Poppi: the exact playbook from a kitchen drink to $500 million a year
Allison Ellsworth mixed apple cider vinegar with juice and soda water in her Dallas kitchen to fix her own gut. She sold it at farmers markets, landed Whole Foods, went on Shark Tank nine months pregnant, relaunched the brand as Poppi in 2020, and then filmed one TikTok with wet hair on a Friday night that did $100,000 in sales while she slept. Poppi went from $13 million to around $500 million a year in four years and sold to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion. This is exactly how she did it, step by step, with scripts you can copy.
Overview
Poppi is a prebiotic soda made with apple cider vinegar, about 5 grams of sugar a can, sold in bright pink, yellow and orange cans. It was founded by Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, a married couple in Dallas, Texas.
It grew from about $500,000 a year in 2018 to $13 million in 2020, $26 million in 2021, $65 million in 2022, over $100 million in 2023 and around $500 million in 2024. In March 2025 PepsiCo agreed to buy it for $1.95 billion, plus an earnout of up to $300 million tied to targets by 2027.
The product mattered. But the moves that made it huge were simple, cheap and repeatable.
The kitchen
Allison had spent about four years and $15,000 on doctors trying to fix chronic gut problems. What finally helped was an elimination diet and apple cider vinegar every day.
It tasted terrible. So around 2015, in her Dallas kitchen, she mixed it with fruit juice and soda water until it was something she actually wanted to drink.
The move: she solved her own problem first. She was customer number one, so she knew exactly what the drink had to do and who it was for.
Farmers market to Whole Foods
By 2016 she and Stephen were selling it at farmers markets under the name Mother Beverage.
A farmers market is the cheapest test there is. You make a small batch, put it on a table, and watch real people decide with their own money. No website, no ads, no investors.
A Whole Foods buyer came across it. One account says within about three weeks of their first market. The buyer's reaction: "We don't have anything like this in Whole Foods." That got them onto local shelves.
The move: sell face to face before you build anything. The market gave them proof, feedback and, by luck and visibility, their first big retailer.
Shark Tank
In 2018 they went on Shark Tank as Mother Beverage. Allison was nine months pregnant. The company was doing about $500,000 a year.
Rohan Oza offered $400,000 for 25%. They took it. Oza was known for building drink brands, and the episode gave them national attention.
Poppi was not bootstrapped after that. It later raised a $13.5 million Series A in August 2021 and a $25 million Series B in December 2022, about $40 million in total.
The relaunch as Poppi
Mother Beverage sounded like a health tonic. In 2020 they relaunched it as Poppi: a fun name, loud colors, and "soda" front and center, while keeping the gut-health benefit underneath. One recap dates the launch to March 3, 2020.
Revenue that year: about $13 million.
The move: sell what people want (soda that tastes good) and let the benefit (gut health, low sugar) be the reason they feel good about buying it. The relaunch made it something you would want to be seen holding.
The TikTok that changed everything
Allison's first tries on TikTok went nowhere. Reports say she tried things like recipes and dance videos.
Then one Friday night, with wet hair after a shower, she filmed a short video of herself talking straight to the camera. The script was basically this:
"Hi, I'm Allison. Poppi has 5 grams of sugar. And I was on Shark Tank 9 months pregnant."
In her words on the Masters of Scale podcast: "We did $100,000 while we were sleeping that night on Amazon." The video has since been reported at around 300 million views (another account says 17 million; the numbers vary by source).
After that, she leaned into founder-led content: her own face, taste tests, answering comments, behind the scenes. They moved a large share of their paid spend to TikTok and treated it as the place to build a community, not just run ads.
For the first four years, their number one goal was simply brand awareness. Not profit per post. Not clicks. Getting known.
Her advice: "The most underexplored emotion for an entrepreneur is embarrassment. Get online and make a fool of yourself."
The Amazon trick
This is the part most people miss.
Poppi did not send TikTok viewers straight to Amazon. It sent them to its own website first, where it collected their email addresses and phone numbers. Then it sent them on to Amazon to check out, through an Amazon affiliate link.
In Stephen Ellsworth's words: "Amazon was actually paying us to direct traffic from our website to Amazon while also collecting the customer's data."
So every viral moment did two things at once: sales on Amazon, and a customer list Poppi owned. Amazon even paid them a fee for the traffic.
The numbers
| Figure | Number |
|---|---|
| Spent on doctors before the idea | About $15,000 over 4 years |
| Started | Around 2015, a Dallas kitchen |
| First sales | Farmers markets, 2016, as Mother Beverage |
| Revenue at Shark Tank (2018) | About $500,000 |
| Shark Tank deal | $400,000 for 25% (Rohan Oza) |
| Relaunched as Poppi | 2020 |
| One TikTok | $100,000 in Amazon sales overnight |
| Revenue 2020 / 2021 / 2022 | $13M / $26M / $65M |
| Revenue 2023 / 2024 | $100M+ / about $500M |
| Outside funding | About $40M total |
| Sale to PepsiCo (2025) | $1.95B + up to $300M earnout |
Do what she did: step by step
1. Start with a problem you have yourself.
Do this: write down three things you have spent real money or time trying to fix in your own life. Pick the one where you found something that works. You are your own first customer, so you will know when the product is right.
2. Sell it in person before you build anything.
Do this: make the smallest batch you can and put it in front of strangers this month: a farmers market table, a local event, a pop-up, a gym, a coworking space. Count how many people buy, and write down every comment. For a service or app, the same idea is ten live demos with real people.
3. Pitch the buyer who walks by, and the ones who don't.
Do this: once strangers are buying, contact the buyer at one local store that fits.
The message, word for word:
"Hi [name], I'm [your name], I make [product] here in [city]. We've been selling it at [market] and [number] people bought it in the last [weeks], a lot of them coming back every week. I don't think you have anything like it on your shelves. Could I drop off a few samples for you to try this week?"
4. Make it something people want to be seen with.
Do this: if your product is "good for you" but looks like medicine, rethink the name and the look. Lead with the fun, everyday thing people want, and let the benefit be the bonus. Show three versions of the packaging to ten people in your target audience and ask which one they'd post a photo of.
5. Film yourself, plainly, every day.
Do this: stop making polished ads. Film a 15-second video of you talking to the camera with the three most surprising facts about you and your product. Post one a day for 30 days.
The script, word for word:
"Hi, I'm [name]. [Product] [one surprising fact, like '5 grams of sugar']. And [one surprising thing about you, like 'I started it in my kitchen to fix my own gut']."
6. Capture the customer before you send them anywhere.
Do this: if you sell on Amazon or another marketplace, send traffic to your own simple page first. Offer something small for an email or phone number, like a discount code or a free guide, then send them on to buy. Use the marketplace's affiliate program if it has one, so you earn on the traffic too.
7. Track one number at the start.
Do this: pick one goal for your first year, like followers, email signups or people who tried it. Poppi's was brand awareness for four years. Measure it weekly and ignore everything else until it is growing.
Want 50 more breakdowns like this?
Real businesses with their revenue, tools, costs and how they grew, plus step-by-step guides to start your own. Free.
Get free accessMore breakdowns
Sources
- Masters of Scale podcast, "How Poppi's founders built a new soda brand worth $2 billion," with Allison Ellsworth, as reported by Yahoo Finance and 24/7 Wall St. ("We did $100,000 while we were sleeping")
- FemFounded, Poppi case study (origin, Shark Tank, revenue, funding, deal dates)
- Taste Radio, "Inside Poppi's Early Playbook"
- Breef, "Breaking Down Poppi's Playbook: Culture as a Distribution Channel"
- PepsiCo filings as reported by The Star and Just Drinks, October 2026 (earnout)
