How Poppi’s founders built a new soda brand worth $2 billion

Founders ship faster on deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone, anywhere, and get visas handled fast so you stay focused on scaling. Deal takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance so your team can grow without borders. It's why more than 40,000 fast growing companies trust Deal to move fast. Visit deal.com/mos. That's deel.com/mos. Hey, folks. Jeff Berman here. Exciting news. Applications are now open for the Masters of Scale Summit. It's happening October 20 through October 22 in San Francisco, and it is a really special event. Please join our curated community of founders, innovators, and leaders shaping the future. Expect ideas that challenge your assumptions and connections that move your business and maybe even your life forward. It's an experience that can change literally everything. Apply now at mastersofscale.com/apply20six. That's mastersofscale.com/apply20six. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future that is human centered? I'm Rana Elkhayoubi. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. I'm standing there on the edge of the bridge. I'm just like, should I jump? I know I should jump, but there's gonna be all of these things that I have to do to, like, figure it out. There's so much risk in all of this stuff. And I donkey kink him off the cliff. She is so hard. Just kicks me right off. That's Steven Ellsworth. His cofounder Allison is the one who gave him that donkey kick. The married couple took the entrepreneurial leap together to create a healthier version of soda, one that you've probably seen if you haven't picked it up yet at your local convenience store or grocery store, Poppy. Pepsi bought the brand in 2025 for roughly $2,000,000,000, but the road to getting there was not so easy. While you're, like, in the dark building and grinding, your friends are at great corporate jobs, taking trips to The Bahamas and taking trips to Europe, and we're just, like, grinding. But also loving the grind. This is Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host. This week on the show, Allison and Stephen Ellsworth. They're the married duo that started by selling homemade soda at their farmer's market. They hyperscale Poppy to a truly gigantic exit and changed an entire category along the way. We talked about what it takes to juggle a growing company and family at the same time, how savvy social media strategy helped them stand out, and what happens when …