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Episode 338: Poppi Co-Founder Allison Ellsworth

Thirty Minute Mentors · 2026-06-30 · 36 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

50 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density10 / 20
Originality9 / 20
Guest Caliber14 / 20
Specificity & Evidence11 / 20
Conversational Craft6 / 20

Allison Ellsworth built Poppi into one of the fastest-growing beverages in history before selling to PepsiCo for nearly $2 billion. She shares how personal health challenges - specifically digestive issues - led her to create an apple cider vinegar drink with better taste and ingredients including prebiotics. Rather than chasing traditional business metrics, Poppi succeeded through what Ellsworth calls the "three Cs": moving at the speed of culture, hiring young talent who were their own consumers (65% female workforce), and prioritizing community over customers. The brand eschewed typical KPI-driven marketing in favor of long-term brand building - giving product to influencers like Kylie Jenner for years without guaranteed ROI, launching an unexpected apparel line with Target, and building a dedicated culture vertical focused on social, influencer partnerships, and college marketing. Ellsworth's early TikTok strategy, going live unpolished during the pandemic, and her willingness to be vulnerable online became pivotal. For founders and operators, her approach challenges conventional wisdom: success requires starting before feeling ready, embracing embarrassment as a growth signal, and building a team that inherently understands your customer because they are your customer.

Key takeaways

  • →Purpose and meaning drive sustained success more than financial outcomes; post-exit freedom felt empty until Ellsworth found renewed purpose in new ventures.
  • →Starting uncomfortable - before you feel confident or legitimate - is the price of entry for significant growth; embarrassment should be treated as a green light indicating you're stretching.
  • →Hire young talent who are your actual consumer demographic so leadership intuitively understands culture, trends, and what resonates with your audience.
  • →Long-term brand building investments without guaranteed KPI returns (influencer seeding, apparel lines, community initiatives) outperform purely performance-driven marketing in building lasting brand affinity.
  • →Digital-first, founder-led social strategies require CEO commitment and serious strategy work - delegating to interns guarantees mediocre results and missed cultural moments.

Guests

Allison Ellsworth

Topics in this episode

TikTok marketingLong-term brand buildingPepsiCoShark TankPoppiApple cider vinegar beveragesFounder-led social mediaKylie JennerTarget apparel collaborationCommunity-driven marketing

Questions this episode answers

What was the origin story of Poppi?

Allison Ellsworth started Poppi because she had personal digestive health problems and began drinking apple cider vinegar but hated the taste, so she created a better-tasting version with ingredients like prebiotics that she'd want to drink daily.

How did Poppi grow so quickly to a $2 billion exit?

Poppi used three core strategies: moving at the speed of culture, hiring young female-majority teams who were their own consumers, and prioritizing long-term brand community-building over short-term KPI-driven metrics, including non-trackable investments like gifting product to influencers like Kylie Jenner.

What was Poppi's viral TikTok moment?

Allison posted a vulnerable, unfiltered TikTok from her couch with wet hair telling her founding story - how she started the company in her kitchen, appeared on Shark Tank pregnant, and had the baby 10 days later - which went viral and generated $100,000 in sales overnight, fundamentally shifting the brand to digital-first.

Should founders worry about tracking ROI on influencer and brand partnerships?

Allison argues that trying to directly track ROI on creator partnerships is often futile and that brands must rely on gut feeling and trust long-term behavior change; she cites gifting Kylie Jenner free Poppi for three years as a non-measurable investment that eventually paid off in organic endorsement.

What role does discomfort and embarrassment play in building a successful business?

Ellsworth contends that embarrassment is the most underexplored emotion in success and that the pattern is starting with embarrassment, then refinement, then clarity, then confidence - not confidence first - and treating discomfort as a growth signal rather than a stop sign.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

10 / 20

There are genuine operational nuggets buried here - in-house community management, treating Amazon as a marketing channel, brand extensions like a 26-piece apparel line, and long-cycle influencer bets - but they're consistently diluted by extended passages on purpose, work-life balance, and confidence that offer nothing an operator hasn't heard many times. The ratio of signal to motivational filler is poor.

we looked at Amazon as a marketing channel. So it's a mind shift within the entire organization
giving Kylie Jenner free poppy for three years in hopes that it might show up in one TikTok, guess what? It happened

Originality

9 / 20

The root-beer community-roast campaign is a genuinely counterintuitive marketing move, and framing embarrassment as a growth signal rather than a stop sign has some novelty. However the bulk of the episode recycles standard founder-gospel: passion over stress, confidence follows action, let go of perfection, ask for help - none of it is fresh.

we totally let our community roast us. It was almost like a burn book. And we put it out there. And then we launched with new packaging and new flavor
stop looking at embarrassment or doing things differently or things that push you as a stop sign. It's actually a green light that you should lean in

Guest Caliber

14 / 20

Allison Ellsworth is a genuine practitioner - bootstrapped from a farmer's market to a ~$2B PepsiCo acquisition, scaled 0 - $500M in 4.5 years, was on Shark Tank nine months pregnant - and speaks from real operating experience rather than thought-leadership abstractions. The score is held back because the interview extracts far less operational depth than her background warrants.

we went from zero to 500 million in four and a half years. We had to hire 250 people in a four year span
I'd never bought a Super bowl ad. I never managed a 60, 70, 100 million marketing budget

Specificity & Evidence

11 / 20

Real figures do appear - $100K in overnight sales from one TikTok, $50M - $200M growth year, 65% female hiring mix, a 26-piece Target apparel collab, the March 3 2020 launch date - but they are dropped as colour rather than examined analytically, and large portions of the episode pass with no numbers or named examples at all.

I sat down on the couch...and it went absolutely viral. And we did $100,000 while we were sleeping
during our fastest year of growth, where we went from 50 million to 200 million

Conversational Craft

6 / 20

The host repeatedly hijacks the conversation to deliver his own frameworks and multi-paragraph monologues - the 'three boxes,' the importance of purpose, ROI philosophy - rather than probing Allison's specific decisions or challenging her claims. Questions are open and affirming; there is virtually no pushback or sharp follow-up.

my framework, the framework that I share with audiences that I speak to, you've got to check three boxes. Number one, am I doing something that I love? Number two, am I doing something that I'm great at? Number three...
I love that and I love the guy nicknamed ROI Killer. And I can tell you that I fall into the trap that I would imagine just about everyone falls into

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker C72%
  • Speaker B25%
  • Speaker A1%
  • Speaker D1%

Most-used words

purpose27love19life19brand17success17started17poppy16hard16change16first14three11leader11community11product11wasn11back10

Episode notes

Allison Ellsworth is the co-founder of Poppi. Allison joins Adam to share her journey building a multi-billion dollar brand and her best lessons and advice. Allison and Adam discuss a wide range of topics: entrepreneurship, leadership, passion, purpose, pushing your comfort zone, marketing, branding, balancing conviction with feedback, and more.

Full transcript

36 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: Coming to you from Sunny Los Angeles, California. This is 30 Minute Mentors leaders to listen to. Uh, with Adam Mendler. Here is your host, Adam Mendler.

Speaker B: Our guest today built a multibillion dollar beverage brand. Allison Ellsworth is the co founder of Poppy, acquired by pepsi for nearly $2 billion. Allison, thank you for joining us.

Speaker C: Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: You grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas in an entrepreneurial family, but you went to the University of North Texas not to pursue a career in business, but to study dance. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Speaker C: I love that question because it might not seem like something that a typical founder of a billion dollar exit would say. They were a dance major in college, but even deeper than that, I remember, uh, my freshman year realizing really quickly, you don't need a degree in dance to teach it or to dance. So I had one of those moments that most kids go through life of like, what am I doing with my life? So I took a year off, I moved to Europe, moved to Spain for a year, bought a one way ticket and I just learned what life was like. The big beautiful world out there. So when I came back I was like, hey, what is the quickest way for me to get out there? I need to go experience life. And it was so impactful that I also realized what life could be like if you don't work for somebody. The man is what people always say, right? And so it was one of those transformative moments for me. And I ended up graduating with sociology. I still graduated in four years. Cause I was just like, there's a big world and I want to conquer it.

Speaker B: I love that. Recognizing early on that your time should be spent intentionally in a meaningful way. And meaningful can mean different things to different people. But as long as it's meaningful to you, it's likely going to be time well spent always.

Speaker C: That passion is such a beautiful thing in life that if you're doing anything to just get rich. Let me just tell you real quick how bottomless that feeling will be. Its meaning, purpose is really big. The number one feeling I had post exit was freedom. Freedom to do what I want, with whomever I want, when I want. But with that freedom, there's not a lot of purpose. And so I found through that journey, having a real purpose in life is the most important thing. And doing something that you love and that you're passionate about. I mean, I'm sure you've heard this quote. If you're doing something that you love. You can be working 80 hours a week, being chaotic, having kids, growing a business, and if you love it, it's called passion. And if you hate it, it's called stress. So just find what you're passionate about. There's no need to be stressed constantly in life.

Speaker B: I love that. And my framework, the framework that I share with audiences that I speak to, you've got to check three boxes. Number one, am I doing something that I love? Number two, am I doing something that I'm great at? Number three, am I doing something that allows me to make a positive impact in the lives of others? And to your point, if you're checking all three of those boxes, you can wake up first thing in the morning and you're fired up, you're ready to go, you're ready to get at it, you're excited, and you can keep going all day until you hit the pillow late at night, pass out, and then the next day you're fired up to get at it again. And you compare that to not checking those three boxes, doing something that you don't really love that you're maybe not all that great at, uh, where you don't necessarily see the impact of the work that you're doing. And by one o' clock in the afternoon, you're completely drained and drained from what? Drained from working too hard maybe, or drained from not checking those three boxes.

Speaker C: One of the top questions I get is with this whole conversation about work life balance. And I usually say something that's kind of controversial. And the way that I look at it is if you want to be successful in life, you kind of can't afford to have very much balance when it comes to those things. Now I'm not saying don't take care of yourself mentally and physically. I'm saying I have spreadsheets in the bed sheets after the kids go to bed, I am up late, I'm working weekends, my phone is always on and I love it. And so that work life balance for me is working a lot because I, I had someone the other day be like, I shut my computer at 4:00 and then I cold plunge and I go to the sauna. I'm like, oh my goodness, when was your exit? And they're like, well, I haven't exited yet. And I'm like, well, obviously it's a big misconception that we talk about self care nowadays and we talk about all of those things, but they can coexist. I was able to have three kids. I Started the company pregnant. I was on Shark Tank, nine months pregnant. And then I had another kid. Uh, during our fastest year of growth, where we went from 50 million to 200 million, I was exhausted, but I loved it. And so it's like that thing of look at the results and the exit that we had from the hard work. Now I don't have to work as hard, but you know, what I do wanna do is not retire. So it's this work life balance we talk about. But you need to find out what works for you. Now that might not work for everybody, but this shaming on, um, you, you have to do it a certain way should go away. You can find what inwardly works for you. And if you like that, it's okay. It's okay to work hard.

Speaker B: You bring up something interesting, which is you exited for a huge amount of money and you could spend the rest of your life at 4 o' clock doing a cold plunge. Even at noon or at 9am, you don't have to do anything. But what do you want to do to live a life worth living. And something that I've discovered in conversations with all kinds of people, including people who are in their 60s and 70s and even 80s who are still going very, very strong. The single most important thing to staying young, the single most important thing to staying engaged, the single most important thing, perhaps period, is purpose. When you wake up every day with purpose, when you wake up every day with meaning, uh, and whatever that is, that purpose could be, I want to build a billion dollar business that's gonna change the world. That purpose can be, I wanna raise great children. That purpose can be, I wanna make an unbelievable difference through this. Cause whatever that purpose is, there's no bigger differentiator than having that purpose.

Speaker C: Adding to that is a lot of people get stuck on finding their purpose. And you can actually change it over time. Can change. People get scared of change. But I'm here to tell you it's the only constant life. Things are always changing. And to embrace that change is really powerful. And to uh, embrace it messy and embrace it awkwardly and know that there's failure along the way. But to find that purpose can change. Purpose to be the best mom you can be, or be the best at work, or to stop eating dairy. There's so many things that you can set goals towards and they can change. And people forget that, that it's okay to change. Because as humans we change and we grow and we learn. And I know that even at Poppy as a leader, most entrepreneurs do not start companies and they know how to be leaders. It's not something that just magically someone knows how to do. You have to learn how to be a good leader in life. When I first started, I did every job at Poppy. I had a hard time letting go of things. But then the second you start letting go and you empower other people to do stuff, that changed me as a leader and I became. And so my purpose of me getting everything done changed to how do I now grow the business? My purpose of yes, I want to revolutionize soda for the next generation. So there's this meaning of one purpose creates everything, but it's actually not true, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: What advice do you have for anyone on how to get on a path to find their purpose? Recognizing that your purpose could change tomorrow, could change next month, next year. But how do you discover your purpose?

Speaker C: You have to look inwardly and be kind to yourself. It doesn't have to look like someone else's purposes. A lot of times people are like, to have success in life, you need to meditate, have a five step morning routine, get up at 5am um, there's so much social media, there's so much other people telling you what to do versus sometimes you just need to sit down. If you don't like to write, do a voice memo, use your notes in your phone, open up, journal, do all these things, look inwardly and get your thoughts out on paper. People discount that sometimes. Just trying to figure out your purpose. What are your purpose this month? What is your purpose this year? What is your purpose five years from now? And at the end of the day we're saying purpose, but these are just goals. A lot of people dream, but not a lot of people do. And so it's this meaning of putting the work in motion to do something about it. If you're not happy about something, do something about it. Easier said than done with circumstances and life options. But I will say to your point, I love just the purpose of getting up in the morning and being the best version of yourself and to just do a little bit better each day. And if you have a failure in it, don't feel like you just have to start over and find a new purpose. And it goes back to that change thing. Be willing to change.

Speaker B: Alison, you bring up a number of really interesting points and really interesting topics. Starting off with the fact that you need to have a goal. Understanding your goal can change. It starts with having a goal. It's hard to be successful if you don't know what success looks like. And again, your Definition of success can be different than my definition of success. But what does success mean to you? However you define success, make sure you have a clear definition, and that will make it a lot easier for you to get there. And it starts with, in your words, putting the work in motion, Getting going, getting started, taking that first step. There's no more important step than that first step. And if you want to achieve any kind of big goal, it's very hard to do it without achieving micro goals along the way. It's those little steps that allow us to ultimately get to the big step that we want to take.

Speaker C: There's this crazy myth that we've all been sold that, uh, success looks like confidence first, clarity, first validation first. That you just wake up one day and you are successful. But really, people that find success, it just doesn't work that way. It looks more like starting before you feel legit, saying yes while your stomach is in knots, and figuring it out later, doing things that make you cringe a little until they don't anymore. Because most people don't fail at success because they are not talented. I believe they fail because they refuse to look stupid for a while. And one of the biggest things that I love to explore is how embarrassment is the most underexplored emotion when it comes to success. And I get it. Looking stupid is super uncomfortable. But that discomfort is usually the price of entry if you want to be successful in life. So that discomfort, that embarrassing feeling, you should actually use it as a growth signal. It's one of the biggest lessons I've heard, is stop looking at embarrassment or doing things differently or things that push you as a stop sign. It's actually a green light that you should lean in. It means you're growing. It means you're learning something and that you're pushing yourself. And so success. It's this myth that we've been told, like I said, and I just think that you need to take a step back. It doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be a perfect brand, doesn't have to be perfect, anything. Before you start, you just kind of have to start.

Speaker B: Is there a moment for you in your journey when you were able to really embrace that embarrassment, embrace that discomfort? Something that you did that deep down made you cringe, but you did it anyway, and it helped you get to where you want to be?

Speaker C: Yeah. Looking back, the growth of Poppy, me personally, it followed a very specific pattern. First, it started with embarrassment. Then it went to refinement, then clarity, then confidence came. We always Think confidence comes first. And it's really funny. I remember back we launched poppy March 3, 2020, right when Covid started. And we were having to think very differently from the beginning on how we could connect with our consumer and our community. And there's this one new platform. Everyone was getting on, people were dancing on. It was TikTok. Now brands are on TikTok constantly now, but nobody was really going on and really talking to the community, founder to community. And so I remember getting on and I danced, I made taco recipe videos. I ran around like a crazy person with no team, no plan, no media, no social training, just me talking about this drink that I made publicly to live on the Internet forever and ever. And I thought to myself, this is either genius marketing or a permanent record of me making a fool of myself online. And honestly, most posts were awkward, most were so embarrassing. But it taught me a few things. It taught me what people understood about my product and what they didn't, and what mattered to them and what didn't. And I learned people liked hearing my founding story. So one night I sat down on the couch, I was vulnerable, unfiltered, I had no makeup, uh, on, my hair was wet. And I just told the story of how I started Poppy and, and how I was in my kitchen and how I was on shark tank nine months pregnant and had the baby 10 days later. And it went absolutely viral. And we did $100,000 while we were sleeping. And it changed the whole trajectory of our business to be a digital first, community, first creative first brand. And it all started with me being cringy online. Now everyone's doing it. It seems very normal for people to go online as founder led companies to do it, but it was really disruptive at the time and it was just such a game changer. And so through that, I started with embarrassment, I refined the messaging, I got clarity, and then I was really confident online through it. But it didn't start with confidence.

Speaker B: I love that. What looks like confidence today started off as deep discomfort and you see the most successful people and all you see is the success. What you miss is all of the difficult things that you had to do to get there. Starting off with doing the things that you really didn't want to do and oftentimes they don't work. You going on TikTok and doing something that you felt was embarrassing, that could have very easily not worked, and that could have very easily led to you feeling cringy and having no payoff. But it's about trying things. If you're not willing to put yourself out there. You're never going to get there.

Speaker C: Never. And the $2 billion exit that I had, it started at a folding table at a farmer's market. For me, the shark tank deal. It started with me pitching an idea that wasn't perfect, with Mr. Wonderful calling me an apple cider vinegar roach. The confidence you see now, it did start with embarrassment. And so it's this whole idea of it can change. And embarrassment can be such a beautiful thing because those small moments, those unimpressive moments, are the ones that actually build that success and growth within a human. You learn through those moments and you get better each day through them.

Speaker D: Experience Adam's insights and m inspirational message by booking Adam to appear at your company, on your campus or at your next event. Adam's keynotes and workshops on leading in today's landscape, becoming your best self, and lessons learned from America's top leaders leave audiences inspired and better equipped to excel personally and professionally. Visit Adam mendler.com to learn more and to bring Adam to your organization.

Speaker B: How did the idea for Poppy come together? And what were the keys to ultimately turning it into a billion dollar brand?

Speaker C: So I started it because I had personal health problems, just tummy problems. I was tired, couldn't quite figure out what was going on. And I started drinking apple cider vinegar. Hated the taste, wanted to create it. I could drink it every day, it be better for you. Ingredients I could love. It had prebiotics, all of these things. And there was nothing like it. So I just created it. And it got to the point where I was just so passionate about sharing it with people. Cause I wanted them to experience what I had experienced. And I love that. That's why I started the company. Not because I saw a gap in the market and wanted to create something that was very contrived business. It was a passion of mine. And through that passion, it's what connected. And what was so special about Poppy and our growth. We're one of the fastest growing beverages in the history of beverage, is that we were able to, what I say are the three C's. We were able to move at the speed of culture. So we were so connected into culture at Poppy. We hired very young. At one point, I think we were like 65% female. So we knew our consumer, we were our consumer. We let the creative really dictate the heart of the company. So we leaned into the creative, the disruption, the, uh, brand awareness, not really tying ourselves to KPIs. And then community was at the Core, right. We saw our community. It wasn't our customer, it was our community. And we did brand affinity, brand building things versus focusing on how we can do coupons in the grocery store. Those three Cs were so true to who we were. We kept it real. We were authentic and it just paid off. And it worked really well for the product at the time. And I will say what worked then for us. I don't even know if it could work now because times have changed. Everyone's on TikTok. Maybe people are sick of that stuff now. So it's being able to move. The speed of culture is really big and staying up on trends on how new age marketing is honestly working.

Speaker B: There may be a slightly, uh, different formula now, but a lot of the things that you shared are universally applicable. The importance of really understanding your audience. And it's one thing to say know your audience and it's another thing to hire a team that primarily consists of your audience. They are your audience. Something that you shared which is so important. Not tying yourself to KPIs not driving your business being completely focused on, well I need to hit this metric, I need to hit that metric. And instead driving your business focused on your product, your customer, your audience, your vision, your mission that will never go out of vogue.

Speaker C: Never. The brands that don't last are the ones that are focused on the product and not the brand as well. And obviously I'm speaking specifically to consumer products because that's what I know. I know every business is different, but it has to start with a good product but can't stand alone. You have to invest in the brand. And sometimes it's really hard for people to actually get what that means. And it means investing in things that you cannot directly tie to a KPI. Like you said, where it's like, okay, we're gonna do this and we might see it pay off in three years. That's really hard for people to put marketing budgets on. That long term brand building effect of giving Kylie Jenner free poppy for three years in hopes that it might show up in one TikTok, guess what? It happened. And so it's one of those moments where it's really hard for people to actually do that versus I know if I invest in this, it will return a sale tomorrow, that's safer. We're just going to do this instead. And we never focused on that ever.

Speaker B: You mentioned those key brand investments that weren't tied to a uh, KPI, in fact defied what an investor might demand of you to do but you, as the founder, understood your business, understood your product, understood your mission. Were there other key brand investments that were game changers for you? Do you have any other advice on that topic that anyone can apply to their business?

Speaker C: I touched on the social media aspect of it. Uh, it is the digital way of marketing now. So the people shying away from being online, you got to get over it. At the end of the day, any business owner wants to win and they don't think that that's a way to win. And the most important piece within that is the strategy has to come from the top down. You can't leave it up to the intern, you can't leave it up to the young kid that you hired that hopefully can run the socials and they'll figure it out. No, you have to actually learn it and take it serious yourself and make it part of the full 360 piece of it. And team people don't talk about hiring the right team as such an important thing within the marketing function and the business. So at uh, Poppy, we have an entire vertical that is the culture vertical. So it's all things culture. And what does that include? Includes social influencer events, college brand partnerships and we focus on these things. Of course we have our head of E Comm and I remember for the first three years his nickname was ROI Killer. We looked at Amazon as a marketing channel. So it's a mind shift within the entire organization and a goal of we are going to do long term brand building activities. We had apparel line as a soda company that we launched with Target. We had a 26 piece collection that we did with Target. It went in for two months with a flavor for people to be like, wait, you're going to hire on? We have a designer dedicated to apparel and a, uh, production person working to get clothing made. These are things that you typically don't hear a soda company doing. And so we just invested in it and took it serious.

Speaker B: I love that and I love the guy nicknamed ROI Killer. And I can tell you that I fall into the trap that I would imagine just about everyone falls into, which is when you're trying to figure out how to spend money on your business, the first thing you ask is, is this a good investment? What is the ROI going to be? Is there going to be an roi? And if the answer is no, or if you're not confident that the answer is yes, you're going to find other ways to spend that money. And I love the idea of taking a step back and thinking through what are my Long term goals, what are my long term objectives? And to get there, I'm probably going to have to do things where there isn't going to be any ROI right away. There might not ever be any roi, but I need to take these chances. And without taking these chances, it's going to be really difficult for me to achieve the kind of success that I want to achieve.

Speaker C: You see it within the creator and influencer network. It's really hard to track if it works. If you're a smaller company and maybe you're doing 5,000 a day or a month on Amazon, you can see that little $50 jump or $100 jump or $1,000 jump. Sure, you can kind of see it. You can kind of track clicks on stories and codes redeemed, but the average consumer 100% aren't going to do that. Right. And so trying to even figure out if I work with a creator, is this going to work? It's going to be really hard for you to track that. Sure. You can track EMV and impressions. It is a gut feeling at the end of the day and you have to trust that gut feeling that this is teaching a behavior of long term brand building of the people UGC creator led. And you gotta let go that it's gonna be tied back to something. Especially at the level of a company that Maybe is doing 20 million plus. It's very hard to track. And that's okay. You have to let it go.

Speaker B: You mentioned that you never really learned how to become a leader when you started your business, and most people don't, but your leadership style evolved. What do you believe are the keys to successful leadership? What can anyone do to become a better leader?

Speaker C: The number one thing is not allowing your ego to get in the way of growth. And as human beings, we have egos. And if you say like, oh, I'm selfless, I have no ego, you're a liar. Everybody has an ego. Some are way worse than others. And for me, I just had to learn it really quickly because we scaled so quick. We went from zero to 500 million in four and a half years. We had to hire 250 people in a four year span. I mean, that is crazy growth with having to be leader. And I kind of mentioned that no one just wakes up one day is like, I'm a good manager. You have to read books, you have to listen, uh, to podcasts. I got a business coach and I did 360 reviews. I wanted to hear what my team thought of me. Sometimes it was hard to hear I heard that I was actually very blunt and that maybe I should be not so blunt. And I was like, well, I didn't actually know I was blunt. I thought I was just moving quick and giving direct answers. But then you learn these things, and through these learned behaviors, you become a better leader. And for me, a story on that, that ego piece was. At one point during our journey, I woke up and realized we were growing faster than I'd ever imagined. I was running our marketing team, and I finally saw myself in this uncharted territory of I'd never bought a Super bowl ad. I never managed a, uh, 60, 70, 100 million marketing budget. I had to say to myself that I needed help. And it goes back to that embarrassment piece of. I was a little embarrassed to ask for it, but I did it anyways. I didn't allow my ego to get in the way of the growth of the company. And the best part is we found the right person, someone that came in and partnered with me and let me do what I was good at. So my superpowers are being the visionary, the disruptor, the creative. I didn't have to do it all. I just had to show up and be honest and lean into the embarrassment of not knowing. And at that moment, I feel like I learned something powerful. That asking for help isn't a weakness, it's an opportunity. And it might just be the thing that lets you shine. And if you can really learn that as a leader, that it's not about you. It's such a human nature thing to not think through that, especially since I started this company. But it's not about me. It's about the team. It's about the growth and the health of the business. And when we win, we win together. And it's so much sweeter to do it with people than alone.

Speaker B: Asking for help is a, uh, strength, not a weakness. You're never going to scale your business if you're unwilling to ask for help. It's the people who you bring in who can compliment you, who can do the things that can allow you to focus on what you're great at. You're never going to be your best self. You're never going to be as effective of a leader as you can be without having the mindset that help is what will allow me to get to where I want to be. Instead of a detriment, a deterrent, something that I should be afraid of.

Speaker C: I love that. Yeah. That also goes back to perfection. People think you gotta embrace that successes, you kind of gotta let Go of that perfection. Before we were in stores or had investors, Poppy or Poppy was even on shelf. There was a folding table at a farmer's market. And it's funny, I remember standing there trying to explain to people what my drink was, and it didn't fit into any category. It was not a soda. It wasn't a juice. Well, it wasn't a soda at the time. It wasn't a juice. It wasn't a sparkling water. It wasn't a kombucha. It was just something completely new. And I remember watching people take a sip and pause and say, what is this? It wasn't really excitement. It wasn't praise. It was a little bit of confusion. And, oh, here's the thing about confusion. It feels a lot like rejection when it's your idea. And I just was, I want people to get this. Like, I get it. And instead, I got a bunch of micro moments. And none of that was perfect. It was these micro moments that I learned from. And then it grew into the perfection, into the clarity and the confidence of it all. But it was just as leaders, too, you just have to let go of perfection because you can hold on to doing a lot of the things, and you're not giving it a hundred percent, right? You might be giving it 10%, whereas you can hand it over to someone and they could be doing it a hundred percent, or even if they're doing it 80%, it's better than you doing at 10%. And so it doesn't have to almost be as perfect as you would have done, but now you have a dedicated person to this task that is focusing on it, and now you don't have to worry about it, and you have to trust. So being a good leader also comes down to trust. You have to trust that person that you hired, and they might fail, and you almost have to let them fail through it to get better. And then when they succeed and they do it without you, you're like, wow, that is so nice. That's such a good feeling.

Speaker B: Alison, you brought up something interesting when you were talking about how you brought your product to market and had some pretty mixed feedback. And as an entrepreneur, as a leader, as a human being, we have conviction in our ideas. We have conviction in ourselves. And it's critical to be open to feedback, and it's critical to receive feedback. But at the same time, there's this balance between conviction in what you have and listening to what the market is telling you, listening to what people are telling you. How do you figure out the right Balance. How were you able to understand what to listen to and what not to listen to?

Speaker C: Sometimes it's a gut reaction. It's a team discussion. I will say the consumer loves to give you feedback, and you actually shouldn't listen to everything, but you should listen to a lot of things. A good example is we had this root beer flavor that we launched. It was out for two years, and it just wasn't selling very well. And if we're going to call ourselves a soda, we had to figure out this root beer flavor, right? And our consumer just kept telling us they didn't like the flavor. The packaging wasn't cute. It was a creamier, lighter color. And instead of hiding it and maybe trying to change the formula and then put like a new, new and improved flavor sticker on it, we decided to take all of those community comments and we did a bunch of social posts, and we totally let our community roast us. It was almost like a burn book. And we put it out there. And then we launched with new packaging and new flavor, and we, like, leaned into this awkward moment of them saying our product sucked. And it ended up being so successful because they're like, wow, they listened to us. They didn't hide behind trying to sneak in a new flavor or something like that or a new formula. And it ended up jumping up to be one of our best sellers now. So I think that's such a good example of you can listen to your consumer, but I will say our consumer also has been dying for us to do 38,000 other things. Will you do a CBD drink? Will you do gummies? Will you do energy? Will you do. And at some point I was like, no, no, no. We're here to revolutionize soda for the next generation. Soda is a huge category. We are so focused, and we are focused on this. So there's these fine lines of listening, but also staying true to your mission and your values and your purpose and what you're trying to do. So it's a team discussion. Sometimes it's a gut discussion, but it should always be a discussion.

Speaker B: I'm sure you've heard the term embrace the suck. It came from the military, but you really embrace the suck. When it came to recognizing we have a product that our customers don't like, and we're not going to pretend that they love it. We're not going to pretend that they like it. We're going to embrace the suck. We're going to lean into it. And you were able to use that to serve as a springboard for Launching a new and very successful product.

Speaker C: I don't think people do it enough, but I do think that you just have to be willing to listen also. One point, we do all of our in house community management, so we have a team we do not outsource who is literally hands on keyboard talking to our community all day. Because at the end of the day, that's what I've said is the big key to Poppy's success. And it got to the point where I actually had to stop reading the comments and going into it because there's a lot of trolls online. That's also something you have to be careful of, is that someone that maybe doesn't like your product trying to get you look malice, all of those things. So you do have to be careful also within it. So not listening to everything online and doing actually consumer studies and doing third party testing and all of that stuff is important too to really have a non biased opinion on the brand. And people get really sucked into the social media vortex and they're like, oh my gosh, the world is falling. Or we're the best thing that's ever happened since sliced bread. Right? You can get in your own world. So you do have to be careful with the social media swirl as well and not take it either too hard or too seriously.

Speaker B: Alison, uh, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Speaker C: You should not think success looks like a certain way. And a lot of people say if you are serious, you should look serious. But fun isn't a distraction. It's fuel. It's what keeps you creative. It keeps you motivated. Poppy took off when I stopped trying to look like this serious founder and I started leaning into joy and yes, daresay, cringey moments. But color, playfulness, personality, how Poppy's culture worked. People felt it, the brand felt it. So fun doesn't mean you don't work hard. It means the work gives you energy instead of draining it.

Speaker B: Allison, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of 30 Minute Mentors.

Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to 30 Minute Mentors. If you enjoyed the podcast, spread the word and feel free to Tag Adam@AdamMendler. You can also head to AdamEndler.com for more episodes and to subscribe, rate and leave a review. And, uh, don't forget to join us next week for another episode with another one of our 30 minute mentors.

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