Part 2 with Bryan Allen of PopFizz

**Bryan Allen** (0:00)
So, I kind of had taken that note, and then one day I went over to them. I was having a knee problem, I went to KGTC, had to go get an MRI. So, on the way out, they gave me some of this document where I acknowledged that KGTC owned the MRI company I was going to earlier. But it just clicked, like, oh, hold on.
So, I'm going to this MRI company, and it's servicing all of KGTC's people, and they own it. But it's also servicing all these other orthopedic places, and I was like, that's them all.

**Paul Sponsia** (0:32)
From the IT company, it's Made Right Here, the stories of East Tennessee founders, creators, and builders. From the idea behind it to the impact it had on the community, their employees, and their personal lives, we're taking you behind the scenes of the movements they built.
Imagine for a minute, like, close your eyes and think, you've got a high-paying, six-figure job at a Fortune 500 company that you've had for 10 to 15 years, and all of a sudden you lost that job.
What would you do? You all of a sudden have to do something completely different, because you don't want to move your family to another city. You love where you live, your kids love it, your wife loves it, but you've got to do something different. Teach yourself something different. Be something different than you were. Hey, it's Paul Sponsia. And on today's episode, it's part two of my talk with Bryan Allen from PopFizz, and that's part of his story. Listen in as Bryan talks about his transition from that job to starting PopFizz, and what that meant for him and his family, and how he did it, and what he's learned. I think you're gonna love it. Thanks for joining.
What do you think, again, you're working with a really big organization? You're interacting with some of some really well-known leaders in the world. Not a lot of people, especially around here, get to do that. So what do you look back? And again, from a lessons perspective, what do you think? Did you learn anything from any of those people that really sticks out to you?

**Bryan Allen** (2:15)
Oh, yeah, golly, we could talk for hours. I mean, Ken Lowe was, I interacted with him personally a number of times.
The thing I saw from him as a leadership, he was just an incredible communicator. He came from radio, he had this booming voice, just super charismatic leader. And also had this sense of like, you just sense that he cared.
I never really felt like the Scripps culture was the same after he ascended to CEO of the whole company. He was president of HGTV, and then Scripps Networks, and then became the CEO of the whole company until they sold to Discovery. The company was still a newspaper company, and HGTV and this Virginie Networks thing was just this little piece of the pie, this little small thing, this little rag-a-tag bunch of people down in Knoxville. And he just embodied and embraced that. I don't know, I always felt like the organizations I was building, the organization I have today, I feel that way, were still like this little small thing trying to compete in this big ocean. He resonated with what's probably already in me, but also learned a lot from it.
But there were so many, down through the rank and file there, I mean, it's probably, I probably think of that company much like maybe Whittle was. I never worked there, but they just have had incredible people just everywhere. Not just in talent, but also just incredible people. And diversity, and they come from all kinds of parts of the country. And just ahead of its time in terms of like the culture, the diversity, the diversity in thought, diversity in style, and just everywhere people would come from. So it's just super fortunate to kind of get to build a company within that company.

**Paul Sponsia** (4:03)
What a ride. Well, the ride came crashing down.
Yeah. So let's talk about...

**Bryan Allen** (4:08)
I worked myself out of a job.

**Paul Sponsia** (4:10)
You said my personal low point was losing my job, and I decided whether to pursue this creative passion, how to create income, or remove my family.

**Bryan Allen** (4:18)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so there's really a couple things that kind of come to a head. So at some point, my photography passed. I kind of grew up a photographer. I always had a camera in my hand. There's a whole history there from, you know, I think I bought my first camera with my own money, working for my dad when I was eight. And so I attached a lot of value to that thing. But I just loved taking pictures. I really did all the way through college. But I never had any concept of doing that for a career. But I had gotten back into photography.