This Billion-Dollar Soda Brand Founder Explains Why Fortune 500s Can’t Win Gen Z

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Allie Garfinkle (1:00)

What do you think most large companies are getting wrong about Gen Z?

Allison Ellsworth (1:04)

100% of everything that they do.

SPEAKER_1 (1:06)

What is this?

Allie Garfinkle (1:07)

This is Poppi, the digital first soda brand Pepsi bought for $1.95 billion.

Allison Ellsworth (1:13)

Soda!

SPEAKER_1 (1:14)

Stop spiraling, get a Poppi.

Allie Garfinkle (1:17)

In the multi-billion dollar soda market, three companies dominate the shelves, and breaking in is notoriously difficult. Poppi defied the odds.

Five.

Allison Ellsworth (1:27)

Three days is the cycle. If you can't hit within that three days, you'll be the first to move at the speed of culture. What are you doing? And big corporations cannot move that quick.

Allie Garfinkle (1:34)

But executing that fast nearly bankrupt them.

Allison Ellsworth (1:36)

We had $75,000 in the bank and almost ran out of money.

Allie Garfinkle (1:39)

Today, I asked Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth, how do you outmaneuver legacy giants, survive near bankruptcy, and execute one of the largest consumer brand exits in beverage history? Welcome to Term Sheet. I'm Allie Garfinkle.

Allison, hi.

Allison Ellsworth (1:56)

Hi, how are you? I am so excited you're here.

Allie Garfinkle (1:58)

We should start, I think, by opening some poppies. You ready? Do you want to toast?

Allison Ellsworth (2:01)

Wait, you got to do this.

We got to get some ASMR and then let's open it. That's the sound in the world. Cheers.

Allie Garfinkle (2:09)

Cheers. So what do you see when you see these cans?

Allison Ellsworth (2:11)

I just look at this as like it's my fourth child, kind of my first born, and now she's off at college and I'm obsessed.

Allie Garfinkle (2:19)

You have a background in oil and gas.

Allison Ellsworth (2:21)

I do.

Allie Garfinkle (2:22)

Completely counterintuitive. What do oil and gas and soda have in common?

Allison Ellsworth (2:27)

Absolutely nothing.

But what it does have in common is my entrepreneurial journey. So when I worked in oil and gas, I was on the road for over seven years, and I was honestly by myself a lot of the times running huge multimillion dollar projects, and I was working with the local city council, to the BLM, to local Indian reservations, and it taught you how to work with people, how to move within systems, and how to really think differently for yourself. And so I think I brought a lot of that into Poppi.

Allie Garfinkle (3:00)

So it's one of those things where it sounds like, even though as sectors, you're like, no, not a single thing in common.

Allison Ellsworth (3:05)

No, well, what did have in common is I was the only woman in the room with a lot of men, which is very similar in beverage. And so from a young age, I knew that it's okay to be the only one in the room and to not lose yourself and to just like, you can still be a baddie, like even if it's not your norm.

Allie Garfinkle (3:23)

How is your relationship to being the only woman in the room evolved over the course of your career?

Allison Ellsworth (3:27)

I'm a confident queen.

So for me, I've never really allowed myself to be put into that box because I've been confident in everything I've done. Now, if I had situations where you're uncomfortable and people call you certain words and certain things, absolutely, I think all women deal with that. But I got some really good advice early on, which was play the game better. A lot of times you can get really upset when something happens, it's out of your control versus getting upset and letting your emotions lead the way. Play the game better. Sit back. Okay, this is what's happened. How do I still get done what I need to get done? How do I stay in power and how do I not allow people to walk over me? A lot of times when I get in that situation, I sit back and I go, how do I play this game better than men? Because at the end of the day, men can be a little bit bullish slash bullies and get their way and they can kind of get away with it. And so for me, it's like, let's be smart and then still come out on top and not allow yourself to get walked on.