An investor’s brutal feedback turned Poppi into a sensation
About Allison
- Co-founded Poppi; sold to Pepsi for $1.95B in 2025
- Turned a kitchen-made ACV drink into a Shark Tank success story
- Led Poppi's viral growth to 1B+ TikTok views and 400K+ followers
- Won BevNet's Campaign of the Year within Poppi's first 24 months
- Helped make Poppi Amazon's #1 searched soda
About Stephen
- Co-founded Poppi and sold it to Pepsi for $1.95B in 2025.
- Helped scale Poppi past $500M annual revenue in 2024.
- Turned a farmers market product into a global soda powerhouse.
- Led Poppi's digital-first growth, fueling breakout Amazon sales in 2020.
- Drove a bold Super Bowl ad bet that tripled brand awareness in 2024.
An investor’s brutal feedback turned Poppi into a sensation
Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, the founders of Poppi, formerly Mother Beverage, share how an investor told them their product was great but their branding was “s***”. Instead of taking it personally, they embraced the criticism, renamed the company, and credit that honest feedback as a turning point for the brand’s success.
Transcript
Note: Transcripts may be automatically generated and are not fully corrected for spelling, grammar, and formatting.
He was like, basically like, your liquid's amazing, but your branding is s**t. Rohan advised us that we needed to rename our company. Mother Beverage is now Poppy. Look at the difference. Like, what we've created is unbelievable. And we as founders, we're not, we were not, like, upset about it. We were like, cool, what are we gonna do? It wasn't like someone telling you your baby's ugly. No. That's not how it landed. No, because it goes back to the, like, us wanting to win peace. I think we knew our baby was ugly. Yeah. But the inside is what matters. The inside is absolutely what matters. Whether you can sell the inside without the outside of your story.
