Poppi’s Allison Ellsworth on starting over after a $1.95b exit

Many founders dream of selling their startup for more than a billion dollars. But for Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth, the exit came with mixed feelings.

“That is probably the saddest I’ve ever been in my life post-exit,” Ellsworth told Founder Brew.

PepsiCo acquired the prebiotic soda brand in 2025 for almost $2 billion, and Ellsworth said that building and running the company with her husband Stephen took years of sacrifice—from missed doctor’s appointments to missed children’s school events and Little League games. Even still, she said, those sacrifices were “necessary to get to the level of success that we were at.”

Now, Ellsworth is back with Jetty, a hydration brand she’s building with her husband. After experiencing the highs and costs of building Poppi, she has a clearer view of what it takes to grow a company.

In a conversation with Founder Brew, Ellsworth reflects on turning exposure into a lasting brand, the personal cost of building Poppi, the emotional aftermath of its sale and what excites her about starting again with Jetty.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Do you feel pressure to make Jetty as successful as Poppi?

I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t feel really strongly that this will also be very successful. I feel like we revolutionized soda for the next generation. It’s like, why can’t we revolutionize what the next generation reaches for? Just in general, there just needs to be better products out there, like consumer from millennial moms to Gen Z to all.

They deserve better, and they’re demanding it. For me, the level of success there’s a lot of risk there, because everyone’s like looking at us and wondering what we’re gonna do. It is a different type of risk. But I’m so passionate about it that I’m like, “Who cares? Let’s do this. Let’s have fun.” I want to do this.

What are you doing differently this time?

The best part about it is we get to pick who we want to work with this time, and there’s a lot of control that comes with money. For example, we’re going to self-fund this. We’ve done that up to this point. We’ve put a little over $2.5 million into it so far and done our first production run. But we are going to raise money. It’s very capital-intensive to run a beverage company—not so much a powders company—because we’re going to be the first company or hydration brand to launch powders and drinks at the same time. What comes with that diversification of risk of raising [capital is] it brings people to the table with networks and resources. So there’s a lot more to why we would raise. It’s not just the money aspect, but also opens the doors for influencers and celebrities and all the fun stuff that comes with that.

Looking back on building Poppi and navigating its acquisition, what did you have to give up personally to make the company what it became, and was there a specific moment when you realized the true cost of building a multibillion-dollar business?

The real cost was sacrificing everything—from missing kids’ events to baseball games to my health. I don’t think I went to the doctor in, like, 10 years. Literally, it was crazy. I didn’t have time to work out and sleep. But I loved it. At the time, it was sacrifice. And looking back, I was like, “Oh my God, that is insane,” everything we went through, but it was necessary to get to the level of success that we were at. I think that with entrepreneurship, there’s a lot of sacrifice, but we do it because we love it.

That’s why we’re entrepreneurs and why not everyone can be an entrepreneur. I do know we always, quote-unquote, had the dream of selling the company someday. I don’t think anyone realized it would happen in four and a half, five years. It’s crazy how quickly it happened. Growing through that emotional state so quickly came—girl, I did therapy; I had business coaches. There’s so many emotions that go through that. I was always just really real and working through it and learning to be a good leader that quick. You have no one. Just as an entrepreneur, you start a company because you’re crazy, but [it] doesn’t mean you’re magically a good leader, so I had to learn how to be a good leader. So there’s all these things that come with change that you go through, and then you sell your company.

You sell it to Pepsi. You don’t sell your house and then be like, “Hey, can I tell you where to put the couch and hang the paintings?” So there’s emotional loss. That is probably the saddest I’ve ever been in my life post-exit, which is wild.

Is there a lesson you’re carrying into this next stage with Jetty?

The No. 1 one thing you should do if you want to create a legacy brand is to actually invest in brand. Invest in the marketing, invest in top-of-funnel brand awareness long-term, from the creator economy to TikTok to social to doing stuff that isn’t just traditional, like bottom-of-funnel convert marketing. It’s long-term, and you don’t see the immediate ROI right away.

I know what creates good brands is investing in brands. Which oh my gosh, it sounds so simple, but you’d be so surprised how many people just don’t get that.

And then, on the flip side, going into it, especially from an entrepreneur, a good lesson is you also need to professionalize the business. You see all the cool stuff we did, and we were super disruptive and fun in our marketing, but we also were very sophisticated in the backend, from platform to data to finance to organization.

A lot of entrepreneurs really struggle to professionalize a business, and they try to do every job themselves. Let me just tell you, that’s your ego getting in the way of growth. Let your business grow. Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, so you can really shine and do your superpower.

For me, it was like I was running the marketing for the first few years, and I also realized we’re like, we’re gonna do a Super Bowl. I was like, “Well, I’ve never bought a Super Bowl ad. I’m probably not the best person to continue to run the marketing team.” But what I was good at is running the creative team and doing all the culture stuff. So let’s bring in someone to partner with me. That’s not an easy conversation to have, but it was absolutely the right decision to do.

What surprised you most about selling Poppi to PepsiCo, and what do you think founders misunderstand about what happens after a major acquisition?

We chatted through when we were selling it—it was really important to us for everyone that wanted to stay to get a job and could keep their job and keep Poppi, Poppi. They were true to that. They gave everyone a job they wanted. Some people definitely quit because they wanted startup life and didn’t want to be in a big corporation, and good for them. But I was actually surprised because you hear all these horror stories of the big brands getting bought out and them doing crazy things and firing half [the staff]. They didn’t do that, and so I will say my entire team, except for one person, is still there now, almost two years later. That’s something people get really scared about, but have those conversations before, and have a little bit of faith. On the flip side, they’re doing a little bit more of these, like, big corporate-y, like, process-y, data-driven-y things that we never did.

When we did the Super Bowl last year with Charli XCX, we were just, like, “Vibes.” It’s just a vibe. [Pepsi was] like, “You got to A/B test this.” I’m like, “No one’s going to get this. It’s just a vibe. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just brat.” And those that know, know, are going to get it, and, that’s the point… They were a little bit broken with understanding that. We’re like, “Trust us.” It’s so funny because then they did [the ad]. We ended up doing it, and it was so successful afterwards… They were like, “Wait, the data would have told us something totally different.” I was like, “Sometimes you just got to follow your gut.” So I do think you’ve got to understand that there will be change as well.

You’ve shared so much of your journey publicly. What are the benefits of being the face of your brand, and what are the personal costs of showing up online so consistently?

I think it’s the cost of being digital first. You have to be founder-led. You have to put yourself out there, and if you’re not doing it, your competitor is, and so they have a one up on you … It’s why these big brands do M&A [mergers and acquisitions], like buying a Poppi, because they want a brand with community. Building community is so important. Being founder-led… some people can handle it better than others. I just don’t read the comments.

What’s the best money you’ve ever spent as a founder?

The best money we ever spent investing in [was] really, really beautiful packaging and creative. We over-invested in having beauty boxes at Costco to the way we show up on the shelf versus [using] cheap materials or brown boxes. Every little touch point to the influencer boxes to all those things. That stuff really matters.

People cut corners on—especially in the early ages of “How do you reduce cost?”—packaging and creative ads. How you are showing up professionally and beautifully really makes you stand out as a brand.

Allison’s favorite Poppi flavor right now: Grape

Allison’s favorite Jetty flavor: Orange mango