Founders: Allison Ellsworth, co-founder of Poppi soft on the cider vinegar soft drinks that had PepsiCo paying $1.95bn

**Leanna Byrne** (0:02)
Hello, this is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. What started out as a kitchen experiment with a soda stream and apple cider vinegar turned into the number one best selling soda on Amazon in the US, and a 1.95 billion dollar exit with PepsiCo. We are speaking to Allison Ellsworth, founder of Poppi. Welcome, Allison.

**Allison Ellsworth** (0:25)
Hey, thanks for having me.

**Leanna Byrne** (0:26)
Allison, you grew up in Texas in the 80s. I've been watching Landman quite a lot. I believe that your family was kind of in the oil and gas industry as well. Is it anything like that at all?

**Allison Ellsworth** (0:39)
Fun fact, I actually, before I started Poppi, was a landman or woman for seven years.

**Leanna Byrne** (0:46)
Tell me about your parents. Your father was an entrepreneur, I believe. Did you learn what you know about money from him predominantly?

**Allison Ellsworth** (0:54)
My dad was an entrepreneur, but money was not his strong suit. I would say he lost millions and he's made millions. But what I did learn from him was taking risk is necessary to be a successful entrepreneur and don't do it for the money, do it for the passion of it. And so I also was raised in a household where everything was yes and figured out. So, you know, for our Sunday best and I want to go play in the mud, well, I'm probably going to get in trouble, but I had to figure that out for myself. So he's like, hey, go for it, let's see the consequences. And I love that ability within entrepreneurship of that say yes and figure it out.

**Leanna Byrne** (1:33)
What did your mother do? Tell me a little bit about her.

**Allison Ellsworth** (1:35)
Yeah, so my mom and dad, like most Americans in the 80s, they got divorced when I was in about second grade and we moved with my mom to Texas. And she was just a single mother working really hard raising us. My dad then went on to do lots of companies, didn't really reconnect with him back until I got to college. So really was raised by a single mother, which turns into what we call as Latchki kids. So you get out of school at three and from three to five or six, your mom's not there. So you're running a muck in the neighborhood, just old school, no phones, no Internet and just being a kid.

**Leanna Byrne** (2:09)
What about your sister? I believe she was also, you know, she got into business too.

**Allison Ellsworth** (2:13)
I think that it definitely runs in our blood. So my sister is also such a mentor to me and just such an incredible entrepreneur as well. And she's more on like the smart business side of things. You know, I think any entrepreneur needs someone to kind of keep us on the rails as I'm trying to drive us off. And, you know, I started Poppy with my husband and he's that for me as well.

**Leanna Byrne** (2:34)
Tell me what you were like in school, Allison. Did you have any favorite subjects? Were you happy to be in school? I know a lot of entrepreneurs actually didn't like school so much because they weren't happy with the authority of it all.

**Allison Ellsworth** (2:46)
Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of someone telling me what to do. But I will say I was a pretty easygoing kid, although I was a solid C student. I had severe dyslexia back then. I don't think it was as commonly, I don't know, noticed if you could say. And so for me, I always really struggled in school. I hated it. I was always daydreaming and trying to cut class and get out of there. I'm blessed to have danced from the age of three all the way to 20 And that's where I think a lot of my discipline came from and my creativity. So school, you know, not my favorite, but you know, necessary.

**Leanna Byrne** (3:21)
And you went on to study dance, didn't you, originally?

**Allison Ellsworth** (3:24)
I did. And I was a dance major for about a year before I realized you don't need to degree in dance. And so I took a year off. I moved to Spain and I learned what this big, beautiful world was out there and how much bigger it was outside of my bubble. And so when I came back, I was like, hey, what is the quickest way for me to graduate? They said, well, all your credits are PE. So let's go with sociology. I said, great. And I did every Maymester, I did summer school and I still graduated in four years, taking a year off because I was ready to go live in the big, beautiful world.