Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppi Was the Fastest Growing Beverage in Beverage History
“Poppy was the fastest growing beverage in the history of beverage, basically.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: DTC Companies Usually Cap Out Around $250 Million
“Something I know I won't want to do is run a DTC company because they usually cap out about two hundred and fifty million, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppi is in one of four US households with 50% awareness
“We've done two Superbowl ads, tripled our awareness overnight with that. Now we're into year five. Brand awareness, like, 50% of America knows Poppy. We're one in four households”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth built Poppi into a $2 billion business as a C student
“I was a C student in college and I built my business to be a two billion dollar business, right?”
Insight
Ellsworth: Large Beverage Brands Have Only Three Potential Acquirers or Must IPO
“So especially in beverage, there's literally three people that can buy you or you can go public.”
Assertion Supported
Ellsworth is the only female beverage founder with an exit this large
“Especially in beverage, I am the only female founder of an exit of this size ever, right?”
Opinion
Ellsworth: Poppy was acquired because of its brand and lifestyle positioning
“It's literally why we were acquired. Is our brand and our core audience of like, we are soda for the next generation and we've built it on a brand and a lifestyle.”
Insight
Ellsworth tests founder coachability by proposing unwanted product changes
“And so for me, when I'm talking to someone, I'll do a little bit of a test. Sometimes I'll be like, Hey, for your packaging, it's so cute. I love it. But would you be willing to change it? And I tried to see the reaction, even if I don't want to change it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Switching to Direct-Printed Cans Saved Poppi $17M in One Year
“And then we finally made the switch, and it saved us, like, seventeen million dollars that year.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppy reached a 65% female workforce
“And at one point we were like, 65% female at poppy because it was like part of our DNA from senior leadership down.”
Insight
Ellsworth: Grassroots cultural brand initiatives deliver higher ROI than commercials
“That is a brand building initiative that has a higher ROI than doing a commercial, because it's just part of the movement, and a lot of people wouldn't see that trend, they wouldn't invest in the cans and buy the licensing and do all that, but we just see, lik…”
Assertion Supported
Ellsworth: First Shark Tank deal recipient to return as a Shark
“And then, you know, being the first person to have gotten a deal to then be a shark and sitting on both sides and seeing both sides of the curtain, I guess, was really cool.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ellsworth: Rohan Oza invested $400,000 for 20% of Mother Beverage
“So we did our deal back in 2000, basically 19, 2018. It was with Brohan Oza. It was 400,000 for 20%.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppi has accumulated over 3 billion TikTok views
“Poppy has over three billion views on TikTok. One third of the platform has seen my face seven times.”
Disclosure
Ellsworth: Poppi Plans 80% and Leaves 20% for Unplanned Opportunities
“So something that we do at Poppy is we 80% plan and then we leave 20% for crazy or unplanned.”
Assertion Supported
Ellsworth: Poppi Bought Its Super Bowl Ad the Week of the Game
“We ended up buying the Super Bowl ad like the week of the Superbowl.”
Assertion Supported
Ellsworth: Poppi had $500K revenue and Whole Foods distribution before rebranding
“We had done about 500,000 in revenue. We were a different company called Mother Beverage, like I said, and We just had a great story. I was very passionate about it. We actually had some traction. We had some sales, right? It wasn't something that wasn't we al…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppi ships 300,000 sample packages per year
“We send out 300,000 packages a year, like crazy, crazy amount of samples.”
Assertion Supported
Ellsworth: Olivia Munn was one of Poppi's earliest investors
“She invested really early, like one of the first, and she was such a good partner.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Beverage Is Capital-Intensive Because Companies Ship Water
“I mean, beverage is a beast. You're literally shipping water and it's a very capital intensive category.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ellsworth: Poppy received up to 20,000 applications per job posting
“So we would put a, an application up, and we would get, like, 10 1020 thousand applications.”
Opinion
Ellsworth: Skims is the rare billion-dollar brand operating at cultural speed
“The only people that I'm like obsessed with that move at the speed of culture, that they're huge and it's a billion dollar brand because it's really easy for, like, younger brands to, like, do stuff. Be more nimble, but Skims. Somehow, they figure out market i…”
