Assertion Supported
Lakers' official soda Poppi cannot be sold in the team's arena
“We are the official soda of the Lakers, and we're not allowed to be sold in that stadium because of contracts.”
Insight
Beverage brands cannot access UNFI distribution without retail accounts secured
“It's like the chicken or the egg, like, get into Unify if you don't have a retailer. If you don't have a retailer, you can't get in.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
No better-for-you beverage brand used brightly colored cans before Poppi's rebrand
“Hands down, I will say I was wrong. Colored cans were the way to go. It just popped off the shelf, and no one was doing better for you with color at the time.”
Insight
Ellsworth: Modern soda brands must package in 12-ounce cans, not glass
“If we're gonna call ourselves soda, we can no longer be in glass bottles. We 100% have to be in 12 ounce soda cans.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Poppi's monthly Amazon sales surged from $3,000 to $250,000 post-Shark Tank
“We're doing, like, 3000 on Amazon quickly over the next few months. We're doing 250,000 on Amazon a month.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Viral TikTok video generated $100,000 in overnight Amazon sales for Poppi
“Honestly, one night, I sat down on the couch, and I just told my story. I did it in one minute or less of, started this in my kitchen, got a deal on Shark Tank, it's five grams of sugar, it's apple cider vinegar, it's this, dah, dah, dah, and I posted it and w…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Poppi founders launched the beverage brand with $90,000 in personal capital
“Yeah, so I went to my sister, who's always been a really big believer in me, and she ended up giving us 30,000 dollars. My dad gave us 30,000 dollars, and then we put 30,000 dollars in of our own money. So basically a total of 90,000 dollars, which was everyth…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Whole Foods made Mother Beverage pitch store-by-store across 14 Dallas locations
“So we, from the moment we got the card from her, we at that point went and got a lease. We opened up our own manufacturing facility thinking we were going to be nationwide Whole Foods for them to say, no, no, no, no, you don't even have Dallas. We've given you…”
Disclosure
Poppi founders accepted Rohan Oza's Shark Tank offer of 25% equity
“And so, he did come up to the 25%, and I'll be honest, we looked at each other, and we immediately said yes. Because we just knew he was the right partner for us to really take it to the next level.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Poppi's Super Bowl ad tripled brand awareness by repeating 'soda'
“In our ad, we said soda 17 times, and that we were the future of soda, and after coming out of that, our awareness tripled overnight.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Entry-level oil and gas workers can make $500 a day
“And you start off at a really young age making like 500 bucks a day, right, is really good money. You're working seven days a week. You're working from Dawn to dusk, though, it's really, really not the easiest job”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Poppi predecessor Mother Beverage sold out weekly at Dallas farmers market
“And I will say, we were selling out. Like, every week we would make it, we would sell out. The next week we would make, you know, that and a half, we would sell out.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Poppi lost nearly $90,000 on a canceled Expo West 2020 booth
“So we had spent a lot of our money on, I think like almost 90,000 dollars on building a booth.”
