The Best One Yet - 🥤“Unlimited Free Samples” — Poppi’s co-founder Allison Ellsworth interviews with TBOY

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Allison Ellsworth ditched the oil industry to fix her gut problems. After getting a check from Shark Tank, she launched Poppi with her husband and co-founder on Mar 3, 2020. 5 years later, she sold Poppi for $2B to Pepsi. In this episode, Allison will tell us…How a Texas oil gal pivoted to healthy soda Going on shark tank 9 months pregnantWhy they sold on amazon instead of DTCWhy Alix Earle loves PoppiTheir lottery ticket Super Bowl ad that opened for UsherWhy 5 thousand people send hand-written messages to Poppi every monthThat they give away 30k cases of free Poppi every year #Vendinggate and her only apology to her fans How Pepsi offered to acquire Poppi for $2BWatch the interview on Youtube here: [insert YouTube link]NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yeties, this is Jack. And this is not just Jack. And this is Nick. We got a special guest here, Nicholas. So good. This feels so good. Yetis, Nick is back, baby. Oh, yes, I am.

And yes, we are. This is just fantastic. I'm so excited to see Jack. You're glowing right now. I'm not glowing right now. So yet he's, Nick got back from the hospital over the weekend. He's had, what, like 36 hours to say hi to Molly, catch your breath, get some sleep, react to the non-hospital lifestyle.

I actually measure everything in doses of oxycodone, Jack. I mean, Jack, this is Liberation Day. Finally out of the hospital, feeling great. And Yetis, Jack and I are busy right now preparing Tuesday's show daily as usual three fantastic stories. But Jack, why don't you tell the Yetis what we planned for today? Okay, so we did an amazing interview with Allison Ellsworth, the co-founder of Poppy, the soda brand that just sold to Pepsi for $2 billion.

We were going to drop this episode during our vacation, but we're going to give Nick an extra day to get back into the swing of things. So Tuesday's pod will be our regular programming, but we basically promoted this interview episode to today. So enjoy today's best interview yet. And in the meantime, Jack and I are cooking up tomorrow's tea boy for you. Nick, it's amazing soon. I cannot wait for tomorrow's show, but this interview pod is also the best one yet. Jack, before we go, just a quick thank you to everyone who sent in the insane. insanely kind messages and texts and DMs over the last few days.

It was so meaningful. It's amazing having your back, dude. Thanks, Jack. And thank you, Jack, for all your work. But Yetis, we're going to hit a few ads, and then we're going to start the best interview yet with the co-founder of Poppy Soda. So you had all that Shark Tank momentum. Why did you pause at that moment?

So it's probably our biggest fight. And I want to say, like, either in business, but probably in our marriage, too, honestly. Poppy has close to 3 billion views on TikTok. A third of the platform has seen my face seven times. It just hit the wrong algorithm on TikTok, let's be real. And then it just went absolutely viral. There's a lot of things that people don't know when it comes to soda. There's crazy contracts.

We couldn't get into stadiums. Do you know that we're the official soda of the Lakers and we can't even sell Poppy there? Such like a risk versus reward. Like that was very high risk for a company to do. And the reward was insane. or awareness overnight. I will be honest, I was wrong. I had to admit it.

I was absolutely 100% wrong. Yeties, your ears, and your stomach will both thank you after this interview. Because our guest today pioneered an entirely new category, prebiotic soda. Alison Ellsworth launched Poppy based on a gut feeling. Literally. And get this. When she pitched the idea on Shark Tank, she did it nine months pregnant. She pitched, she won, and then she gave it.

birth to a unicorn. With $500 million in sales, Poppy is now the biggest healthy soda brand. And with an ad in the Super Bowl, she's making Dr. Pepper drool. This product is so viral. It needs its own talent agent. But it's so bold, they'll mail you a car-sized vending machine that only distributes Poppy. Mr. Wonderful said that Poppy would never sell for more than $50 million. But she just sold to Pepsi for nearly $2 billion. He was right about the exit, but he was right about the exit. But he was Who's wrong about the price? And Allison built it all with her husband, Stephen. I mean, co-founder, Stephen.

Their last date night, it was also a board meeting. So besties, please welcome the goddess of the gut, the founder of Fizz. The disruptor of Dessota. Allison Ellsworth is the co-founder and chief brand officer of Poppy, and she's about to spill how she did it all on this pod. So Basti's grab a straw and a napkin. Because today's interview with Allison of Poppy is the best one yet. Yes, it is.

That was so epic. Allison, thank you for jumping on the show. Congratulations on all your success. You're glowing right now. You look fantastic. So great to be here with you, Allison. I'm so excited. I've been a fan forever.

This is just almost as exciting as selling my company. That is the highest compliment. Exit level. That is exciting. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. We're huge fans of yours as well. And your product.

But to kick things off, you and I have something in common, Allison. Yeah. We both have three boys. We do, which could be a pro or a con. I'm still working through that right now. The question is, are we going for four to see if we can get the girl finally? But who knows? Polly is my girl and I am okay with that.

Well, actually, at what age did you let your kids, your three kids, first begin drinking their first poppy? I mean, immediately the second. Yeah, I mean, like before they were one, it's what they know as soda is poppy. I guess the question to reframe it, Allison, is, did you ever put Poppy in? a bottle. You know, didn't go that far, but maybe I thought about it twice. You know, Jack, this had me thinking before. I don't even know how I shared this with you, but my parents were early pioneers in healthy sodas as well. Allison, they used to serve us on Fridays, something called must soda. Are you familiar with must soda? No, enlighten me. Well, it's half milk and half soda.

It's pretty simple right there. You should have given a trigger wanting next. Why on a hurt? It's like a dirty soda. No, that's like a trend now. Dirty soda. Your parents were just ahead of the times. Yeah, they were. You know, you don't have to pay them a licensing fee if you want to run with M-Sota at all. They haven't prayed marked the name. We should point that out. So, Alison, what kind of a kid were you? Were there signs that you would start and build your own company one day? No, I'm the youngest kid in my family. I would definitely say that I got along with everybody. I was happy. I was not crazy over ambitious. I just always knew that I never wanted to, like, work for a big corporation. I kind of just beat my own drum even as a kid growing up.

And did your parents have entrepreneurial tendencies themselves? My dad is like a serial entrepreneur and I've seen him make lots of money and lose lots of money and then do it all over again. And it really was about the build. And I think he really instilled that into me where it was like I wanted to do something I was really passionate about when especially starting poppy versus doing it to get rich. Yeah, Jack, there's something funny there. I think we've seen before, which is I don't know what it is I'm going to create.

I just know I don't want to work for somebody else. It's the best gift ever. But then little do people know, once you scale to a size you are, you end up having to work for other people when it comes to boards and all those things. So it doesn't last long. Now, Alison, you did end up working for a corporation though, right? You started in the oil and gas industry. You were a Texas oil gal, right? I was a Texas landman or I say land girl.

But, yeah, I traveled on the road for almost seven years, but you kind of don't answer to anyone, right? I would be in small teeny towns in the middle of Utah and Wyoming, and I'd be the only one there. So it's kind of like working for yourself. Okay, but this has to be like one of the most extreme jumps we've ever seen on the show. So big. From oil and gas to health and soda. So to frame this, I guess, is a cringy LinkedIn post. Alison, what did oil and gas teach you about starting a beverage company?

It basically taught me to be a self-starter. So I was negotiating at a very young age. I mean, I'm talking like 20 years old, 23-ish, with the BLM, the federal government, the local city council, you're working with landowners, business owners. So at a really young age, I was managing multi-million dollar projects. And it was just like absolutely wild. So I think I was able to take a lot of that and implement it into what we did with poppy. Was there any specific experience in oil and gas? Because full disclosure, you know, I have friends from business school in oil and gas and jack does too. But we don't have close friends in oil and gas. Like what is a day in the life of an oil and gas sales gal?

Well, it's actually... Were you swimming in the Permian Basin? No, but you know what? I was in the bottom of a courthouse learning about the history of the U.S. So I would like find out who got the land back in the 1800s and I would follow them forward and then I would get to meet their families

and then we would negotiate to come on their land to do activities and seismic and drilling. And you learn about the lineage and you learn about uncles and aunts. The craziest thing is when I would find out people would have an uncle or aunt they didn't even know about. There's just like family ancestry

It's like so wildly different than what I'm doing now But I think it's why I started a poppy though At the end of the day Was because when I was traveling on the road Doing this for seven years is when I didn't feel good When you're living in hotels, small towns And then it kind of made me want to go to the kitchen To fix what was going on with me

The Hampton and Waffles weren't doing it They weren't sorry Waffle House But Jack I'm seeing a connection here between meeting people on oil and gas fields and influencer marketing, I'm going to hold it and save it for later in the episode, but we will come back to it. I see a connection here. I love it. Alison, let's step back in time to 2015. Your first product was called Mother, and you sold it with your husband, who was your co-founder, at farmer's markets, and you manufactured, bottled, and distributed everything yourself. How did you get from idea

to selling your first bottle? Jack and I are always curious about the zero to one. Like, what was the key step? in the idea to I'm drinking this. I think it was you asked for help. So when we were at the farmer's market, there was a booth next to us, and it was a brewery. And they were like, you could make this product

just like we do it in brewing beer. And he literally took us over to his facility, told us what equipment to get, and we got bright tanks and we ordered them from China. And we were just like hustling anything we could do to make it quicker. We were bottling it during the week ourselves.

We were selling on the weekends, working second jobs. but Google is a beautiful thing. You can literally almost figure out anything on the internet now with chat, TBT and all these things. The resources are endless. And I think if you're passionate and you're an entrepreneur, like you'll literally do anything to make it happen. But, Alison, you know, Jack and I jump in T-boy style. We do so much research on the guests before the show.

And you are kind of selling yourself short because we should point out, I think you'd like had just got it married. You were pregnant. You just bought a house. You'd quit your job. and here you are, both coming up with a concoction, you're basically bending your whole lives that in your kitchen, you will create your future. I love it.

She's also noticing that the problem that she's solving for herself is probably a problem that lots and lots of other people have. True, true, true. That was a key. Honestly, I had like neighbors being like, can you make this for me? And I was doing mason jars. And look, I had a great career in oil and gas.

I was making more than I ever made a poppy with my salary. And it was like one of those things that I wanted to share. I saw the need and there was a gap in the market. Like at the time, I had not seen anyone do anything like it. And really Whole Foods approached us pretty early on. And they even told us nothing like this is in retail. When you kind of get those affirmations along the way that there's this gap and that no one's doing it, it kind of kept me going. But yeah, it was harder.

We were pregnant. We just bought a house. We put our life savings into this. It was rough the early years looking back. But I love the grit and I love the drive. I think all entrepreneurs are a little crazy. Yeah, Jack, it's like we always. say being different is better than being better.

Like, Allison could have created a better kombucha or like a better healthy, but she started with something that no one else was doing. And it's almost like that key part of your DNA, that ultimately became your ultimate competitive advantage. Really cool that Whole Foods was an early believer. I know that Texans love Whole Foods. Were you in Austin at this point? It's a Texas company.

I was in Dallas. But it's funny when we first launched it, we kind of did think we were our sister to kombucha. So some of our early flavors were like lavender, lemon and orange cinnamon. and really in that world. And then now that we're a soda, we're orange soda. We're grape, right? Yeah, cream soda. We've definitely evolved over time from like the mother to poppy days

where it's definitely a sister to kombucha. Yeah, you repositioned it. Exactly. But the big brick, the huge brick that we all saw and like 10 million other people saw was Shark Tank. Allison, you were on Shark Tank. I was. And you were nine months pregnant.

You had your baby 10 days after the taping. No big deal. We watched the episode. You ended up taking a deal with Rohan for $400 grand at a $1.6 million valuation. After Mr. Wonderful called you a cockroach, we should point out. Yes. Can you give us the behind the scenes on what Shark Tank was like for you and your co-founder? So for me, since I was so pregnant, yes, I know if I went into labor on national TV

and it made great TV. But for me, I was like, I have to stay calm. So I remember just being backstage so calm and being collected while my husband and the other co-founder, sweating bullets. Like, if you watch the episode, he can't even watch this day. He's like sweat on his life. It's wild. Yeah. And of course they edit it to make you look more nervous because you, it's five minutes of airtime where you're in there for like 45 minutes, right? And they're just screaming questions at you. Yeah. And you're just like shocked half the time. But it was funny because I didn't think that we were going to get a deal, even going and we needed a deal, right? We did not

go on the show to do it for the exposure. Like, we needed a partner. And, And they matched me up with Ro. So Rohan knew he was going to be on it. We didn't know. So I kept being like, why haven't I filmed it? I'm so pregnant, you guys. And they're like, well, it's this one date. And honestly, I would have had my baby in L.A. and been just fine.

Like, that's how much I believed in this product. I was nervous because I thought you were targeting the investor, Bethany Frankel, who has her own beverage company as a real housewife of New York. And she passed. Biggest regret ever. Yeah, I bet. Does Rohan have a background in Sotis? So his big background is.

CPG and beverage. So he's been, you know, part of, he worked at Coke. He was part of buy in vitamin water. And now he has an investment fund where he invests heavily in CPG. So he kind of had like a track record. So really, once we dug into it, he actually was the better shark. And I actually like the guest sharks because they don't have hundreds of deals, right? So you get a little bit more of their time and energy, whereas I think he totally maybe did like six deals on multiple, season. So we really got a lot of his time. It was nice. You know, do you prepare for this like it's a venture capital meeting with Andreessen? Or are you preparing for this like it's a movie opportunity with Brad Pitt? Like, did you and your husband go in knowing exactly what numbers you were willing to do?

Or what was the thought process? We ran through every scenario. What is like your max ask? Like, we wouldn't have sold 50% of the company. I think we did do our max. But I will say it's all about the numbers. If you go in there and you don't know your numbers and you can't account for, you know, gross versus net or what's your burn, like you, if you don't know that and you can't say it really quicker, what are you manufacturing a year and what's your, you know, how many people are drinking it? Where's your market? What is your, you have to know that information. I always tell people that ahead of time and I've mentored a lot of people now since to get on the show and you have to know your stuff going in because they're going to step in and partner and they're going to help you

get the manufacturing and get in the big retailers of the world and stuff like that, but you have to know your business. You got to know your numbers. It's amazing the scene where you two look at each other and you're like, let's do a deal. We don't even pause. Spoiler. I mean, that's so freaky. Because when people ask Nick and me like to do a deal or are we cool with something that's related to our business, we look at each other. We always look at each other and we're like, we're going to call you back. We're going to email you back. We hate having to answer on the spot. But you you guys had to answer on the spot. Did you hold hands when you said yes? Honestly, we didn't even, we didn't even take a beat, you guys.

Like, looking back, we probably should have negotiated. I've watched a show so many times, and they definitely, like, we probably could have done something. But I don't know. I just, I always say, you know, you don't want the, you don't want to hold on to it. Like, I really, it would not have been a $2 billion exit without us doing that deal and what it was at the show. So, totally. No regrets. Well, after that, you did something insane.

After all that hype and momentum in a successful Shark Tank episode, you paused the business for nine months to pivot. Recall this your Princess Pivot. Literally. Because Cinderella style, you did a full makeover. You changed every detail of the product down to the glass slipper. You changed everything except the drink itself. So you had all that shark tank momentum. Why did you pause at that moment?

Because I think at that moment, what a lot of people don't realize is you can have a fantastic product. but if you don't have a brand, it does not matter. Right? You can't go mass. You can't go big. And look, we had great liquid. We had a great founding story. We had a need state that people needed.

But our brand was total crap. Honestly, that was like one of the first things Rohan said to us. He said it in a different way. It was a lot not as nicer. I don't think I can cuss on here. Because your brand was mother kombucha adjacent in a glass bottle. Yes. And we wanted to go mass soda, right?

And so when we saw it. all that, we wanted to do the work of understanding who we are before you launch. And I think a lot of people launch a product and they're like, we'll figure it out later. And then you never get to it. So we're like, who is our consumer? What are we talking to? What is our mission? What is our purpose? What is our brand? How do we want to show up? And so when we came out the gate, we knew and it just, I mean, Poppy is just exploded. You started what you're describing for our listeners is a brand strategy. And when Jack and I spun off our show from Robin Hood, we started with a brand strategy too. And I remember, you know, this is a little insider thing. We don't share this

publicly typically, but the North Star words we created in our brand strategy, the guiding words, there are five of them. But the most important one for us is brighter, as in our show makes you feel brighter, smarter, and brighter happier. So that has been... Your North Star. Yeah, exactly. It's our North Star word. When we're launching merch does make us brighter. When we do a takeaway, does this make you feel brighter? If we're doing a partnership brighter. Is there a North Star word you guys use internally? Oh, 100%. So ours is we are revolutionizing soda for the next generation and we give people the freedom to love soda again at its best. And if it doesn't work within that, yes, we can be creative. We can be disruptors, we can things. But if we're not

doing it in a modern way and like a revolutionary way, but we have to be lovable within it. We have a whole brand house where, you know, who is our muse and who are we talking to and how do we not her our core audience, right? We're always having these conversations, which is definitely heavy branding, but that's obviously what I do at Poppy. You are the chief brand officer. You know what I love about Poppy. You're up front and honest about the amount of sugar in your drink. It's right there on the can. It's so important. The number of products that sneak sugar into there and you don't even notice it until you look at the ingredients list is so annoying. Why does peanut butter have a whole bunch of sugar in it? But Jack, I don't know if you're getting at this, but wasn't there a big fight between you and your husband about sugar?

Oh, man, you guys really dug. Because that was a controversial strategy choice about sugar. Okay, so it's probably our biggest fight. And I want to say like either in business, but probably in our marriage too, honestly. But I started it out of like health reasons. And I was like, sugar's the devil. You can't have sugar in it. But then we got some advice really early on.

We did a competition. and we want it. Everyone's like, look, this is great, but if you want to go mass, you've got to make it a little sweeter. And we... A little. Just a little, a little bit, right? A little bit goes long going. And it was a game changer. Because we used, like, with the fruit and the stevia and the cane sugar, really just gave it a full flavor soda taste. Makes this different than a sparkling water or a kombucha. You have to taste like soda. So he did it one day and didn't tell me. And then basically I got upset. And then I will be honest. I will be honest. was wrong. I had to admit it. I was absolutely 100% wrong. Best decision we ever did. But it is our North stores. We don't go past five grams. So that is something that's very important to us. And it's like a core RTVE that we always stick to. That's such a challenging thing as an entrepreneur. Because you basically, what you're saying is you had a principle, which was zero sugar. That is my principle. But then you saw this kind of practical element, which is, well, that's massively limiting

our market. And maybe just a little sugar doesn't actually compromise my principles. Yeah. And I think change is really hard as an entrepreneur. If anything, it's maybe the hardest to, one, ask for help or change. But there was a lot of change over Poppy, and I got used to it real quick. Let's just say that. It's still way less sugar. And like I said, it's transparent about the sugar. And that means a lot to me. Because again, I go to Dunkin' Donuts. We have it on the front. If I don't say anything, they'll dump sugar in there. I did not ask for that. That is not the thing I ordered. I ordered a coffee. You want the donut too. Come on. Yeah, you can get the sugar in other places, it's true.

Exactly. Now, Alison, one thing Jack and I found fascinating as we're looking at the macro perspective on when you are building this company is that at the time, everyone was doing three letters, DTC, direct to consumer. That was what was hot as we were going through business school. They were selling directly like Casper and Alberds through their own websites. But you didn't. You did the opposite, right, Jack?

You immediately started selling on Amazon, which was really. really successful for you. But why did you choose to have Amazon as the middleman? We had a lot of conversations at the beginning, what we should do. And Amazon is such a key piece to being successful Omni Channel in retail. So if someone is in a Whole Foods, for example, and they're going up and they see a new product, a lot of times they'll open up Amazon and read reviews. So we saw it as a marketing engine, which a lot of people look at Amazon as like, how do you make money? It's a beast. You need a team. But we saw this as this, this can be a really key thing that's in basically over 80% of households have Amazon Prime.

I bet that number is even higher. And we just made that decision day one to not have that internally. And it was the best decision. We are the number one sold on Amazon. And we've been that for over two and a half years. Wow. Yeah. Is there data that Amazon gives you that you actually put back into the company or the product?

In what way? Do you see certain trends, certain geographic trends, different demographic trends, different demographic trends. Who's buying? Who's not buying? What flavors work? What don't? You know, we have so many systems in place. Amazon, they're a little bit, like, hard with the information that they give, but they've been really great partners, and we have numerator. We have all of these things that we use to help us, but I will say we've just never looked at it as this huge engine. It's a marketing engine. So we've run like a ton of ads on TikTok, and we drive them all to Amazon. If you go to our website, you check out on Amazon, right? So we know function.

of D to C at all, but we play a lot into Walmart.com and Instacart. And we look at it as like the full like online. And how long was it after you launched in Amazon that you got a major national grocery chain? Unless you already have Whole Foods. Well, we launched March 3rd, 2020, the first week of COVID, which was really hard because all of the grocery stores were more concerned with getting toilet paper on the shelf than putting on new products. So we did have national rollouts and Whole Foods.

sprouts and a few others, but they had put them all on hold. So thank goodness we had loaded into Amazon because we would have been at a standstill where we had an update on Shark Tank Air April 3rd. And it was such a game changer because everyone was stuck at home, second month the lockdown. And we hit hot new products list. We went from like 2,250,000. It was like crazy on Amazon what we were seeing. And everyone was like pantry loading off Amazon too. It's almost like you made this bet while direct to consumer companies. companies were looking at profitability, their scale was limited. And today we're seeing the challenges of that. You made the opposite bet. You gave up some profitability early on, but for the

benefit of reaching a wider audience. Yeah. It was our modern day way to get our product out there because events were off the table. You couldn't do in-store demos. There was nothing, right? So it was Amazon. Yeah. So sorry, just to get the timing, you said in April, your Shark Tank episode published. So they held on to it for like nine months until. Well, we had filmed an update on Poppy and the branding. Because right, we were, so we had our original episode and then we filmed an update that aired that was like, hey, look at the rebrand with Poppy. So we had a national commercial like month two in business. And it really opened our, it opened our eyes on how you can be digital first, right? Like how a lot of brands wait, you wouldn't run a linear ad. You wouldn't do

stream. You wouldn't do anything like that. But it was like month two, it was like boom. eyes open. The awareness was through the roof. So we just leaned in. Such an exciting, but also scary and anxiety-inducing time. I like it. Pandemic is just beginning. Everyone stuck at home. You launched on March 3, 2020. In April, you get your Shark Tank episode two, basically. And this is when everyone is at home scrolling their phones and watching their screens. And things just take off for you. And it starts with social media. That was key.

early success, right? Can you tell us your first viral video? We heard it led to $100,000 in sales. Is that true? Yeah, overnight on Amazon. And at this point, when we finally went viral, I'd been on the platform for maybe three months, really pushing it. And at that time, we were finally on the shelves. We had launched in a ton of retailers. And, I mean, it cleared the shelves as well. So it's unbelievable. We just got to repeat that for a second. You posted one video after three months of being on social, that drove $100,000 in sales, that's got to be the highest ROI on a social post industry. Not 100,000 views.

$100,000 of sales. Someone has to be aware and then go find it and then buy it and consume it. Like, wow, what was the kind of early learning from that social post? Like, did that feel like a one-off? And what was the social post? So the three months of posting, I was doing like recipe videos and I was dancing. I was doing whatever it took to get poppy out there. let me just tell you.

Early TikTok, crazy place. It was a while, well, West. It was awesome. And I sat down one day and just told my story. Honestly, it was that simple. And it was just being authentic and transparent and real that broke through. And I think that was a lot of brands who weren't doing at that time, right? You had Instagram, which was almost like your second website that was high gloss, perfect, no video, right?

Instagram didn't have video at the time, really, reals or anything like that. So it was the first time I was able to just put myself out there. I had no makeup on. My hair was wet. And that video now is over 300 million views. And just for context, Poppy has close to 3 billion views on TikTok. A third of the platform has seen my face seven times. So it's like actually bananas. Was there any like visual or editing or graphics? It was just me on my couch after I just put my kids to bed. It's really that simple. And you basically said, I'm Allison. I had gut issues. I started a product based on Apple side of Ridinger. Yep, I went on Shark Tank. You mentioned something interesting here, Allison.

Maybe we can pull on a bit, which is you said Instagram was more polished than TikTok was. So that's a different platform. Do you need a different approach to different platforms? 100% you do. And if you don't look at it completely different within your content strategy, you will not be successful. And as a business, you have to start leaning into these things like really early on. But now, I mean, the platforms and the algorithms are always changing. So the way that we look at Instagram, it is still a little bit more high gloss.

We don't put as many videos. We don't post every single day. Whereas on TikTok, we'll still post four times and a day and just be goofy and do trends and team. And it's just like a more authentic real place that you can be. But then like YouTube, that is a beast to do long form video. Like, I mean, it's unbelievable. The editing behind it. That's a whole other content strategy.

Then you have X. Then you have Reddy. Then you have Twitch. Like, it's all different and you've, it's like a whole industry. It's wild. For the founders who are just getting started and don't have, let's say the resources are time or the track. So you're dedicated strategy to each platform?

Do you recommend that they just focus on one or one, two, three? TikTok. And then if you can, then Instagram. And I'm sorry for the meta users out there. But I will say it's a place that I was able to get on personally as a founder, a mom of three. I'm 38 years old, y'all. you can do this to get on there and just start posting and telling your story and build your community from the beginning because it doesn't have to be perfect. If you don't know your logo, get on and ask. You might get two views, but guess what I have over two billion views now. So it's like I think it's easier platform to get on. Whereas on Instagram, you can just do, you know, website high gloss kind of keep up with it and eventually go deeper. Something I think is encouraging to our listeners and to anyone who's thinking about getting on social media is what you consider.

a successful post. We've heard that six seconds is all it takes for you to say that was a great post because the average viewer watched it for six seconds. That's a huge win. It is six seconds. Six seconds sound so small though to most people. Yeah, how can six seconds of a one-minute video be considered a vid, a win? Just because you've got to capture that attention. And honestly, that is like the standard. Like if you can get someone to watch for six seconds, which is so wild, so they'll say maybe make a seven-second TikTok, right? Do a video. Do one with a hook. And What I love, and I'm going to ask you guys this, have you ever gone on TikTok and scrolled down someone's page a long way and like really gone way back in? No one does that. Never. Never.

Never. Never. So posts a video 17 times with 13 different openings. No one will know but you. Yeah. You're saying use TikTok as your own personal test lab because no one's going to judge you or find out. Yeah. It's highly anonymous, I guess, in that sense. It is. It is. Can you break down poppy's usually leading pioneering system for influencer marketing and celebrity marketing. I think in the first years, we didn't spend a single dollar on a paid ad. We did not have a PR firm. We were maybe doing some Amazon ads. But where we saw the best return on our investment was in people and building community.

And I think that's what people forget. At the end of the day, these content creators and influencers have community that are following them for a reason. and they are thought leaders and trusted voices. I think a lot of times we look at the creator space and we're like, these are just people being goofy or dancing or doing this. But they're like actually people that people look up to. And we just recognize that really early on. And another piece is when we were doing it during COVID,

everyone was stuck at home. They wanted a healthy product to post about. And so we were able to send out that was a huge part of our marketing list is just sample, sample, sample. We have a high frequency product, right? you drink it, you give them 50 cans, it's going to be in the fridge for a bit, you give them five cans, well, they're going to drink it, probably not post about it, right? So it's one of those things that, like, still to this day, we have an unlimited sample budget.

Anyone ask for it? We have samples on samples on samples, and it's a huge piece of how we've built that. And so, and then who we decided we wanted to work with, like, if we would send it to them, they'd post it, we'd be like, oh, you're an actual fan. And I think that's a big piece to you, a big learning is don't just work with people that are cool if they don't like your product. It is so unauthentic and it comes through to their audience, right? That was a really big learning. And then I think another one was once we found people that just really loved us, take like Alex Earle, for example, she's just like the TikTok internet queen.

She's a business buddy. She's doing all these incredible things. She started posting us in college. She was along for the ride. Like we knew she was a fan. And now she started to blow up. We were like, this is such a natural fit with us being such a social digital first. So we found like, minded creators that we could work with, right? And one other key fact is we do it all in house. So a lot of people use agency. They try to, they don't know your brand voice. They don't know how to know your brand like you do. And so we have a whole influencer team that works with our social team. We have ambassadors. We have pre-bri-bri-party people. Like, it's like this whole ecosystem that we've built and kind of pioneered to your point. I love that. Costco Kirkland, like,

eat your heart out on the free samples. That is the ultimate for you. sample strategy. I wish my local ice cream company had an unlimited sample budget. It's a right off. Is that one of the bigger expenses at the company? It's actually not. Because they have to get shipped, too, and like shipping samples for a heavy product like a soda. So we've hacked it where we actually have Amazon fulfill it all. And so we have it on the back end. We've worked out. I mean, it is a full system and the way that we are able to do it on our sample site. We can even fulfill it to events. and certain things with Amazon. So we've really utilized that system to kind of work in our favor. So basically, Alison,

you're running two businesses here. You're running the profitable, you're running the profitable poppy business to sell the cans, but you're also running an entire operation to get free samples in the hands of people with big followings in an authentic way.

It's modern day field marketing, you guys. It's no longer do you want to stand in a grocery store and give 30 samples out so like four people can buy it. Right. you get samples out and you get to the events. If anyone, we probably get probably 5,000 handwritten letters a month. We have someone dedicated to respond to send samples out.

We have a college team. We have a dedicated three-person college team responding to all of our college students, sending them product to their sorority, to their chess club, to their whatever it is. Like, we are fulfilling that to become college's favorite soda. Wow. We are intense. Pause the pot. Jack, Jack, you and I prepared so much for this, did not expect this free sample angle.

This is incredible. Do you have a metric on, you know, one can given away equals X future cans of sales? So that's something that I feel like we've always done really well at Poppy is not being so strict on tying it to a metric. We are not a performance brand in any way or thinking. We've always been about brand awareness and community and brand building. And so everyone's like, well, do influencers work? Are you really tracking your EMV? Are you doing these things? I don't know, but it's cute and it looks good. like it's a vibe. Like that can be a metric, right? And so I think that's important in the same way with the samples is we are fat fingered with that keyboard, sending that stuff out. And it's, it's working. Like, it's just working. Our community is so loyal. So we're going to double down

and continue to do it. I'd like to ask some advice. If Nick and I launched the Nick Bar and the Jack bar, the best bars yet. Or the Nick and Jack energy drink because we get a lot of DMs around how you guys get your energy without caffeine. How do you recommend we figure out who to give samples to? So events is a logical place to start. Like events where your target customer is going to be. But how else? Social media. We hundreds of DMs we're sending out.

We reach out to every influencer. We are commenting on other people's posts. We have a whole community management, whole influencer team on keyboards 24-7, seven days a week. Literally like it's wild. Being like, do you want poppy some your address? Do you want poppy some your address? I just want to point out, Jack,

is whipped out a pen right there and is taking notes for all of our yet. He's listening, not watching on YouTube. There it is. There's the future Nick and Jack Energy Drink Business plan. Quick on the, but on the opposite side of that, there is a flip side we should talk about Allison, which is, you know, Jack and I are covering earnings reports every day and IPOs. And we've noticed in the S1 IPO paperwork, increasingly, companies are referring to influencers as a risk. They're adding that to the risk section. Remember, Casper Mattress did that a couple years ago. I think they said, you know, influencers can essentially make or break the company. We've

said before on the show, you can live by the influencer, but you can die by the influencer. It is a risk. So Jack and I were wondering, has the influencer marketing strategy changed? Has that market evolved? Does it feel less authentic because so many are doing it now? Like, where do you kind of see it in its own evolution? So there's different levels of influence. And you have like your micro, your macro, and then like your super macro influencers. And your sweet spot's still going to be in that 10 to 50K to 100K because that community, it's still authentic. So that's going to be like on your less risky. end. And then at the end of the day, someone over a million isn't going to necessarily move the

needle. They'll bring a lot of awareness. But that's going to be probably when you're more risky because there's more eyes on them. And so, but we're looking at this constantly. People are getting canceled cultures like insane. And I just think that we're, we're really good at picking and moving at the speed of culture and understanding this. And we're aware of this conversation. And we almost have it every single day. And I think those that are naive to it are probably the ones that are going to get in trouble. Okay, so related to that, you know, another story we covered on Poppy this year was an unintentional marketing moment, or maybe it was intentional. You know, you've taken some big risks, and one of them was sending vending machines to influencers. Some thought that that was a move that was

out of touch. There was a whole bunch of comments. Others thought it was a badass move, and it was incredible. It created some beef with your rival Oli Pop 2. Was the vending machine marketing stunt worth it? We call it vending gate. And, you know, it's so funny, like, looking back on it, we really learned a lot from it. So I started Poppy in My Kitchen. We built such a community on our story and that authentic realness that we talked about earlier. And then now we're doing Super Bowl ads. And now we're a big brand.

Like, we are a household. We are no longer, like, a Challenger brand. We are an iconic brand going on modernizing sort of the next generation, right? And people, there's something about when you make that shift of small hometown brown to big brand. Yeah. The people don't, one, they feel like you've betrayed them or like, wow, you got too big, you sold out. It's like this interesting shift that we kind of see when it happens to everybody. So when we decided to do the Super Bowl this year, we send out vending machines.

And for me, thinking about this, we are a soda company with vending machines. Like, if, like, you just say that out loud. It's just a normal thing that soda company's been doing forever. Totally. And so we did this, and we didn't realize it was out of touch because we thought it was cute. We're going to host some Super Bowl parties. And then we were going to have those vending machines in our arsenal for years to come, to replace and put in college campuses and all of these things.

And I think people, it just hit the wrong algorithm on TikTok, let's be real. And then it just went absolutely viral. And it was a good lesson to kind of get back to our roots and realize that. that shift. Well, Allison, it's interesting hearing you talk about it because we thought it was an exciting move because, like you're saying, as a company you've matured, and we should talk about your Super Bowl commercial in a moment. And Jack and I want to talk about it. But, you know, there are companies that typically do Super Bowl commercials that wouldn't have pulled a risky move like that. And there's something to be said about, you know, having the guts to try something

different and be willing to take on that risk no matter what happens. At the end of the day, you got so much publicity on it, the comments were the content. It was amazing how much it blew up. So we kind of like the idea that you aired on the side of taking a risk with it. I mean, just a few months later, Pepsi came knocking. I wasn't personally stressed because I remember when the team was all sad and talking about it. I was literally sitting in the room with the CEO of Pepsi and it's like going viral and it's doing all these things. And I... Pepsi was probably jealous that they weren't in the conversation. No, they were like you guys. This is totally fine. It's part of big business and doing these things.

things. But I will say, no, I think it's the internet is a fickle place. Like, you never know which way it would go. I think if we would have done it probably the first time we did it, it probably wouldn't have happened. But I think it was just excessive. It's timing. It's like read the room vibes. But I do think the thinking going in, a soda company placing soda vending machines, there was no harm or anything that came of it. But it's a different one. So it sounds like there was some element of like regret. Did you express that? to your community at all? Yeah.

It was the only time I ever went online and was like, hey, I hear you. You know what I mean? Which I think was really important because I've put myself out there. I am the face of and for me to not do that, I think would have been really unauthentic. And, you know, I don't think we've had anything ever at Poppy.

Like, we have such an adoring community and fan base. And then I think our biggest competitor getting involved in the conversation and always kind of riding our coattels through everything that we do, literally. also added a little gasoline to the fire. Yeah. And I'll say it goes back to your brand strategy of lovable.

That's your North Star Word. And like, if you have lovable is your North Star Word. I mean, Jack, I guess that's what you do. You come out and you make a video that's authentic explaining the situation. Face it head on. But can we talk about the Super Bowl ad? Which one? Well, let's go to the first one.

You graduated from social media marketing to a Super Bowl commercial. The Super Bowl. But it's a wild story. How much did you pay for it? How did the results compare to your expectations? Can you just give us the story? So our first year we did it, we just wanted to start testing linear TV. We had only ran linear TV literally for two months, and our creative was testing through the roof.

And we wanted to create this anthemic ad that was emotionally connecting the future of sodas now, and we looked at the history, and it was just like kids and puppies and babies and moms and, like, all of these things. And we just loved the creative that, and then we wanted to buy a Super Bowl. And it was during the writer's strike and you couldn't buy any new advertising at the time. And so I was part of this TikTok collective.

I was sitting at dinner one night and I said, do you have a Super Bowl ad? And he's like, I actually do. And I got my CMO on with it. So we bought the Super Bowl like the Wednesday before their Super Bowl.

We, the only thing available was a floater ad. So it just had to be... Is that a little lower priced? It's the same price. Yeah. And it just has to air before

it says, thank you for watching the NFL. It could have been after they won. Literally. It could have been any time. Which would have been a huge bummer? Huge bummer. Huge bummer.

But it ended up airing one minute before halftime, right before Usher went on. Which is the most prime location. It was the most viewed Super Bowl ad that year. It was the amount of viewers on it was absolutely crazy. It was such like a risk versus reward. Like that was very high risk for a company to do. And the reward was insane. We triple a rewardness over a night.

Where were you watching the Super Bowl that year? I was at the Super Bowl because in Poppy's fashion... So you didn't even know when your commercial aired? No, in Poppy's fashion, I went to shoot content the entire time. I literally got on a flight that Saturday to go shoot content. And then my team called me while it was airing and I was like jumping up and down, screaming, not watching the game. Yeah, just because of the timing. You were like, I can't believe it happened right before the halftime show.

Literally. It was unbelievable. And then I probably got like 700 texts. And it was a big surprise because we didn't have. time to tell anybody. And also just to hone in one detail you mentioned there, you talked about your awareness tripling from that app. So you've also talked about how the brand awareness is so critical for you as opposed to the bottom line of just conversion metrics. So you're saying the Super Bowl ad, while many people question the value of something so expensive, was worth it

just in the brand awareness that it brought you. Yeah, I think brand awareness is the number one goal. Anyone wants to have it our size, right? And the biggest stage to do that, to get people to know about you is Super Bowl. And something that a lot of people don't realize as well is soda is the number one consumed drink during the Super Bowl. It's more than alcohol, more than water is soda. Why do you think Pepsi owns the Super Bowl? The halftime.

The halftime show at all those things, right? Soda's such a huge occasion moment. So this was the best way for us to get the word out there and to continue to drive this, this revolution that we're on. and it was just a no-brainer. So it was so successful that we were like, okay, we have to do this again and let's do it right

and actually create content for the Super Bowl. What an awesome break that it came right before Usher. Unbelievable. You opened for Usher. Literally. Now a quick word from our sponsor. Shortly after your second Super Bowl commercial, you experienced the dream of every entrepreneur

listening to the show right now, an epic exit. The X word, an exit. You sold to Pepsi for $2 billion. Once again, Mr. Wonderful said you never sell for more than 50 mil. But you sold for $2 billion, a double unicorn. Allison, can you tell us the story about closing the Pepsi deal? Yeah, so we always knew, and I know this is like hard, probably for some people to hear,

that this was always the goal, was to sell our company to a strategic. Because in beverage, you have to gain that distribution. There's a lot of things that people don't know when it comes to soda. there's crazy contracts. We couldn't get into stadiums. Do you know that we're the official sort of the Lakers and we can't even sell Poppy there, right? It's these things, yeah, like so people don't realize, you have to partner with a strategic to get the distribution. Yeah, it's like we say, distribution is destiny. So this was day one, Shark Tank, third conversation. We knew this was Ingalls and we'd always been working towards it. But we didn't know when, right?

Because Poppy's the second fastest growing beverage in the history of beverage. And it just happened in a like shorter time frame. And we never actually opened up to do a formal process or anything. I think we just knew there's a few people that could buy us that we could partner with to get what we wanted. And we just kind of were waiting for them to want us as well. And I think it took a while for people to believe that this is soda for the next generation. I mean, even the retailers early on weren't sure where to put us. Like you, we put you in the sparkling water set. Do we put you in the kombucha set? Like it was hard. So we had to prove who we were. And I just think we got there really quick and we just caught the eyes of Pepsi and they believe in us. Can we ask a little bit more

about this meat cute with Pepsi? Like who reached out to whom? You know, how did it begin? Was there like an opening dinner? You know, this is an exciting process. It also is a long process like a relationship to do an exit. And at that dinner, did you order a Pepsi or did you order a Poppy? I'm still a Poppy girl. I have to admit it. But I will say, you know, it is like dating. That's what I think a lot of people don't realize this, it is a long process and it is like dating. So there was a meeting and then a couple months go by and you do a few check-ins. And then you do another meeting and then you do a few check-ins, right? But I think when this year hit in February after our Super Bowl and our explosive growth, and we were about to start going to international, they just kind of,

we had a meeting and it just, it was incredible. And they gave us an offer within three days. Wow. And I think the negotiation didn't even last that long a week. accepted it because they, one, a lot of people don't realize there's usually like a two-step in these things. They were buying 100% of our company, which was unbelievable. They just believed in this new category of modern soda and they just got the vision. Like, I don't know how to explain it and they've been such incredible partners. Like they've allowed Poppy to just stay Poppy. So from February to announcement was like six weeks of due diligence. And then there's the antitrust period. Yeah, the close was so fast. Yeah, we actually were trying to interview.

you, but your PR team said, you're going to have to wait a few more weeks. Literally. So, you know, it was really interesting. We watched a Shark Tank episode. And Rohan said something I'd never heard before, but it's really brilliant. And I think it's inspirational to entrepreneurs or people who maybe want to start something. He said that Rohan said that big food and big beverage companies outsource their innovation to America's entrepreneurs. That's a great line.

In other words, Pepsi never launched a poppy-like soda. because they just don't do it well, I guess, and they figure Stephen and Allison are going to do it better. And so they wait for the right startup to be there that they can then go acquire. So acquisitions can look like very Wall Streety, and there can be a little like, you know, that's a big money Wall Street thing. But really, it's motivation for people to start companies, too. And across all food and beverage, it's really cool that this exit, this dream is a dreamer. outcome that you had at Poppy. That's what motivates people to get started in many ways. No, but it's true. It's the American dream. But I will also say it's harder for them to do what we did,

to take those early risks, to test new markets, new activities, to do those things. Like risk tolerances at companies that size are just not there, right? We didn't get a chief legal officer until year five. You know, we were still using music on TikTok for like four years. You can't do those things. And so I think it's not authentic. It's hard to build that core community that's made Poppy so special. So I think that they've learned their lesson. I think a few times and just getting the brand and the community is so much more better than a product, if that makes sense.

Alison, curious what's going on your head, too, because, you know, Jack and I have sold a company. six, eight-month process. The big winners were the lawyers on all the legal fees at first. But it is quite a process because the perception in the public is when you sell your company, it is all champagne.

The reality as an entrepreneur is that there are some tears in that champagne because you're giving up your baby, you're giving up control. I remember after we sold to Robin Hood, there was a meeting on day two, Jack and I were in,

and one of the executives said, actually, no, you can't do that. And Jack and I walked, out and we were like, wow, oh yeah, we don't control this anymore. We don't own this car anymore. And look, it worked out great and it was such a great deal for us. It was perfect. It worked out for everyone. But there are those two sides of it. So, like, have you experienced those in either the process or do you think that that's not actually part of it? Oh, it's a huge part of it. I think the thing I had to tell myself is when you sell your house, you have to give them the keys.

And it took me, I would say probably two months to even have like a little bit of peace about it. Because Poppy is me, right? I've been the face. It's the culture, the vision. Like all of those things came from a personal problem. And I'll be honest, I've cried. I've been excited in the same day, right? And then you're like loss.

But holy crap, I just created something incredible that now can go to even more people. I've never experienced so many emotions, but I'll say when it's finally settled and done, you want to know the number one thing I feel is freedom. Wow. I can do whatever I want. I can spend more time with my kids. I still get to work with Poppy. I was with the team today. And it's such an overwhelming amount of freedom.

And I know there's restrictions. And there's the expectation isn't there of like, oh my gosh, I can run this and do whatever I want. And it's kind of freeing. Speaking of classic guy of us, you know, to pivot to the future, little bit and like forward looking for poppy. You've really crushed it when it comes to Gen Z, when it comes to women, when it comes to zolennial women. That is where you have the highest awareness from what we see. Are men on the roadmap and a more direct move into male spaces like sports, video games, protein bars? You're at the Super Bowl, but that's kind of a universal space. We were curious

about other things that are Guy Jason and how you think about product launches to reach new audiences. You know, I think something that brands fail out, fail at constantly is I have to get a new audience and they start doing stuff that's really unauthentic to their brand. So, for example, we are heavy gen Xenial. We're like over 60%. It's crazy. Wow. Gen Zennial? Is that Gen Zian and millennial? Because we say Zillennial. It's a word I made up, but yes. We're all portmanteauing over here. Yes. It's like this group. It's like heavy millennial moms and then Gen Z girl. And we did have to figure out how do we get more males into our consumer base, right? And so for us, we do it really strategically and thoughtfully.

So instead of just doing a bunch of dude stuff, we became the official sode of the Lakers. And the reason that is sports, but it's also culturally entertainment. Kylie Jenner's sitting court side of the Lakers, right? It's part of culture versus we, no offense, would probably not sponsor like the Buffalo Bills. You know, because it's not like a culturally relevant necessarily. I'm sorry. That wouldn't feel authentic. Yeah, it would be authentic.

And then like, for example. And it wouldn't be well received by the Bill's Mafia probably. It's like too soon almost. Yeah. And then Inter Miami was like another one. Like was Miami's a huge market for us. But there's messy. They have the largest social following of any soccer team.

We're a social first brand. So for us always has to be kind of like a through line or a reason to get to the male adjacent. And then we are really careful not to bring that into our social ecosystem. We don't want to alienate our core audience. So we actually did a ton of stuff on Twitch. We've done Fortnite integration. We've done a lot of those things.

But you probably didn't see it because it doesn't show up in our core community of things. And that's why I think a lot of people make a mistake too. But yeah, we are doing stuff. And we saw like a 20% increase in men just this in the last year in the latest reading. And it's working. So it's interesting to you talk about how you reach audience. because it's surgical, really. Like you're saying, we're not just going to go to sports.

We're going to go to these particular teams that have overlap between existing audience and new. That have celebrities sitting courts at. And if you're going to go to a totally new audience, you're going to do it in a way that doesn't have any connection to your existing audience. It's very surgical. Yeah, and I think smart because I think people will bring in something really jarring

and you'll get people don't follow you. They'll be like, that's not authentic. This is the world of authentic. everything, right? And the community they just see right through you. You know, we were curious on the product side. Let's talk about the product for a second here. We wanted to know your strategy on deciding on new flavors. You know, A, B, LE, always be launching everything. You will have launched so many flavors here. So we want to know the strategy. But first, let's talk about your hero product. What's your best seller?

Our best sellers are strawberry lemon. It's one of the first I ever made in my kitchen. And then our next question was, what's your profit puppy? Our strawberry lemon. Really? Okay, so it's most profitable. Okay. And then our final one was, which flavor is your lost llama? The one that you maybe lose money on, but you do it because it gains you marketing attention

or some other benefit. You know, I think we have one that was more so, it's just like on the dog side, which was our root beer. And we just, and we acknowledged it. We even did like a roast online about it. And we just relaunched new packaging, new liquid, everything literally last month. So I think we are also quick to realize, okay, if it's not working, like change it and that's okay. But you probably hook some fans with it. I was a cream soda guy, but...

I know. And so it was just an LTO. It was only here for two months. Yeah. Okay. Allison, this one is sent in from my brother who loves drinking soda at movie theaters. Will Poppy ever be a soda fountain kind of drink? Ooh, I love the fountain question.

100%. This is like why we partnered with Pepsi. This is so easily feature innovation. They own all the machine. It's all Pepsi or Coke. Yeah. Yeah. So like we could never have been on fountain unless we would have done the deal with them.

So do you think you'll get like one slot at Taco Bell, for example? I mean, that would be like dreams, but I think Taco Bell has to agree to that too. So there's more work to be done there, but I will say and then. Or will like Chipotle or like Sweet Green have an entire Poppy only kind of thing. I'm here for it. All of the above, yes, I would love all that. But once again, I think those are like dreams, but those dreams are definitely within. reach now.

Absolutely. Jack and I were curious how you also think about that flavor innovation. Like, is it a focus group or is it just in your mind? Like the big question here, how much of it is metrics versus magic, information versus intuition, you know, graphs versus guts? How are you deciding on what comes next? In the early days, I would say it was everything about it was just what I wanted and tasted good.

So, for example, our cherry lime made flavor, I grew in Texas. I love going to Sonic and I wanted a healthier version. So I spent the weekend and I made one. And there was no other thinking that I just wanted. And it's one of our top five sellers still to this day, right? And then I think for me, nowadays we do look at the data and what is the total addressable market for a particular flavor. Okay.

But we won't launch it unless it tastes good. For the longest time, we would try to launch a cream soda almost for three years and we could not nail the flavor. Because if you think of cream soda, it's vanilla and sugar. You remove all the sugar. It's very stringent. Like, I don't know if you've ever cooked or baked. It can be very better.

And we finally nailed it and it is so delicious. But it took us three years even though there was a market for it. So I think it's a little, still a little bit of gut, what tastes good, and then mixed with data, which I think is a good combination. So we're sounding like 75% gut, 25% data on this? Yeah, let's go with that. Yeah. Alison, as you listen to the show, you know that we've identified the three Fs of Fats. Yes.

Food, fashion, and fitness are the three industries most susceptible. to fads. So what's hot now could be dead in a few years. So we were curious, what is your strategy to make sure this entire new category that you've pioneered of prebiotic sodas? How do you ensure that it's a long-term trend, not a short-term fad? Fads and trends are so scary. And I think that if you stay on course with your mission to revolutionized soda for the next generation and stay true to poppy as a brand and not just a product, then we're fine. And that's always like just where I've been as like do the 80% planned, the 20% for the cultural moments to be cool, but at the end of the day, stay focused and be a brand, not a product, and don't lose sight of that.

Now, Jack, we do have a question submitted by a Yeti when we announced that we were going to get to interview Allison on the show. You want to share with Allison? Yeah, it's from Sam Barber. What's one brand that really excites you right now, outside of your space? And he wants to know, where are you getting your inspiration these days? Could be a product, could be a book, could be a philosopher, anything. I feel like we are so trendsetters, but there's still people just doing it iconically.

And one of my favorite is skims. They've been able to be a billion dollar company moving at the speed of culture doing dope drops and just like so unexpected. All of the things that we were talking about at such a large scale. And I can only hope that when Poppy becomes a $4 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion company, we can kind of stay in that skim's era. So for me, I'm always looking at them. Is there anything in particular that you think helps them pull off that speed of culture at scale? Like some specific thing they may be doing? They are so culturally relevant.

So, for example, when a show was going wild, they'll have the characters on the show in a campaign two months later. True. To pull off a campaign in two months is actually really hard. Like, Poppy, we could do that but for a size. So that's moving at speed of culture. If they were to do it a year later, it wouldn't have been relevant. So it's like stuff like that that is staying. up on culture that I think helps.

Getting the White Lotus cast in an ad campaign within two months, not easy to pull off. No. Given your Shark Tank success, I mean, you got a $400,000 check from a guy who really helped the company evolve to the next era and ultimately sell for 20 times more than Mr. Wonderful predicted, what advice would you give to someone with five minutes to pitch an investor? Oh, five minutes is know your stuff, know what you're doing, and have a purpose. I think that you can kind of always see through like entrepreneurs or people that don't know what they're doing and they're just doing it to get rich. So I said that like kind of earlier.

But if I had the, it flipped and I was a shark on shark tank walking in, I think I would definitely just have a lot more empathy for the entrepreneur as an investor. And I'm actually starting to invest myself, right, in certain things and female founded brands that I'm looking at and all of those things. And I think it's fun when you can have an entrepreneur versus a money person investing and working because they've been an operator and they understand where you've been. So I guess this means it's the perfect moment for Jack and I to tell you about my soda. Allison, it's half milk, half soda. And the market is the world. Melfounded company. But it's your team boys over here.

If it tastes good, I'll think about it. Well, it doesn't. Alison, you know, at the end of every one of our episodes for the best one yet, we always ask, what is the takeaway? So we're going to ask you, what's the takeaway on Poppy? The takeaway on Poppy is we really are modernizing soda for the next generation. I want Poppy to be the soda my kids and grandkids know as soda. And the biggest takeaway is you can follow and have it all and live the American dream.

Love it. And finally, Allison, we have some rapid-fire questions for you. Jack, why don't you kick us off over there? What is the best brand out there that isn't Poppy? Well, I already said skims, so I'm going to have to go with, I love Starface as well. They're so cute. Is that the pimple patches? Yeah, they were able to take something so boring as pimples and, like, create art and give young kids the ability to feel good about themselves. And next up, Allison, what industry is begging for its poppy moment? I think hydration and protein. What is your dream poppy collab? And you can't say skims. Dang it.

Okay, crocs. Nice. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. I mean, a rubber flace. I mean, gibbets. Jibbitt cans are no-brainer. I'm obsessed.

Allison, what is the best snack you always have stocked? Oh, popcorn. I love popcorn. And you can have cheddar popcorn. You can have kettle. All of the popcorns. I love it and I just think poppy and popcorn. Yeah.

Popcorn and soda at the movie theater is the best. It's all I do. I really need those poppy fountain soda drinks. What is, who is the best CEO that you admire the most? I don't look up to CEOs. I know that might be controversial, but it's the brand builders like the Emma Greeds of the world that are doing things differently. But CEOs, I love you guys, but it's not something that I'm passionate about. Who was the brand builder you mentioned?

I'm agreed. So I can't use her because she's part of skims. Okay. Honestly, I think it's more so brands that I look up to, but people, it's like hard because I'm not in this world where I didn't grow up in marketing. I don't, this is not anything I've just created and learned as I've gone. So I've kind of trailblazed and I feel like maybe that's like I just, I haven't ever looked up.

Like, it's a hard question, I think, for me to answer. That's a great unique answer. What is the best single piece of brand advice you would give someone in marketing? Get on TikTok, start telling your story now. Final question, Jack, this is all you. What is the best restaurant in Texas? Oh, my gosh. I'm going to have to go with, I love a good taco shop.

It's in Austin, Texas. It's called Donata. Now, don't blow this up, but it is a special place, best margarita in Austin, Texas. Okay. Should we bleep that one out, Jack? Should we just bleep out the name? That's just for you and me. To keep it hidden?

You don't want Alice having to deal with lines now. Literally. We're hoping to come to Austin for a live show next year. Yeah, we are targeting. I want to come watch. It would be fantastic. Also, just Allison, this is so exciting to have you on. And we really mean this.

Like, the fact that you listen to the show meant so much to us, but us watching what you have built over years, having consumed our first poppy during the pandemic. This just means so much to have you on the show and get to talk to you. Your journey's just been amazing. Congratulations on everything. you and your husband and your company have pulled off. Congrats on the acquisition.

And it's fantastic that you feel free. I mean, that's no better feeling to have than free. Thank you. So no regrets about oil and gas. No regrets. I'd much rather live the American dream and be free. Allison, thank you so much for coming on the show. And Allison, the next time you think about bottling some kind of energy,

Jack and I are here for it. Tea boy, pop biz. We should talk. I got you. The free sample. Great job, Jack, too. Awesome work, Jack. Amazing. I'm so excited about the unloaded sample budget. We literally gave over 30,000 cases last year, which is like a case is like 12. I don't know. You guys do the math. But I'm like, it really isn't that expensive. I think that I think it was like $250,000 of samples and then 250 of shipping. So for $500,000 for a sampling program isn't crazy. So you should listen to our episode of the best idea yet about Red Bull, which pioneered sort of like faux samples.

in a way. They would go to college towns and find the most popular bar. And they would, when the bartenders weren't looking, they would spread empties all over the floor of Red Bull. So that as co-eds were going up to the bar to order the drink, they see all these cans and they figure everyone must be drinking. Everyone's been drinking Red Bull here.

And so they order Red Bulls. It's kind of like another free sample strategy you're saying, Jack. They're creating a mess for the bar to clean up, but we're so happy for you. And Allison, it's really, we've been following it for years and we just think it's incredible what you've done. Jack and I have so much admiration for you. And it means a lot that you also enjoy the show too. I've literally been probably listening for, like, snacks, ALE's diet, like,

OG OG, literally probably. I mean, I remember, I mean, it's been over probably nine years, literally listening. Yeah. Fantastic. So, I mean, I think as an entrepreneur, I learned a lot from you guys, like early days. Well, we want to craft every takeaway. That's what we're thinking of. We're thinking of the ambitious creator, the builder.

And what do they need to put into their career? in a professional job or into the product that they're building. So, you know, we think about those takeaways. We're picturing you. So thanks so much. Well, can I take a selfie or a picture? Yeah, we would do that. Let's do it.

Okay. So fun. Well, thank you guys. This was so fun. And I'm sure the team will tell me like when he'll go out and I'll help promote and all that fun stuff. Absolutely. Yeah.

We'll connect with you guys. Thank you, Allison. Have a great rest of your LA trip. We understand you got a vacation coming up in July. Have a wonderful time. Yeah. Month off. I deserve it.

out. Oh, yes, you do. I'm ready. All right. Yay, guys.