaker 1: So money from a distributor, money from a company that
Speaker 1: could potentially.
Speaker 3: Retailers, people that can celebrities, influencers. Talent is a huge
Speaker 3: piece of how we skilled Poppy.
Speaker 2: But it matters because you want to be able to
Speaker 2: drive where you want to go.
Speaker 3: Correct, Yes and small right. I think I could probably
Speaker 3: call a lot of retailers and go into them really quickly,
Speaker 3: but I think you have to be intentional and build
Speaker 3: a brand, start and like those better for you retailers
Speaker 3: from the whole foods to the targets to the sprouts,
Speaker 3: and then really grow versus going so mass so big,
Speaker 3: which I think a lot of people could make a mistake.
Speaker 2: Sure, you don't want to make the announcement.
Speaker 3: Now, I know, not a great audience I love. Yes,
Speaker 3: I know, but yeah, stay.
Speaker 2: Tuned, Okay, we will come back. Thank you when you
Speaker 2: could make the announcement. Ellison Ellsworth, she is co founder
Speaker 2: of Poppy, joining us right here at Uncharted