[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3155/social-media-works-best-when-you-loosen-the-reins","id",3155,"title","Social media works best when you loosen the reins","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.840\nThe biggest thing is I personally got on there and learned to edit.\n\n2\n00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:09.520\nI know how to make a TikTok.\n\n3\n00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:10.560\nI know how to make a trend.\n\n4\n00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:11.360\nI post.\n\n5\n00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:15.120\nIt was like from day one, it was that, but then it had to evolve, right?\n\n6\n00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:17.760\nSo then we brought in an incredible team.\n\n7\n00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:19.680\nWe brought in a social media manager.\n\n8\n00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:20.640\nShe's incredible.\n\n9\n00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:25.200\nWe have a community managers consistently on the keyboards, talking to people.\n\n10\n00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:29.440\nWe have three people in house doing that nonstop 24/7, basically talking to our\n\n11\n00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:30.320\ncommunity, right?\n\n12\n00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:31.360\nThose are our fans.\n\n13\n00:00:31.360 --> 00:00:33.520\nThey're creating content at one time.\n\n14\n00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:37.400\nWe had like seven people had logins to our TikTok and you didn't even need to\n\n15\n00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:37.520\nget\n\n16\n00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:38.920\napproval to post something.\n\n17\n00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:41.000\nLike if you thought it was cute and it's trending, go for it.\n\n18\n00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:44.820\nAnd that can be really scary to big companies to allow people to go, quote, un\n\n19\n00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:45.000\nquote,\n\n20\n00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.680\nbuck wild and just do whatever they want on social media.\n\n21\n00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:49.280\nBut of course we had guard drills.\n\n22\n00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:51.120\nThey knew what they couldn't, couldn't do.\n\n23\n00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:56.440\nBut that allowed us to move quick and allowed us to really have it be part\n\n24\n00:00:56.440 --> 00:00:59.920\nof the DNA at Poppy to where it was so much bigger than me, right?\n\n25\n00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:03.680\nIt was from leadership down believing in this platform that it was such a\n\n26\n00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:04.160\nbeautiful\n\n27\n00:01:04.160 --> 00:01:06.000\nplace to be able to talk to people.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1799199,"end_time",1865179,"keywords","Social media, marketing, approval, tik tok, engagement, community","slug","social-media-works-best-when-you-loosen-the-reins","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","DnAH4eWJog01x7VcprVp25vvaViKVM7VSv9vKs001l8nQ","mux_asset_id","V67BD2vLyMRlWM003SzbWwCqh01JVIbOwsVIjbGjFC6Kc","leader_id",258,"episode_id",410,"updated_at","2025-12-18T16:08:46.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3155/social-media-works-best-when-you-loosen-the-reins","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Build your brand","build-your-brand","Listen to this leadership podcast with Allison Ellsworth, founder of poppi, and discover how to build a brand for the long term.","summary","

Go behind the scenes of one of today’s hottest brands with Allison Ellsworth, founder and Lead Creative at poppi.

After a memorable Shark Tank appearance, poppi exploded into the cultural zeitgeist – going viral on TikTok, getting shout-outs from celebrities, and scaling from startup to $500 million in just four years.

In this episode, Allison shares how to build a brand that moves fast, disrupts in all the right ways, and knows exactly how to stay culturally relevant.

You’ll also learn:

What a “black ops budget” is – and why you need one!
The importance of building a brand, not just selling a product
What it’s really like to pitch on Shark Tank
Channel-by-channel social media tips (one might make you squirm)

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600\nHello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead.\n\n2\n00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:06.000\nToday, we've got Allison Ellsworth on the show.\n\n3\n00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.520\nShe is the founder and creative lead behind Poppy,\n\n4\n00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:12.400\nthe brand that is making soda fun again.\n\n5\n00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:14.320\nYou might remember Allison from Shark Tank,\n\n6\n00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:16.560\nand after that memorable appearance,\n\n7\n00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:21.120\neverything since then has been a rocket ship for the growth of Poppy.\n\n8\n00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:23.680\nThey've taken over TikTok, they've won over celebrities,\n\n9\n00:00:23.680 --> 00:00:26.880\nand they recently sold to Pepsi for $2 billion.\n\n10\n00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:31.440\nIn this episode, Allison shares how to build a brand that can move fast\n\n11\n00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:33.600\nand disrupt in all the right ways,\n\n12\n00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:37.520\nand a brand that knows exactly how to stay culturally relevant.\n\n13\n00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:41.200\nEnjoy this episode with Allison, and I'll see you at the debrief.\n\n14\n00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.240\nChange is the only constant life, right? Things are always changing,\n\n15\n00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:47.120\nand those that can embrace change as a leader,\n\n16\n00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:49.520\nI think are going to be way more successful.\n\n17\n00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.440\nYou know, I love your jacket, but I also want to tell you something.\n\n18\n00:00:57.440 --> 00:00:59.760\nI've been loading up on your flavors.\n\n19\n00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:03.520\nI mean, and let me tell you how I got introduced to Poppy.\n\n20\n00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:07.760\nYou know, a couple of years ago, I go to my grandkids' house,\n\n21\n00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:10.960\nand my granddaughter said, \"Ogo,\" they call me \"Ogo.\"\n\n22\n00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.640\nI said, \"You got to try this new soda. It's so good. I love it.\"\n\n23\n00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:18.240\nEverybody at school really loves it, and I tried the flavors.\n\n24\n00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:22.800\nIt's great, and one of my granddaughters, Audrey, said,\n\n25\n00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:25.520\n\"Pepsi's got to—they need to do stuff like this.\"\n\n26\n00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:26.480\nOh, my goodness.\n\n27\n00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.440\nAnd I said, \"I know what Pepsi's going to do. They're going to buy this.\"\n\n28\n00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:31.440\nAnd guess what? That's what happened, you know?\n\n29\n00:01:31.440 --> 00:01:32.960\nYou manifested it for us.\n\n30\n00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:36.320\nBut congratulations. That's fantastic.\n\n31\n00:01:36.320 --> 00:01:41.360\nYou know, you do have an incredible product, and it's taken off.\n\n32\n00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:46.000\nYou know what? We would say that a lot of people are introduced to Poppy\n\n33\n00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:48.080\nby the next generation of soda drinkers.\n\n34\n00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:52.640\nSo that influence up, that just happened from your grandkids to you,\n\n35\n00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:55.680\nis really common within Poppy, which I think is so cool.\n\n36\n00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.960\nYeah. And you know what? People weren't drinking soda.\n\n37\n00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:01.440\nYou know, I used to work for Pepsi myself,\n\n38\n00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:05.680\nand you know, that category has been declining for years,\n\n39\n00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:08.240\nand you've got this tremendous growth brand\n\n40\n00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:09.920\nbecause you solved a big problem.\n\n41\n00:02:09.920 --> 00:02:13.840\nWhat are you doing with Poppy that's made it take off\n\n42\n00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:17.280\nand become so unique in the soda world?\n\n43\n00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:22.880\nYou know, I think like a lot of great things when we first started this,\n\n44\n00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:26.080\nwe just had a passion. We didn't really have a brand.\n\n45\n00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:29.040\nWe weren't, I wouldn't say we even had anything figured out.\n\n46\n00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:31.760\nI think like most entrepreneurs start out that way.\n\n47\n00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:34.320\nBut very early on at Poppy,\n\n48\n00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:37.840\nwe realized that we wanted to be soda for the next generation.\n\n49\n00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:40.880\nAnd so it became like our north star.\n\n50\n00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:42.880\nIf it doesn't fit within that, we're not going to do it.\n\n51\n00:02:42.880 --> 00:02:46.240\nLike down to certain flavors or activations,\n\n52\n00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:50.640\nor partnerships. So all was like, is it soda for the next generation?\n\n53\n00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:53.200\nAnd so for us, we always led with the brand\n\n54\n00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:55.040\nand the three C's that I always speak about,\n\n55\n00:02:55.040 --> 00:02:58.160\nwhich is community first, is it creative and disruptive?\n\n56\n00:02:58.160 --> 00:03:00.000\nAnd does it move at the speed of culture?\n\n57\n00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.770\nOh, that's fantastic. And I know we're going to dig into each one of those\n\n58\n00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:03.040\nthings.\n\n59\n00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:05.600\nAnd you've built this massive brand from something\n\n60\n00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:08.240\nthat basically, as I understand, it started out in your kitchen.\n\n61\n00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:12.800\nWhen did you first feel like you weren't this scrappy underdog anymore?\n\n62\n00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:16.320\nAnd you know, you became a real thing.\n\n63\n00:03:16.320 --> 00:03:19.440\nI'm a real entity. How'd you handle this identity shift?\n\n64\n00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:22.080\nYou know, when we first started out for context,\n\n65\n00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:24.640\nwe were more of like mom and pop, farmers market.\n\n66\n00:03:24.640 --> 00:03:26.720\nIt was a different name called mother beverage,\n\n67\n00:03:26.720 --> 00:03:31.120\nwent on to Shark Tank and relaunched as Poppy March 3rd, 2020,\n\n68\n00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:32.560\nthe first week of COVID.\n\n69\n00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:35.920\nAnd what I think really came from that is we had to think really different,\n\n70\n00:03:35.920 --> 00:03:38.960\ndifferently from the beginning because the world was shut down.\n\n71\n00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.320\nThe way that you market to people wasn't really something\n\n72\n00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:45.120\nthat anyone knew how to deal with at the time.\n\n73\n00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.840\nAnd I just really feel like we were so obsessed with still sharing this with so\n\n74\n00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:50.400\nmany people.\n\n75\n00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:55.430\nIt was the right product, right time that we leaned into being a digital first\n\n76\n00:03:55.430 --> 00:03:55.920\nbrand\n\n77\n00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:56.720\nat the beginning.\n\n78\n00:03:56.720 --> 00:04:00.880\nAnd you're like, well, what does that mean? Like digital first?\n\n79\n00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:04.160\nBut we had to reach our community digitally, right?\n\n80\n00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:07.200\nThere was no in-row life events. There's no demos and stores.\n\n81\n00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:08.320\nThere was like none of that.\n\n82\n00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:12.160\nSo for us, we just from day one had to think differently.\n\n83\n00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:15.890\nYou know, it's amazing what you build and I can't wait to hear your entire\n\n84\n00:04:15.890 --> 00:04:16.000\njourney.\n\n85\n00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:20.080\nBut what's the story though, Alison, looking back from your childhood\n\n86\n00:04:20.080 --> 00:04:22.640\nthat shaped the kind of leader you are today?\n\n87\n00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:27.680\nYou know, I'm a very independent person. My kids are independent.\n\n88\n00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:29.760\nI think I was very independent even as a child.\n\n89\n00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:34.400\nI was raised by a single mom with my sister and brother.\n\n90\n00:04:34.400 --> 00:04:37.840\nAnd I just remember having to just take care of myself.\n\n91\n00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:41.440\nI always say I have really good, I guess, street smarts over book smarts.\n\n92\n00:04:41.440 --> 00:04:43.920\nI was a solid C student in school.\n\n93\n00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:46.480\nI can't believe I even graduated high school and college.\n\n94\n00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.360\nAnd it wasn't because I was a partier or a lack of.\n\n95\n00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:54.320\nI just was obsessed with getting out in the world and experiencing it.\n\n96\n00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:57.840\nSo I just always learned through experience, life,\n\n97\n00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:02.560\ngetting to know people, travel, that I was never that interested in books, if\n\n98\n00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:03.520\nthat makes sense.\n\n99\n00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:08.480\nYou know, as I understand it, I think your father was also an entrepreneur in\n\n100\n00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:09.920\nthe oil and gas industry.\n\n101\n00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:14.280\nWhat did you learn watching him compete in that industry that you might have\n\n102\n00:05:14.280 --> 00:05:15.040\ntaken with you?\n\n103\n00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.160\nYou know, my dad's always been an entrepreneur ever since I, you know,\n\n104\n00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:22.560\ncan remember still to this day is what I think I learned the most from him and\n\n105\n00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:23.440\ngrowing up around\n\n106\n00:05:23.440 --> 00:05:28.320\nthat is anything is possible and just say yes and figure it out later.\n\n107\n00:05:28.320 --> 00:05:32.400\nAnd I know a lot of people have kind of said that, but I saw it every day.\n\n108\n00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:36.800\nAnd even as a kid, to learn those consequences of always hearing yes,\n\n109\n00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:40.720\nI think it built some grit in me. So for example, I'd be like ready for church\n\n110\n00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:42.160\nand my Sunday best.\n\n111\n00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.280\nAnd I'd want to go play in the dirt. My dad would say yes. Well, I had to have\n\n112\n00:05:45.280 --> 00:05:46.080\nconsequences.\n\n113\n00:05:46.080 --> 00:05:49.760\nNow I'm covered in dirt and have to get redressed again, but it taught me that,\n\n114\n00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:53.910\nhey, I can discover through the yes. And so he was one of the entrepreneurs\n\n115\n00:05:53.910 --> 00:05:55.200\nback in the 80s that\n\n116\n00:05:55.200 --> 00:06:00.500\nkind of got in on the oil and gas boom and then lost it all, millions and\n\n117\n00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:01.520\nmillions of dollars,\n\n118\n00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:05.480\nand then had to rebuild the business again. So I saw the loss and what I\n\n119\n00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:07.520\nlearned from him is that\n\n120\n00:06:07.520 --> 00:06:11.920\nthe build of the success is way more fulfilling than the money.\n\n121\n00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:16.400\nThat's that's that's so true. And everybody who really makes it makes a\n\n122\n00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:17.600\ndifference in the world\n\n123\n00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:22.000\nfeels feels that way. And, and you know, you mentioned that things really\n\n124\n00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:22.640\nchanged when you\n\n125\n00:06:22.640 --> 00:06:28.320\nwent on on on Shark Tank. But I have to ask you, are you is poppy the largest\n\n126\n00:06:28.320 --> 00:06:29.120\nbrand,\n\n127\n00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:34.000\nmost successful brand ever launched on Shark Tank? Yeah, we're the biggest exit\n\n128\n00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:34.320\never,\n\n129\n00:06:34.320 --> 00:06:41.600\n1.95 billion to Pepsi. And I'm the only shark to have come back. You know, we\n\n130\n00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:42.240\ngot a deal and then\n\n131\n00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.970\nI came back and I was a shark. So there's a lot of firsts within it. It's\n\n132\n00:06:45.970 --> 00:06:47.520\ndefinitely the full circle\n\n133\n00:06:47.520 --> 00:06:52.910\nAmerican dream. And I've always said Shark Tank changed our lives. Like it's a\n\n134\n00:06:52.910 --> 00:06:54.160\nfantastic show,\n\n135\n00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:57.300\nentrepreneurs getting highlighted, because at the end of the day, you can have\n\n136\n00:06:57.300 --> 00:06:58.080\na great product. But\n\n137\n00:06:58.080 --> 00:07:02.760\nif you don't have resources and you don't have money, it's really hard. Yeah,\n\n138\n00:07:02.760 --> 00:07:03.600\nyou got to have\n\n139\n00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:08.320\nthat. No question about it. And, you know, you go on Shark Tank, you know,\n\n140\n00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:10.160\neverybody knows that\n\n141\n00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:15.150\nnow. But what's the story from that experience that you haven't told anyone\n\n142\n00:07:15.150 --> 00:07:16.560\nbefore? Yeah, you know,\n\n143\n00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:20.520\nI think one of the biggest things was I don't think we would be here today\n\n144\n00:07:20.520 --> 00:07:22.400\nwithout it. In the way of\n\n145\n00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:28.500\nbasically, we couldn't pay our bills. We couldn't pay our mortgage. We were\n\n146\n00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:29.680\nworking two jobs. It\n\n147\n00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:32.500\nwas almost like if we didn't get the deal, we probably would have gone out of\n\n148\n00:07:32.500 --> 00:07:33.040\nbusiness. And\n\n149\n00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.750\nthere would have never been a poppy. You know, I always, you know, if there's a\n\n150\n00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:37.520\nwill, there's a way.\n\n151\n00:07:37.520 --> 00:07:41.280\nI'd like to think that I could have been scrappy to keep it going. But it was\n\n152\n00:07:41.280 --> 00:07:42.000\njust to the point\n\n153\n00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:46.850\nwhere we'd been grinding for two years, you know, just not really making a ton\n\n154\n00:07:46.850 --> 00:07:47.760\nof headway outside\n\n155\n00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:52.790\nof Dallas, Texas is where we originally started it. And it just beverage is so\n\n156\n00:07:52.790 --> 00:07:54.480\ncapital intensive.\n\n157\n00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:59.600\nA lot of people don't get beverage. You're literally shipping liquids across\n\n158\n00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:00.320\nthe country. So just\n\n159\n00:08:00.320 --> 00:08:05.170\nthink of like a D to C play. It's it's harder, right? If you think of a truck\n\n160\n00:08:05.170 --> 00:08:06.400\nload full of poppy\n\n161\n00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:13.200\nto get across the US is, you know, $10,000. Well, a truckload of say sunscreen\n\n162\n00:08:13.200 --> 00:08:14.160\nor a beauty product,\n\n163\n00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:17.590\nyou can get like $300,000 worth of product. And then there for us, it's like $\n\n164\n00:08:17.590 --> 00:08:18.480\n40,000 with the\n\n165\n00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:22.840\nproduct net truckload. So your costs are just higher every step of the way. So\n\n166\n00:08:22.840 --> 00:08:23.520\nfor us, if we\n\n167\n00:08:23.520 --> 00:08:27.300\nwouldn't have gotten a deal on Shark Tank, I hate to say, but there's there's a\n\n168\n00:08:27.300 --> 00:08:28.000\nworld where\n\n169\n00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.920\npoppy would have never happened. Oh, well, thank God you you went on Shark Tank\n\n170\n00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:32.480\nbecause you got a\n\n171\n00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:37.350\ngreat brand. You know, you end up doing this deal with Rohan Oza, who's known\n\n172\n00:08:37.350 --> 00:08:38.160\nas the brand\n\n173\n00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:45.070\nfather as I understand it again. And he put $400,000 in and he got 25% of your\n\n174\n00:08:45.070 --> 00:08:46.320\nbusiness. Now we've all\n\n175\n00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:52.260\nseen Shark Tank. But how long did you actually have to make that decision that\n\n176\n00:08:52.260 --> 00:08:53.600\nyou're going to go\n\n177\n00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:57.750\nwith him? Yeah, so fun fact about Shark Tank is when you go into pitch, you're\n\n178\n00:08:57.750 --> 00:08:58.480\nactually in there\n\n179\n00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:02.860\nfor 30 to 45 minutes pitching. And then they they edited it down to about five\n\n180\n00:09:02.860 --> 00:09:03.520\nminutes.\n\n181\n00:09:04.400 --> 00:09:09.950\nAnd within that, it is very you have to figure it out on the moment. And so\n\n182\n00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:10.560\nwhen they\n\n183\n00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:14.080\ngive you an offer, you have seconds to think about it.\n\n184\n00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:35.200\nThe way that we prepared going in is thinking, what could be the craziest thing\n\n185\n00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:47.840\nsomeone could ask\n\n186\n00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:47.840\nof us? What are the craziest questions? And we worked for six months prepping\n\n187\n00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:52.480\nfor this. So from\n\n188\n00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:52.480\nthe time we tried out to the time we actually walked into the tank with six\n\n189\n00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:57.760\nmonths, I was a little\n\n190\n00:09:57.760 --> 00:09:57.760\nbit scared because when we tried out three months pregnant ended up going on\n\n191\n00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:02.560\nShark Tank nine months\n\n192\n00:10:02.560 --> 00:10:06.290\npregnant and had the baby, you know, two weeks after it. And I was like, am I\n\n193\n00:10:06.290 --> 00:10:07.040\ngoing to make this?\n\n194\n00:10:07.040 --> 00:10:11.590\nLike, I don't care. I'm going on this show, even if I have the baby on set. But\n\n195\n00:10:11.590 --> 00:10:13.040\nI do think that\n\n196\n00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:16.140\nyou don't have time to really think about it. And if you do, you can lose deals\n\n197\n00:10:16.140 --> 00:10:17.360\n. And I've seen it happen.\n\n198\n00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:22.470\nWhat was the wildest question that you had in your minds that you prepared for\n\n199\n00:10:22.470 --> 00:10:23.920\nin that scenario\n\n200\n00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:28.410\nwhere you're getting ready? I think like you the typical stuff, right, like\n\n201\n00:10:28.410 --> 00:10:29.520\nyour margins and\n\n202\n00:10:30.160 --> 00:10:33.230\nyour three year projections and all that. But then it's like, what if they, one\n\n203\n00:10:33.230 --> 00:10:34.000\nby half the company\n\n204\n00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:37.600\nor the whole company or, or what if they want to change everything, right? You\n\n205\n00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:38.400\ngo through like\n\n206\n00:10:38.400 --> 00:10:41.860\nall those scenarios. Nowadays, I feel like with chat, GPT and stuff would make\n\n207\n00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:42.720\nit a lot easier to\n\n208\n00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:46.620\nprepare for this back then we didn't have anything like that. But I think one\n\n209\n00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:47.760\nof the craziest questions\n\n210\n00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:52.110\nwe got in there is everyone's yelling at you. They're asking you questions from\n\n211\n00:10:52.110 --> 00:10:52.800\nhow many bottles a\n\n212\n00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:55.540\nyear can you do? How do you manufacture it? What are your ingredients? What\n\n213\n00:10:55.540 --> 00:10:56.400\ncertifications do you\n\n214\n00:10:56.400 --> 00:11:01.200\nhave? And then Mark Cuban yelled at us, hey, where's Joe's office? And he was\n\n215\n00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:02.240\nlike wanting to have like\n\n216\n00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:07.630\na personal conversation of like, oh, we're like, it's on Harry. Hi, it's such\n\n217\n00:11:07.630 --> 00:11:09.040\nlike a jarring feeling\n\n218\n00:11:09.040 --> 00:11:13.720\nof like, wait, am I, am I supposed to answer that? It's not about the business,\n\n219\n00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:15.360\nbut it is. And it's,\n\n220\n00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:19.840\nit's funny just because they're so seasoned and so pro within it that they can\n\n221\n00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:20.560\nask the questions\n\n222\n00:11:20.560 --> 00:11:25.410\nand still have fun while doing it. What was a single best piece of advice that\n\n223\n00:11:25.410 --> 00:11:26.080\nRohan\n\n224\n00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:32.560\nis giving you about brand building? Just to invest in brand building, a lot of\n\n225\n00:11:32.560 --> 00:11:32.960\npeople\n\n226\n00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:37.380\nsay it, but actions speak louder than words when it comes to actually investing\n\n227\n00:11:37.380 --> 00:11:37.920\nin brand\n\n228\n00:11:37.920 --> 00:11:42.770\nbuildings. So for us, our number one KPI for the first three years of business\n\n229\n00:11:42.770 --> 00:11:44.000\nwas brand awareness.\n\n230\n00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:49.840\nNow, that's long term brand building. That's long term, not knowing if what you\n\n231\n00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:50.400\n're doing is\n\n232\n00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:54.960\nworking, right? You're not seeing that immediate performance marketing driven\n\n233\n00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:57.200\nKPIs. And he was\n\n234\n00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:01.230\nthe money. And at the end of the day, he believed that's what was best. We all\n\n235\n00:12:01.230 --> 00:12:03.040\ndid. And I think it's\n\n236\n00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:08.150\nrare where you have a full team behind a business that's really invested in\n\n237\n00:12:08.150 --> 00:12:10.000\nlong term brand building.\n\n238\n00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.400\nPeople get that dopamine hit in a DC D to C company. And it's like, Oh, if I\n\n239\n00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:14.880\nspin this,\n\n240\n00:12:14.880 --> 00:12:19.160\nI immediately see that it's a vicious cycle. And usually it's a lot harder for\n\n241\n00:12:19.160 --> 00:12:20.400\nthose just really\n\n242\n00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:24.130\njust D to C companies to eventually exit. A lot of people don't don't really\n\n243\n00:12:24.130 --> 00:12:25.040\nthink about that.\n\n244\n00:12:25.040 --> 00:12:29.920\nHow'd you land on the name Poppy? Yeah, so we landed on the name Poppy because\n\n245\n00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:30.800\nit's a playoff\n\n246\n00:12:30.800 --> 00:12:35.760\nof soda pop. Very simple. It's Poppy. Soda pop pops off the shelf.\n\n247\n00:12:35.760 --> 00:12:42.240\nAnd it did. When did you know you had a winner? You know, we launched Poppy\n\n248\n00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:44.000\nMarch 3rd 2020.\n\n249\n00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.800\nFirst week of COVID, the second week in April, we had an update on Shark Tank\n\n250\n00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:49.600\nAir, which was\n\n251\n00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:54.150\nbasically a national commercial week two. And our sales on Amazon went from\n\n252\n00:12:54.150 --> 00:12:55.440\nlike 4,000 a day\n\n253\n00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:02.900\nto like, you know, 20,000 a day, 100. It was like crazy. And you know, if you\n\n254\n00:13:02.900 --> 00:13:03.520\nkind of think back\n\n255\n00:13:03.520 --> 00:13:07.950\nat that time, we were a shelf stable product that you could pantry load that\n\n256\n00:13:07.950 --> 00:13:08.560\nhad better for\n\n257\n00:13:08.560 --> 00:13:12.290\nyou ingredients when everyone's like really concerned and thinking about their\n\n258\n00:13:12.290 --> 00:13:12.560\nhealth and\n\n259\n00:13:12.560 --> 00:13:16.800\nwellness, really some people for the first time ever. And then we found a way\n\n260\n00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:17.840\nto really connect\n\n261\n00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:23.940\ndigitally. So I got online and I became super obsessed with TikTok personally.\n\n262\n00:13:23.940 --> 00:13:24.640\nAnd we had some\n\n263\n00:13:24.640 --> 00:13:28.370\nreally breakthrough moments really early on. I would say we were probably one\n\n264\n00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:29.360\nof the first 100\n\n265\n00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:33.530\nbrands on TikTok. And it was the Wild Wild West back then. Like, were you just\n\n266\n00:13:33.530 --> 00:13:34.080\nposting\n\n267\n00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:38.430\nyou get a million views? I was dancing. I was doing recipe videos. And for\n\n268\n00:13:38.430 --> 00:13:38.960\ncontext,\n\n269\n00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:44.710\nyou know, we have over 3 billion views on TikTok with Poppy. Now, and I would\n\n270\n00:13:44.710 --> 00:13:45.760\nsay like 1/3 of the\n\n271\n00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:53.220\nplatform has seen my face over seven times. That's incredible. Now, what's the\n\n272\n00:13:53.220 --> 00:13:54.000\nbelief you had in\n\n273\n00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:59.240\nthe early days of Poppy that everyone basically told you were wrong? But you\n\n274\n00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:00.640\nwere right to keep it.\n\n275\n00:14:00.640 --> 00:14:06.140\nI got a lot of pushback on the TikTok piece. A lot of people say Instagram was\n\n276\n00:14:06.140 --> 00:14:06.880\nwhere it's at.\n\n277\n00:14:06.880 --> 00:14:12.320\nThere's a lot of dancers and people on there don't do TikTok. I got a lot of\n\n278\n00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:14.160\npushback on apparel.\n\n279\n00:14:14.160 --> 00:14:17.390\nSo, you know, I'm wearing one of these jackets now, but a lot of people are\n\n280\n00:14:17.390 --> 00:14:17.440\nlike,\n\n281\n00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:21.680\nwhy is soda company? Why do you want to do apparel that's not just what\n\n282\n00:14:21.680 --> 00:14:22.560\neveryone else is doing?\n\n283\n00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:26.710\nAnd I was like, oh, it's just not cool. So we have apparel fully integrated\n\n284\n00:14:26.710 --> 00:14:27.440\ninto Poppy. So we\n\n285\n00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:31.710\nhave a production coordinator. We have a head of apparel and hard goods. We cut\n\n286\n00:14:31.710 --> 00:14:32.480\n, so diet,\n\n287\n00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:36.210\neverything so much so that we made so many ways with it. We launched our own\n\n288\n00:14:36.210 --> 00:14:36.640\nclothing line with\n\n289\n00:14:36.640 --> 00:14:40.800\nTarget for a two month in and out program. That was so great because then we\n\n290\n00:14:40.800 --> 00:14:41.760\nhad Poppy right next\n\n291\n00:14:41.760 --> 00:14:46.440\nto it. They were able to sell more soda. Now we have 350,000 people walking\n\n292\n00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:47.520\naround with Poppy\n\n293\n00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:52.080\nbillboards on their back of apparel, right? And so that to me is the definition\n\n294\n00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:52.960\nof long-term\n\n295\n00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:56.800\nbrand building that some people might say, why would you do that? And I'm like,\n\n296\n00:14:56.800 --> 00:14:57.360\nwhy not?\n\n297\n00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.770\nSo like little stuff, little stuff like that that I kind of had to stick to my\n\n298\n00:15:01.770 --> 00:15:02.080\nguns.\n\n299\n00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:06.430\nYou know, speaking of brand building, you say that a mistake that a lot of\n\n300\n00:15:06.430 --> 00:15:07.920\nentrepreneurs make\n\n301\n00:15:07.920 --> 00:15:13.310\nis that they focus on the product and not the brand. Say more about that. Yeah,\n\n302\n00:15:13.310 --> 00:15:14.000\nmost people,\n\n303\n00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:18.150\nand I think it's the way that we market. So we have a fantastic product. I\n\n304\n00:15:18.150 --> 00:15:18.880\nthink you have to\n\n305\n00:15:18.880 --> 00:15:22.340\nhave a good product to be successful. It's at the core of whatever you're doing\n\n306\n00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:23.040\n. It has to be a\n\n307\n00:15:23.040 --> 00:15:27.390\ngood product, right? So we nailed the product. We have an incredible PhD\n\n308\n00:15:27.390 --> 00:15:28.560\nscientist team. My\n\n309\n00:15:28.560 --> 00:15:33.630\nhusband ran the entire ops and product team. I think really where it can set\n\n310\n00:15:33.630 --> 00:15:34.960\nyou apart is talking\n\n311\n00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:38.720\nabout the brand. So I always say like versus, hey, we're Poppy. We're five\n\n312\n00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:39.600\ngrams of sugar with\n\n313\n00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:45.360\nprebiotics. We're where I say is, hey, we're Poppy. We're fun. Oh, and by the\n\n314\n00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:46.560\nway, we're better for\n\n315\n00:15:46.560 --> 00:15:50.970\nyou is a way better way to market to people because the second you really get\n\n316\n00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:52.240\nclinical and you start\n\n317\n00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:56.000\ntalking so niche, you've cut off probably half of your consumer base because\n\n318\n00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:56.960\nsome people might be\n\n319\n00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:00.690\nlike, oh, I don't know about prebiotics. I don't. I don't. That's not for me\n\n320\n00:16:00.690 --> 00:16:02.240\nversus we taste amazing,\n\n321\n00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:06.600\ntry this. Oh, and by the way, it's good for you. You can get way more people\n\n322\n00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:07.920\ninto your fold.\n\n323\n00:16:07.920 --> 00:16:12.980\nAnd with that, we invest in brand building things at Poppy. So at Poppy, we\n\n324\n00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:14.160\nhave a vertical within\n\n325\n00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:17.890\nmarketing that I don't think a lot of companies have. And it's called the\n\n326\n00:16:17.890 --> 00:16:20.560\nculture team. And you\n\n327\n00:16:20.560 --> 00:16:25.750\nmight be like, is that HR? No, it is all things culturally relevant. So it's\n\n328\n00:16:25.750 --> 00:16:26.880\ncollege, it's an\n\n329\n00:16:26.880 --> 00:16:32.660\nevents, it's influencer, it's social, and it encompasses all the things that we\n\n330\n00:16:32.660 --> 00:16:33.440\ndo so that\n\n331\n00:16:33.440 --> 00:16:37.360\nthat can then allow us to move at the speed of culture. And it's kind of the\n\n332\n00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:38.480\ncore, I would say that\n\n333\n00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:43.540\nof the marketing and the heartbeat of the DNA of that Poppy is really creative\n\n334\n00:16:43.540 --> 00:16:45.520\nand the culture piece\n\n335\n00:16:45.520 --> 00:16:48.990\nthat's that long-term brand building piece that we really, really invest in at\n\n336\n00:16:48.990 --> 00:16:49.520\nPoppy.\n\n337\n00:16:49.520 --> 00:16:54.370\nDo you think that's really the reason why the brand has become like, I would\n\n338\n00:16:54.370 --> 00:16:55.760\nsay, it's almost a\n\n339\n00:16:55.760 --> 00:17:00.110\nmovement, you know? And what else have you done intentionally to create a\n\n340\n00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:01.520\ncommunity instead of\n\n341\n00:17:01.520 --> 00:17:05.250\njust having customers? It seems like that's what you that's what you've ended\n\n342\n00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:06.160\nup with now is this\n\n343\n00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:10.640\ncommunity of raving fans. It's so funny. I always say we don't have customers,\n\n344\n00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:11.840\nwe have community,\n\n345\n00:17:11.840 --> 00:17:15.680\nso you nailed it. But I will say me putting myself out there and being\n\n346\n00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:17.280\nauthentic and real,\n\n347\n00:17:17.280 --> 00:17:21.250\nbelieving in the brand, and then believing in the creator marketplace of\n\n348\n00:17:21.250 --> 00:17:22.400\nworking with\n\n349\n00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:29.860\ninfluencers that are not all huge influencers. So where we have at Poppy, you\n\n350\n00:17:29.860 --> 00:17:30.320\ncould call it a\n\n351\n00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:34.050\nbrand ambassador program, but it's just regular people online nowadays,\n\n352\n00:17:34.050 --> 00:17:35.680\neveryone's creating content.\n\n353\n00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:39.600\nEveryone's quote unquote an influencer or creating content. And we really\n\n354\n00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:40.720\nleaned into that. So\n\n355\n00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:44.130\nthere's some people out there, if it's a good piece of content, we'll reach out\n\n356\n00:17:44.130 --> 00:17:44.720\nto them,\n\n357\n00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:47.910\nwe'll give them a fee and we'll ask if we can get paid behind it. And it's just\n\n358\n00:17:47.910 --> 00:17:48.640\nevery day\n\n359\n00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:52.370\nreal people that they're connecting with, right? It's not just the like cute\n\n360\n00:17:52.370 --> 00:17:53.680\ncollege girl or the\n\n361\n00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:59.000\ncool athlete. It's like real authentic people drinking Poppy. We're diverse, we\n\n362\n00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:00.000\n're inclusive,\n\n363\n00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.960\nright? We're on the forefront of we're a trendsetter, we're not a trend\n\n364\n00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:05.920\nfollower.\n\n365\n00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:10.880\nAnd what that comes is we hire young at Poppy's. So we at one point were 65%\n\n366\n00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:12.160\nfemale, our marketing\n\n367\n00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:15.890\nteam was very young. So they knew what was going on. I think one of the biggest\n\n368\n00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:15.920\nmyths\n\n369\n00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:20.270\nthat Gen Z doesn't work hard is bull, right? We found incredible teams. A lot\n\n370\n00:18:20.270 --> 00:18:20.880\nof our college\n\n371\n00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:24.640\nambassadors will work as interns. We hire them on. If they have their pulse on\n\n372\n00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:25.360\nculture and they\n\n373\n00:18:25.360 --> 00:18:28.540\nwork hard, they're a great fit for Poppy. Hi, friends. I hope you're loving\n\n374\n00:18:28.540 --> 00:18:29.520\nthis episode with\n\n375\n00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:33.280\nAllison. As always, I hope you stay tuned to the deep brief. David and I are\n\n376\n00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:34.160\ngoing to break down\n\n377\n00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:37.140\nsome of these concepts that Allison is talking about so that we give you\n\n378\n00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:38.400\nsomething really practical\n\n379\n00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:42.750\nthat you can apply to your work, to your leadership and to your life. So stay\n\n380\n00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:43.760\ntuned to the very end\n\n381\n00:18:43.760 --> 00:18:48.730\nof the episode and I will see you at the deep brief. You know, when it comes to\n\n382\n00:18:48.730 --> 00:18:49.840\nsocial media,\n\n383\n00:18:49.840 --> 00:18:53.570\nI mean, you're unquestionably one of the best in the world at it. I mean, you\n\n384\n00:18:53.570 --> 00:18:54.480\n've built your brand\n\n385\n00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:59.650\non it and break down your top social channels and how you leverage the\n\n386\n00:18:59.650 --> 00:19:01.600\nuniqueness of each one at\n\n387\n00:19:01.600 --> 00:19:06.150\nPoppy. Yeah, so social is tough. I think when it comes to it, you have to\n\n388\n00:19:06.150 --> 00:19:07.680\nreally think about each\n\n389\n00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:12.240\nchannel as its own individual channel. So Instagram, the way I think about that\n\n390\n00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:12.560\n, it's\n\n391\n00:19:12.560 --> 00:19:17.000\nbasically your modern day website. So you want it to be a little bit more\n\n392\n00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:18.240\npolished, a little bit\n\n393\n00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:22.030\nmore educational. People usually, if they ask who you are, they're going to go\n\n394\n00:19:22.030 --> 00:19:22.960\nto your Instagram\n\n395\n00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:27.110\nfirst, especially probably millennial and below. And then of course, you need\n\n396\n00:19:27.110 --> 00:19:28.400\nto have a good website,\n\n397\n00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:30.970\nwhich a lot of you don't think that's a social channel, but you can really talk\n\n398\n00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:31.600\nto your community\n\n399\n00:19:31.600 --> 00:19:35.780\non your website. And then on TikTok, it's really where you can have a little\n\n400\n00:19:35.780 --> 00:19:36.880\nbit more fun. I think\n\n401\n00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:40.280\nyou have to be authentic, real. I don't think it needs to be over produced. So\n\n402\n00:19:40.280 --> 00:19:41.200\ndon't spend a ton of\n\n403\n00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:46.170\nmoney or time on fancy equipment. Use your iPhone. I think you post a ton\n\n404\n00:19:46.170 --> 00:19:47.600\nbecause for anyone that goes\n\n405\n00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:51.460\non TikTok, if you really go to someone's page, no one is scrolling down your\n\n406\n00:19:51.460 --> 00:19:52.560\nfeed and looking what\n\n407\n00:19:52.560 --> 00:19:56.970\nyou posted a month ago or even really a week ago. So just test stuff. If it\n\n408\n00:19:56.970 --> 00:19:58.320\ndoesn't work, the only\n\n409\n00:19:58.320 --> 00:20:03.010\nthing that hurts is probably your ego, but get over it. Keep posting until you\n\n410\n00:20:03.010 --> 00:20:04.400\nfind what works.\n\n411\n00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:08.560\nPost three, four times a day, have fun, do stories, do something you would\n\n412\n00:20:08.560 --> 00:20:09.600\nmaybe be unhinged. Just\n\n413\n00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:14.160\ndon't get canceled. And then I think there's YouTube that I'll be honest, not a\n\n414\n00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:15.040\nlot of brands\n\n415\n00:20:15.040 --> 00:20:19.760\nhave figured out YouTube including Poppy. Wong form content is extremely hard.\n\n416\n00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:22.080\nOne of my friends\n\n417\n00:20:22.080 --> 00:20:27.470\nis Preston Place. He's one of the OG Minecraft YouTubers. And he has a team of\n\n418\n00:20:27.470 --> 00:20:29.040\nlike 16 editors,\n\n419\n00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:32.640\n30 employees running just one social channel. So I think a lot of people don't\n\n420\n00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:32.960\nrealize how\n\n421\n00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:37.160\nrobust that channel is. And then X is where you can have a lot of fun. I always\n\n422\n00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:37.360\nsay,\n\n423\n00:20:37.360 --> 00:20:40.800\nhand it over to your copywriter and let them go wild. So it doesn't have to be\n\n424\n00:20:40.800 --> 00:20:41.840\na lot of strategy\n\n425\n00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:48.960\nthere when it comes to when it comes to X. You know, you mentioned storytelling\n\n426\n00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:50.320\nas you're going\n\n427\n00:20:50.320 --> 00:20:55.710\nthrough the rundown of the social and I've heard you say that all marketing\n\n428\n00:20:55.710 --> 00:20:58.160\nreally is good storytelling.\n\n429\n00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:03.170\nTake me inside your process. And how do you how do you think about telling a\n\n430\n00:21:03.170 --> 00:21:03.840\ngood story?\n\n431\n00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:08.200\nWell, I always say build the story before you scale. And that's where the big\n\n432\n00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:09.440\ncompanies get it\n\n433\n00:21:09.440 --> 00:21:14.830\nwrong. Right there, you know, you take they have these huge brands and then\n\n434\n00:21:14.830 --> 00:21:15.440\nthey're trying to build\n\n435\n00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:20.440\nthat community and build that story. So start building your story now, however\n\n436\n00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:21.440\nmessy it is.\n\n437\n00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:25.680\nAnd whatever that is, is knowing that it can evolve. I think that's where\n\n438\n00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:26.400\npeople get really\n\n439\n00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:30.550\nscared is like, well, I don't have it figured out. It's okay. Test, get out,\n\n440\n00:21:30.550 --> 00:21:31.600\nstart talking.\n\n441\n00:21:31.600 --> 00:21:35.520\nAre what we have internally? And what really is our North Star is our brand\n\n442\n00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:36.800\nbook at Poppy,\n\n443\n00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:40.200\nright? We're on a mission to revolution, I soda for the next generation. And\n\n444\n00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:41.120\nhow does it all work\n\n445\n00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:45.900\nwithin that storytelling? And it's fun. We did our first Super Bowl back in\n\n446\n00:21:45.900 --> 00:21:50.000\n2000 and 24. And it\n\n447\n00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:53.190\nwas one of those things where we had been working on the storytelling of Poppy\n\n448\n00:21:53.190 --> 00:21:53.920\nfor about a year.\n\n449\n00:21:54.880 --> 00:22:00.720\nAnd really, it starts with the word soda. Everybody knows so does bad for you,\n\n450\n00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:02.240\nbut they still like\n\n451\n00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:06.280\nit, right? They know it's a dirty word, but they want something better. So we\n\n452\n00:22:06.280 --> 00:22:07.600\ncreated Poppy,\n\n453\n00:22:07.600 --> 00:22:11.760\nyou get soda without the baggage. It's very simple. We're like, now how do we\n\n454\n00:22:11.760 --> 00:22:12.880\nbring that to life? Like\n\n455\n00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:17.900\nwe are the future of soda. And we were able to create a beautiful piece of\n\n456\n00:22:17.900 --> 00:22:19.120\ncontent out of that\n\n457\n00:22:19.120 --> 00:22:25.220\nstorytelling of Poppy's future for the next generation of soda. And we created\n\n458\n00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:25.760\na piece of\n\n459\n00:22:25.760 --> 00:22:29.040\ncontent to run on TV, not knowing it was going to be a Super Bowl ad. And once\n\n460\n00:22:29.040 --> 00:22:29.840\nwe saw it really,\n\n461\n00:22:29.840 --> 00:22:33.640\nholy crap, this is incredible. This is telling what our story where we want to\n\n462\n00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:34.720\nplant our flag in\n\n463\n00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:38.920\nthree years from now, we said we were soda in at 17 times, then we put it on\n\n464\n00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:40.000\nthe Super Bowl.\n\n465\n00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:45.270\nAnd we tripled our awareness overnight. It really established us as modern soda\n\n466\n00:22:45.270 --> 00:22:46.240\nwithin the grocery\n\n467\n00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:50.410\nstore retail. And it changed because we had invested time in what our story was\n\n468\n00:22:50.410 --> 00:22:51.120\ngoing to be.\n\n469\n00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:56.230\nAnd we put it together. Now, we're three years, or two years past that, how\n\n470\n00:22:56.230 --> 00:22:57.360\ndoes our story evolve?\n\n471\n00:22:57.360 --> 00:23:01.840\nIt can't just continue to say that over and over again. So how do you have it\n\n472\n00:23:01.840 --> 00:23:02.560\nwithin use\n\n473\n00:23:02.560 --> 00:23:06.720\noccasions? How do you talk about the next level of storytelling with Poppy? So\n\n474\n00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:07.600\nI think like,\n\n475\n00:23:07.600 --> 00:23:11.810\njust start telling your story, invest time, energy into it, which a lot of\n\n476\n00:23:11.810 --> 00:23:14.240\npeople don't do. And then\n\n477\n00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:17.840\nbe able to change and evolve the story as long as you stick to your North Star.\n\n478\n00:23:17.840 --> 00:23:21.100\nYou know, I remember that ad that you ran on the Super Bowl, and it really\n\n479\n00:23:21.100 --> 00:23:22.160\nstood out. And you know,\n\n480\n00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:26.720\nmost Super Bowl ads really suck. I mean, they're just terrible. I mean, people\n\n481\n00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:27.600\nspend a lot of my,\n\n482\n00:23:27.600 --> 00:23:31.750\nwhy do you think that is? And what, you know, if you were giving someone advice\n\n483\n00:23:31.750 --> 00:23:32.960\non how to do\n\n484\n00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:36.400\nthis great Super Bowl ad, you know, what would you tell them?\n\n485\n00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:41.510\nI think it's celebrity soup is what a lot of people don't realize is everyone\n\n486\n00:23:41.510 --> 00:23:42.160\ntries to get as\n\n487\n00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:45.920\nmany celebrities into it as possible. But the problem is, is if everyone's\n\n488\n00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:46.320\ndoing that,\n\n489\n00:23:46.320 --> 00:23:50.590\nthen you're not unique. And then I think people try to do two weird of things\n\n490\n00:23:50.590 --> 00:23:51.440\nto break through.\n\n491\n00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:56.960\nAnd for us, we stayed true to who we, we are. So the first year was that\n\n492\n00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:00.840\nanthemic piece, the next year that we did it, we worked with creators and we\n\n493\n00:24:00.840 --> 00:24:02.000\nhad Alex Earl and Jake\n\n494\n00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.880\nShane in it. And it was like one of those things where we stayed true to who we\n\n495\n00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:08.960\nare versus trying to\n\n496\n00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:13.110\nnot be poppy. And that's always just like what we've always done really well.\n\n497\n00:24:13.110 --> 00:24:13.680\nWe've never really\n\n498\n00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:18.740\nhad any missteps because we've done the work. We know what our brand is. And\n\n499\n00:24:18.740 --> 00:24:19.680\nwhen I say people\n\n500\n00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:23.410\ndon't invest in it, it is wild how many times I talk to people to invest in the\n\n501\n00:24:23.410 --> 00:24:24.240\nbrand. And then\n\n502\n00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.540\nthey just go right back to being a performance marketing company and trying to\n\n503\n00:24:27.540 --> 00:24:28.400\nget that dopamine\n\n504\n00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:34.500\nhit. You know, tell me about this thing you got, you call it a black ops budget\n\n505\n00:24:34.500 --> 00:24:34.720\n.\n\n506\n00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.480\nTell me about your black ops budget. Yeah, especially in the early years, we\n\n507\n00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:39.360\nwould have\n\n508\n00:24:39.360 --> 00:24:43.760\nwhat we called was our black ops budget and whatever you could put aside for,\n\n509\n00:24:43.760 --> 00:24:49.510\nyou know, it could be $20,000 depending on their size, your business up to 500,\n\n510\n00:24:49.510 --> 00:24:50.800\n000 or even a million,\n\n511\n00:24:50.800 --> 00:24:55.480\nif it doesn't have to be a lot, but it can be a lot. The way when we always say\n\n512\n00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:56.240\nwe move at the speed\n\n513\n00:24:56.240 --> 00:25:00.920\nof culture, the only way to do that is to not really plan. And that's really\n\n514\n00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:01.760\nscary for big\n\n515\n00:25:01.760 --> 00:25:05.970\ncompanies because culture moves so quickly that sometimes a trend is not a\n\n516\n00:25:05.970 --> 00:25:07.600\ntrend after three days.\n\n517\n00:25:07.600 --> 00:25:11.170\nSo if it takes you two weeks to get a trend to prove internally at your company\n\n518\n00:25:11.170 --> 00:25:11.920\n, you've missed the\n\n519\n00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:17.220\nboat. And then if there's something culturally relevant happening, how do you\n\n520\n00:25:17.220 --> 00:25:18.080\nmove quick? And\n\n521\n00:25:18.080 --> 00:25:21.920\nhow do you have the funds if everything's already allocated to other things? So\n\n522\n00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:22.640\nwe always had this\n\n523\n00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:25.940\nlike fun little budget or we'd move stuff around that we could kind of have fun\n\n524\n00:25:25.940 --> 00:25:26.800\n. And this is a fun\n\n525\n00:25:26.800 --> 00:25:30.860\nexample. I'm sure you're a huge fan. Are you probably not even heard of it? But\n\n526\n00:25:30.860 --> 00:25:31.600\nLove Island\n\n527\n00:25:31.600 --> 00:25:36.080\nis. Oh, yeah. Love Island. I'm on a Comcast board. I have to. I have to go to\n\n528\n00:25:36.080 --> 00:25:36.800\nLove Island.\n\n529\n00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:40.530\nWell, we love Love Island. It's such a cultural moment during the summer\n\n530\n00:25:40.530 --> 00:25:40.880\nbecause there's not\n\n531\n00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:46.980\na lot of other new TV running. And so for us, we fell in love with Amaya this\n\n532\n00:25:46.980 --> 00:25:48.240\nseason and she won.\n\n533\n00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:54.480\nAnd we were having fun with it. We created a meme. So memes are a lot of moving\n\n534\n00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:54.880\nat the speed\n\n535\n00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:59.560\nof culture, right? It's people love them. And so we did an Amaya papaya flavor.\n\n536\n00:25:59.560 --> 00:26:00.720\nAnd we were like,\n\n537\n00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.880\nand then the community went wild. They were like, you guys have to actually do\n\n538\n00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:04.320\nthis.\n\n539\n00:26:04.320 --> 00:26:08.050\nWell, for us to launch a new flavor within a few months to culturally make it\n\n540\n00:26:08.050 --> 00:26:08.720\nmake sense\n\n541\n00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:12.720\nis really hard as a company, right? You have to get printed cans. You have to\n\n542\n00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:13.600\ndo a photo shoot.\n\n543\n00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:17.520\nYou have to do marketing behind it. You have to have paid. We were able to pull\n\n544\n00:26:17.520 --> 00:26:18.320\ntogether a brand\n\n545\n00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:23.050\nyou can with her. It was Amaya's Pina Colada. We did it, I think within three\n\n546\n00:26:23.050 --> 00:26:24.480\nmonths. Now,\n\n547\n00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:28.630\nthat wasn't in the plan, right? And so that's what I mean is this like black\n\n548\n00:26:28.630 --> 00:26:30.000\nops, but it's always,\n\n549\n00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:33.120\nwe know it's something like that's going to happen here. So we kind of just\n\n550\n00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:33.440\nkeep\n\n551\n00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:38.880\nfun money aside for it. Your approach to marketing must be blowing the people\n\n552\n00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:40.320\nof Pepsi away. I mean,\n\n553\n00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:45.840\nare they going to school on you now? I mean, you've not only, they not only\n\n554\n00:26:45.840 --> 00:26:47.040\nbought a tremendous\n\n555\n00:26:47.040 --> 00:26:51.890\nbrand, you're like one of the top marketers in the world right now. Are they\n\n556\n00:26:51.890 --> 00:26:52.560\nlearning from you\n\n557\n00:26:52.560 --> 00:26:57.040\nas we speak? After buying us, they were like, did not want to mess anything up.\n\n558\n00:26:57.040 --> 00:26:57.600\nTheir number\n\n559\n00:26:57.600 --> 00:27:01.840\nof motto is like, let Poppy be Poppy. So it's still the same team in place. And\n\n560\n00:27:01.840 --> 00:27:03.200\nat one point,\n\n561\n00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:07.420\nwe were looking at marketing to how do we open our audiences and maybe speak to\n\n562\n00:27:07.420 --> 00:27:08.320\nmore males.\n\n563\n00:27:08.320 --> 00:27:12.080\nThey're like, we got 22 brands focused on men, you guys focus on the women, the\n\n564\n00:27:12.080 --> 00:27:12.560\ngirlies,\n\n565\n00:27:12.560 --> 00:27:17.280\nthe puppy girlies, the millennials. So they're obsessed with what we're doing.\n\n566\n00:27:17.280 --> 00:27:18.480\nWe are doing sessions\n\n567\n00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:21.890\nwith them and having the best time and being collaborative. And they're really\n\n568\n00:27:21.890 --> 00:27:22.400\njust like\n\n569\n00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:27.120\nallowing us to kind of stay Poppy. And to your point, yes, we've had a few\n\n570\n00:27:27.120 --> 00:27:27.680\nthings where they're\n\n571\n00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:32.370\nlike, hey, maybe you guys could take a look at this, but we're still focused on\n\n572\n00:27:32.370 --> 00:27:32.960\nPoppy,\n\n573\n00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.160\nwhich is what's beautiful of just continuing the growth.\n\n574\n00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:43.200\nYeah, that's great. And you've landed some massive brand partners, Post Malone,\n\n575\n00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:48.880\nHaley Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Paris Hilton, just to name a few, tell me a story\n\n576\n00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:49.840\nabout one of the\n\n577\n00:27:49.840 --> 00:27:54.880\nmost important lessons you've picked up from one of them, anyone of them?\n\n578\n00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:00.800\nWell, I think it's more of an overarching thing. So a lot of people don't\n\n579\n00:28:00.800 --> 00:28:02.080\nrealize the new creator\n\n580\n00:28:02.080 --> 00:28:09.360\nmarketplace of influencers and creators is really where you shouldn't put your\n\n581\n00:28:09.360 --> 00:28:10.080\ninvestment in in\n\n582\n00:28:10.080 --> 00:28:14.860\nthose early days. So we worked with JLo, maybe I think year two, even though\n\n583\n00:28:14.860 --> 00:28:16.000\nshe was iconic,\n\n584\n00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:19.430\nincredible partner to work with, we didn't really see it move the needle. And\n\n585\n00:28:19.430 --> 00:28:19.920\nit was really\n\n586\n00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:23.650\nsurprising to us because really, oh my gosh, she's like one of the biggest\n\n587\n00:28:23.650 --> 00:28:24.480\nstars in the world.\n\n588\n00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:28.400\nShe was a great partner. But it's what we realize is people don't really care\n\n589\n00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:29.280\nabout what celebrities\n\n590\n00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:33.040\nare doing anymore, especially in the early days when you're just building your\n\n591\n00:28:33.040 --> 00:28:33.600\nbusiness and you're\n\n592\n00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:36.360\nnot sold everywhere. If they can't find you, it's not going to have the hugest\n\n593\n00:28:36.360 --> 00:28:37.520\nimpact. So\n\n594\n00:28:37.520 --> 00:28:40.590\nwe got that lesson a little bit early on in business. So then we doubled down\n\n595\n00:28:40.590 --> 00:28:41.680\nwith influencers and\n\n596\n00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:48.420\ncreators. And our hack was just for fun Z's, we actually never worked with Kyl\n\n597\n00:28:48.420 --> 00:28:49.680\nie Jenner or Haley\n\n598\n00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:53.160\nBieber. We just sent them products for free and they ended up posting us for\n\n599\n00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:54.240\nfree, which was way\n\n600\n00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:58.460\nmore authentic than doing a whole paid sponsorship deal with them. And then\n\n601\n00:28:58.460 --> 00:28:59.120\nwhen it comes to\n\n602\n00:28:59.120 --> 00:29:04.880\nPost Malone, we love Posty. He's from Texas. And we had found out that he had\n\n603\n00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:06.400\nstopped drinking soda\n\n604\n00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:09.670\nand was drinking poppy and he was a fan. And so it made sense to work with him\n\n605\n00:29:09.670 --> 00:29:10.320\nbecause he was like\n\n606\n00:29:10.320 --> 00:29:14.050\nalready such a big fan of ours. And then the retailers love those type of\n\n607\n00:29:14.050 --> 00:29:15.680\nprograms. So for him,\n\n608\n00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:19.590\nit's like, if you see it's very specific on why we do things versus we need to\n\n609\n00:29:19.590 --> 00:29:20.800\nslap a celebrity\n\n610\n00:29:20.800 --> 00:29:24.860\nacross our brand because our brand is like community driven. It's founder\n\n611\n00:29:24.860 --> 00:29:26.160\ndriven. It's\n\n612\n00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:31.800\nteam driven. So I think the biggest lesson I learned is you don't sometimes\n\n613\n00:29:31.800 --> 00:29:32.560\nneed a celebrity,\n\n614\n00:29:32.560 --> 00:29:36.710\nbut if you do do it for the right reasons. You don't want to go back to TikTok\n\n615\n00:29:36.710 --> 00:29:37.440\nfor a second.\n\n616\n00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:43.540\nYou said a third of their platform, their users, has seen you seven times. That\n\n617\n00:29:43.540 --> 00:29:44.640\n's an amazing,\n\n618\n00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:52.640\namazing stat. How did you get so much success on TikTok? What was it that\n\n619\n00:29:55.040 --> 00:29:57.200\nmade that happen? I mean, that's mind boggling.\n\n620\n00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:06.070\nYou know, I always say the biggest thing is I personally got on there and\n\n621\n00:30:06.070 --> 00:30:07.040\nlearned to edit.\n\n622\n00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:11.520\nI know how to make a TikTok. I know how to make a trend. I post. It was like\n\n623\n00:30:11.520 --> 00:30:12.160\nfrom day one,\n\n624\n00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:15.920\nit was that but then it had to evolve, right? So then we brought in an\n\n625\n00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:17.200\nincredible team. We brought\n\n626\n00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:22.190\nin a social media manager. She's incredible. We have community managers\n\n627\n00:30:22.190 --> 00:30:23.440\nconsistently on the\n\n628\n00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:26.710\nkeyboards, talking to people. We have three people in house doing that nonstop\n\n629\n00:30:26.710 --> 00:30:27.440\n24/7,\n\n630\n00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:31.600\nbasically talking to our community, right? Those are our fans. They're creating\n\n631\n00:30:31.600 --> 00:30:32.000\ncontent.\n\n632\n00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:36.160\nAt one time, we had like seven people had logins to our TikTok and you didn't\n\n633\n00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:36.640\neven need to get\n\n634\n00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:39.510\napproval to post something. Like if you thought it was cute and it's trending,\n\n635\n00:30:39.510 --> 00:30:40.400\ngo for it.\n\n636\n00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:43.860\nAnd that can be really scary to big companies to allow people to go, quote un\n\n637\n00:30:43.860 --> 00:30:44.800\nquote, buck wild and\n\n638\n00:30:44.800 --> 00:30:48.400\njust do whatever they want on social media. But of course, we had guard drills.\n\n639\n00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:48.960\nThey knew what\n\n640\n00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:54.070\nthey couldn't couldn't do. But that allowed us to move quick and allowed us to\n\n641\n00:30:54.070 --> 00:30:54.560\nreally\n\n642\n00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:58.710\nhave it be part of the DNA at Poppy to where it was so much bigger than me,\n\n643\n00:30:58.710 --> 00:30:59.520\nright? It was from\n\n644\n00:30:59.520 --> 00:31:03.550\nleadership down believing in this platform that it was such a beautiful place\n\n645\n00:31:03.550 --> 00:31:04.480\nto be able to talk\n\n646\n00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:10.280\nto people. You know, now it's very 360, right? We've run a lot of linear TV, a\n\n647\n00:31:10.280 --> 00:31:11.040\nlot of streaming.\n\n648\n00:31:11.040 --> 00:31:16.960\nWe do a lot with meta, you know, all of that stuff. But I will say still the\n\n649\n00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:18.160\ncore audience of\n\n650\n00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:21.120\njust like our like diet, writer dies are on TikTok.\n\n651\n00:31:21.120 --> 00:31:29.270\nYou know, with all the success you had on on TikTok, you know, and you're\n\n652\n00:31:29.270 --> 00:31:31.920\nobviously all in on\n\n653\n00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:38.030\ntechnology and where's it going? How's the learning that you gained on on Tik\n\n654\n00:31:38.030 --> 00:31:39.840\nTok influencing the way\n\n655\n00:31:39.840 --> 00:31:44.410\nyou're approaching AI today? Well, little do people know that like TikTok and\n\n656\n00:31:44.410 --> 00:31:45.040\nanything on\n\n657\n00:31:45.040 --> 00:31:50.050\nthere's been an AI for so many years? The FYP page, the way we run paid and\n\n658\n00:31:50.050 --> 00:31:52.000\norganic is all AI driven\n\n659\n00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:56.960\nso much so that our paid strategy is to kind of let the algorithm and the AI do\n\n660\n00:31:56.960 --> 00:31:58.000\nwhat they do best\n\n661\n00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:03.310\nand not try to over engineer it. And so with us, I think another piece of AI\n\n662\n00:32:03.310 --> 00:32:04.160\nthat we've really,\n\n663\n00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:10.900\nI think saved us a lot of money is I ran our creative team at Poppy. And really\n\n664\n00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:11.520\n, if we want to\n\n665\n00:32:11.520 --> 00:32:15.700\ncreate or produce a piece of content before we would probably storyboard it out\n\n666\n00:32:15.700 --> 00:32:16.560\n, spend a lot of\n\n667\n00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:20.290\ntime like designing mood boards and what we wanted to see, we're now you can\n\n668\n00:32:20.290 --> 00:32:20.960\nfeed it in and it'll\n\n669\n00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:24.260\nalmost like spit it out for you. Like if you're like, I'm not sure what song it\n\n670\n00:32:24.260 --> 00:32:25.280\nis, they'll make\n\n671\n00:32:25.280 --> 00:32:29.630\none up for you, right? And you can kind of mood board stuff out, it'll save you\n\n672\n00:32:29.630 --> 00:32:30.720\nso much time.\n\n673\n00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:33.520\nThe amount of times we've done that and we see it, we're like, oh, this is a\n\n674\n00:32:33.520 --> 00:32:34.480\nbad idea. And it saved\n\n675\n00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:38.830\nus from doing bad ideas is amazing, right? So we're using that aspect. And I\n\n676\n00:32:38.830 --> 00:32:40.320\nthink that a lot of\n\n677\n00:32:40.320 --> 00:32:43.220\npeople are scared of AI, they don't know how to use it. And I wouldn't say like\n\n678\n00:32:43.220 --> 00:32:43.520\nwe're\n\n679\n00:32:43.520 --> 00:32:47.760\nmasters at it, but I will say within our finance and ops team, it's we're best\n\n680\n00:32:47.760 --> 00:32:48.240\nin class.\n\n681\n00:32:48.240 --> 00:32:53.040\nYou know, finance and ops, people see a lot of AI benefits. But what you're\n\n682\n00:32:53.040 --> 00:32:54.240\ntalking about is\n\n683\n00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:59.200\nreally unlocking creativity and moving you further along. Not people, not many\n\n684\n00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:00.080\npeople really see\n\n685\n00:33:00.080 --> 00:33:04.800\nAI as being a real benefit in that area. You know, how did you pioneer in that?\n\n686\n00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:05.600\nI mean, how did you\n\n687\n00:33:05.600 --> 00:33:10.560\neven open up your mind to that being a real possibility? You know, I think\n\n688\n00:33:10.560 --> 00:33:12.000\nGoogle's a beautiful thing,\n\n689\n00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:15.730\nchat sheet. There's nowadays there's nothing you can't really figure it out on\n\n690\n00:33:15.730 --> 00:33:16.480\nyour own. And then I\n\n691\n00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:20.630\nthink we have an incredible team at Poppy, right? I think I get a lot of credit\n\n692\n00:33:20.630 --> 00:33:21.360\nfor a lot of things\n\n693\n00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:24.430\nat Poppy. And at the end of the day, it's the team that just makes me look good\n\n694\n00:33:24.430 --> 00:33:26.480\n. And we, like I said,\n\n695\n00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:30.830\nwe hire young, we hire smart people. We've kept everybody through the\n\n696\n00:33:30.830 --> 00:33:32.560\nacquisition, which has been\n\n697\n00:33:32.560 --> 00:33:37.280\nincredible. So I don't know if we're huge pioneers within it, but we always\n\n698\n00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:38.640\nthink first to try\n\n699\n00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:41.070\nsomething. We're not scared to try it. If that makes sense, I think a lot of\n\n700\n00:33:41.070 --> 00:33:41.920\npeople are scared to\n\n701\n00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:46.630\ntry it versus we are never scared to be the first to try something. And I think\n\n702\n00:33:46.630 --> 00:33:47.760\nthat's given us an\n\n703\n00:33:47.760 --> 00:33:51.950\nadvantage. Now you mentioned that you do have guardrails. You just don't let\n\n704\n00:33:51.950 --> 00:33:53.040\npeople go wild on\n\n705\n00:33:53.040 --> 00:33:57.440\non social media. Give me an example of what a guardrail would be for Poppy. You\n\n706\n00:33:57.440 --> 00:33:58.640\nknow, I think\n\n707\n00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:03.700\nthings that might get you canceled. Like our core audience is millennial moms\n\n708\n00:34:03.700 --> 00:34:04.480\nand Gen Z. So I\n\n709\n00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:07.600\nprobably we're not going to get on there and spend a lot of time talking about\n\n710\n00:34:07.600 --> 00:34:10.240\npolitics, religion.\n\n711\n00:34:10.240 --> 00:34:15.200\nWe're not going to spend a lot of time talking about cussing or anything that\n\n712\n00:34:15.200 --> 00:34:16.800\ncould offend people.\n\n713\n00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:21.840\nRight nowadays, people think to stand out, you have to offend people. I think\n\n714\n00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:23.200\nour motto is more\n\n715\n00:34:23.200 --> 00:34:28.310\nto just love, have fun, and bring joy to the world. I think that people think\n\n716\n00:34:28.310 --> 00:34:29.440\nyou have to stand out.\n\n717\n00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:34.550\nYou have to do like really stunt-y things. We don't do stunt-y things. We just\n\n718\n00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:35.040\nconnect with\n\n719\n00:34:35.040 --> 00:34:39.280\nour community and we're authentic. And so, you know, the team kind of knows\n\n720\n00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:40.480\nthat. Or for example,\n\n721\n00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:42.700\nI'll be like, \"Oh my gosh, we should work with so-and-so.\" And they're like, \"\n\n722\n00:34:42.700 --> 00:34:43.520\nOh, that person's\n\n723\n00:34:43.520 --> 00:34:49.040\ncanceled. We don't work with them.\" Like they know. They have their finger so\n\n724\n00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:50.960\nmuch on the pulse of\n\n725\n00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:54.960\nculture of like, \"That person said so-and-so, don't work that.\" Or this could\n\n726\n00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:55.920\nmaybe not be the best\n\n727\n00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:58.690\nlook. Like we're constantly having those conversations. Those real\n\n728\n00:34:58.690 --> 00:35:00.480\nconversations every single day.\n\n729\n00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:04.400\nHow do you get your pulse on culture? That's easier said than done. I mean, you\n\n730\n00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:05.280\n've built a company\n\n731\n00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:10.400\non this, but I mean, how do you do that? It's the hardest question to answer. I\n\n732\n00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:11.520\nthink\n\n733\n00:35:11.520 --> 00:35:18.290\nI think it's collaboration and team because I used to be a leader where I, you\n\n734\n00:35:18.290 --> 00:35:18.880\nknow, I think all\n\n735\n00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:22.450\nentrepreneurs start companies and you don't really start a company to have\n\n736\n00:35:22.450 --> 00:35:22.960\npeople tell you what to\n\n737\n00:35:22.960 --> 00:35:25.570\ndo or to be collaborative. And then you kind of have to figure out that that's\n\n738\n00:35:25.570 --> 00:35:26.720\nnot the best way\n\n739\n00:35:26.720 --> 00:35:31.070\nto do things and you learn to be collaborative. So over the years, I think we\n\n740\n00:35:31.070 --> 00:35:31.840\nget together once\n\n741\n00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:35.990\na month. We have incredible brainstorms. We have like unhinged calls during the\n\n742\n00:35:35.990 --> 00:35:36.480\nweek. We have one\n\n743\n00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:40.240\ncall that's our like social creative call where we just get on and we just go\n\n744\n00:35:40.240 --> 00:35:41.200\ndown deep dark holes\n\n745\n00:35:41.200 --> 00:35:44.480\non the most random things and have fun. And like, what's trending? We're\n\n746\n00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:46.240\npulling trend reports and\n\n747\n00:35:46.240 --> 00:35:50.100\nkind of staying on top of what it is. And I got to give it to the team on this\n\n748\n00:35:50.100 --> 00:35:51.040\none because they\n\n749\n00:35:51.040 --> 00:35:54.800\nare young, they are scrappy, they're hard workers, and they just have their\n\n750\n00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:55.760\npulse on culture. And a\n\n751\n00:35:55.760 --> 00:35:59.490\nlot of times we can get there through interviewing people. So in a typical\n\n752\n00:35:59.490 --> 00:36:00.480\ninterview at Poppy, we'll\n\n753\n00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:04.450\nask, what are the brands you're looking at? And if a lot of them say really big\n\n754\n00:36:04.450 --> 00:36:05.280\nbrands, we know\n\n755\n00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:09.350\nthey're probably not really in line with culture. Like, if someone says\n\n756\n00:36:09.350 --> 00:36:11.120\nsomething like, you know,\n\n757\n00:36:11.120 --> 00:36:14.810\nno offense, I think Wendy's is iconic and Taco Bell and all these things, that\n\n758\n00:36:14.810 --> 00:36:15.520\n's fine. But that's\n\n759\n00:36:15.520 --> 00:36:20.370\nnot really the like down entrepreneurial cool move culture things, right? So it\n\n760\n00:36:20.370 --> 00:36:21.360\n's like maybe a\n\n761\n00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:27.060\nnude project or is it, is it just I mean, even skims, I think is a cool, cool,\n\n762\n00:36:27.060 --> 00:36:27.840\nhuge brand that\n\n763\n00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:31.320\npeople can look up to. So you can kind of get a pulse within that. And then I\n\n764\n00:36:31.320 --> 00:36:32.000\nthink we always,\n\n765\n00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:37.840\nyou know, you can kind of just your gut can tell you, you know, back to AI for\n\n766\n00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:38.560\na second here. I\n\n767\n00:36:38.560 --> 00:36:43.310\nunderstand you joined AI cohort. What are a couple of the biggest insights you\n\n768\n00:36:43.310 --> 00:36:44.720\n've learned from that\n\n769\n00:36:44.720 --> 00:36:49.580\ngroup? You know, it's this TikTok collective cohort that we're part of where we\n\n770\n00:36:49.580 --> 00:36:49.920\n've brought\n\n771\n00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:54.980\ntogether quite a bit of incredible digital marketers and brand buildings and\n\n772\n00:36:54.980 --> 00:36:55.760\ncreatives.\n\n773\n00:36:55.760 --> 00:37:01.860\nAnd we get access to a lot of new beta programs. There's something interesting\n\n774\n00:37:01.860 --> 00:37:02.800\nhappening right now\n\n775\n00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:07.280\nthat I'm, I'm kind of here for whatever's new. And if it doesn't offend anybody\n\n776\n00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:08.800\n, where you could\n\n777\n00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:13.850\ncreate a whole avatar of me, for example. So I still create 5200 pieces of\n\n778\n00:37:13.850 --> 00:37:14.880\ncontent a month.\n\n779\n00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:19.760\nMy time is it takes time to do this thing. So then it's like you start having\n\n780\n00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:20.800\nthese questions.\n\n781\n00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.690\nDo we have a fun avatar? And then we talk about it and we joke about it and we\n\n782\n00:37:23.690 --> 00:37:24.640\nalways poke fun\n\n783\n00:37:24.640 --> 00:37:29.550\nat it and say like, couldn't, you know, I couldn't be in seven places at once.\n\n784\n00:37:29.550 --> 00:37:30.400\nOr is that authentic\n\n785\n00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:33.860\nto our community, right? So these are the kind of conversations that I think a\n\n786\n00:37:33.860 --> 00:37:34.480\nlot of people are\n\n787\n00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:39.040\nhaving with AI right now. And so for us, we've definitely decided it's probably\n\n788\n00:37:39.040 --> 00:37:39.600\nnot the most\n\n789\n00:37:39.600 --> 00:37:44.280\nauthentic thing for us at Poppy. But we're having conversations. We're talking\n\n790\n00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:45.760\nabout it. We're aware\n\n791\n00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:51.300\nof it. And I think if something comes out and it's right for us, we'll consider\n\n792\n00:37:51.300 --> 00:37:51.840\nit.\n\n793\n00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:56.400\nWhat do you think is a leadership habit that you did to develop because you\n\n794\n00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:57.600\ndidn't come from the\n\n795\n00:37:57.600 --> 00:38:03.380\nbeverage industry? Yeah. So I took me a while to figure out my superpower as a\n\n796\n00:38:03.380 --> 00:38:04.400\nleader.\n\n797\n00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:11.860\nBut I think my ability to inspire and encourage is really infectious. So I feel\n\n798\n00:38:11.860 --> 00:38:12.640\nlike if I'm in the\n\n799\n00:38:12.640 --> 00:38:19.680\nroom, anybody can feel like they can do anything and almost take it 20% bigger,\n\n800\n00:38:19.680 --> 00:38:20.400\nif that makes sense.\n\n801\n00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:22.970\nSo it's like, if they're like, that was the sky was limit. I'm like, no, no, no\n\n802\n00:38:22.970 --> 00:38:23.920\n, go, go more,\n\n803\n00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:29.840\nlike go 20 30 40, like think bigger is really my superpower. I think leadership\n\n804\n00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:30.400\nis where\n\n805\n00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:37.020\nit wasn't evolving journey for me because I was Poppy, Poppy was creative. It\n\n806\n00:38:37.020 --> 00:38:37.600\nwas like this whole\n\n807\n00:38:37.600 --> 00:38:43.030\nthing then to come in and like have other opinions and to grow. We were one of\n\n808\n00:38:43.030 --> 00:38:44.400\nthe fastest, if not\n\n809\n00:38:44.400 --> 00:38:49.430\nfastest growing companies in the history of beverage. You know, I think that\n\n810\n00:38:49.430 --> 00:38:50.960\nwhen you're growing\n\n811\n00:38:50.960 --> 00:38:55.640\nthat quick, you need really incredible people on your team with a lot of\n\n812\n00:38:55.640 --> 00:38:57.120\nsuccess. So early on,\n\n813\n00:38:57.120 --> 00:39:01.850\nwe decided to bring in a CEO. That was really hard. I had to get coaching and\n\n814\n00:39:01.850 --> 00:39:03.040\nbusiness coaches and\n\n815\n00:39:03.040 --> 00:39:06.110\nfigure out how to go through that because it's the thing that you want success\n\n816\n00:39:06.110 --> 00:39:06.880\nfor the company so\n\n817\n00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:11.290\nbad and you don't want your ego to get in the way of growth. And so I'm very\n\n818\n00:39:11.290 --> 00:39:12.640\nself-aware. Was it\n\n819\n00:39:12.640 --> 00:39:16.400\nhard? Absolutely. It was hard. But look at the success we had because we made\n\n820\n00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:17.680\nthose hard decisions.\n\n821\n00:39:17.680 --> 00:39:22.950\nWhat was the hardest thing about that? Stepping back and not just like having\n\n822\n00:39:22.950 --> 00:39:24.080\nthe final say or\n\n823\n00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:28.450\nnot just doing it my way because at the time, I thought my way was best. I've\n\n824\n00:39:28.450 --> 00:39:29.360\nlearned it's not,\n\n825\n00:39:29.360 --> 00:39:33.710\nnot always best. Sometimes it is. And I think that's a growth. That was a\n\n826\n00:39:33.710 --> 00:39:34.320\nreally big growth\n\n827\n00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:37.810\nopportunity for me. And I think it made me an incredible leader today because\n\n828\n00:39:37.810 --> 00:39:38.240\nof it going\n\n829\n00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:41.970\nthrough those hardships. And so I think change is the only constant life, right\n\n830\n00:39:41.970 --> 00:39:42.560\n? Things are always\n\n831\n00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:47.620\nchanging. And those that can embrace change as a leader, I think are going to\n\n832\n00:39:47.620 --> 00:39:48.320\nbe way more\n\n833\n00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:51.750\nsuccessful. And you just take marketing, for example, if we would have just\n\n834\n00:39:51.750 --> 00:39:52.400\ngone in and done\n\n835\n00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:56.400\nthe same of boring old marketing that everyone's done for the last 25 years,\n\n836\n00:39:56.400 --> 00:40:00.550\nPoppy wouldn't be where it was today. But we changed. We evolved. We thought\n\n837\n00:40:00.550 --> 00:40:01.120\ndifferently.\n\n838\n00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:06.320\nAnd so I will say even our CEO that came in, he has told me I've changed his\n\n839\n00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:07.280\nleadership style\n\n840\n00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:13.120\nbecause before he was very organized and not as chaotic, didn't know what a\n\n841\n00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:14.560\nBlack Ops budget was.\n\n842\n00:40:14.560 --> 00:40:18.240\nAnd now he sees the beauty in that. And so we were able to evolve together.\n\n843\n00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:25.120\nYou know, people are so important and you created this company and you created\n\n844\n00:40:25.120 --> 00:40:26.080\nthe culture and so\n\n845\n00:40:26.080 --> 00:40:33.360\ndoing. What's something that you really focused on in the work environment and\n\n846\n00:40:33.360 --> 00:40:34.160\nthe culture that\n\n847\n00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:40.960\nyou're trying to create at Poppy? So with our growth, it was so fast. I mean,\n\n848\n00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:41.840\nwe were 300%\n\n849\n00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:46.260\nthat year over year, we're from like zero to 500 million in four years. Like it\n\n850\n00:40:46.260 --> 00:40:47.200\n's crazy growth.\n\n851\n00:40:47.200 --> 00:40:53.520\nAnd so to keep people to not burn out and keep people motivated is really hard,\n\n852\n00:40:53.520 --> 00:40:54.160\nright?\n\n853\n00:40:54.160 --> 00:40:58.310\nBut I think what we did special at Poppy is we invested in the culture and the\n\n854\n00:40:58.310 --> 00:40:58.800\nteam.\n\n855\n00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:01.680\nSo when we first started the company, we were a fully remote company for the\n\n856\n00:41:01.680 --> 00:41:02.640\nfirst two years,\n\n857\n00:41:02.640 --> 00:41:07.960\ntwo years of COVID, makes sense. When it was time to reopen and start an HQ, we\n\n858\n00:41:07.960 --> 00:41:08.480\ndid start\n\n859\n00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:12.960\none in Austin. And anyone that wanted to come could come, nobody had to come,\n\n860\n00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:14.000\nright? It was this,\n\n861\n00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:18.000\nwe were able to create a beautiful culture where remote worked and person\n\n862\n00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:18.720\nworked and we didn't\n\n863\n00:41:18.720 --> 00:41:21.790\ncare what you wanted to do. I think that's hard for big companies to like kind\n\n864\n00:41:21.790 --> 00:41:22.640\nof figure out that\n\n865\n00:41:22.640 --> 00:41:27.320\nbalance. And it was because we invested in things that were fun. So my biggest\n\n866\n00:41:27.320 --> 00:41:28.400\nthing to prevent burn\n\n867\n00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:32.870\nout is to have fun. And I know it's like work hard, play hard, but it's more,\n\n868\n00:41:32.870 --> 00:41:34.880\nyou know, giggling\n\n869\n00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:38.640\nand meetings, being funny, not taking yourself so serious. If you're going to\n\n870\n00:41:38.640 --> 00:41:39.440\nbe together as a\n\n871\n00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:44.120\nteam, don't spend the entire day in a, you know, a boardroom, talk going over\n\n872\n00:41:44.120 --> 00:41:45.040\npower points,\n\n873\n00:41:45.040 --> 00:41:48.800\nlike go play pickleball. You know how much more creative you can be in talking\n\n874\n00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:49.280\nabout stuff if\n\n875\n00:41:49.280 --> 00:41:53.500\nyou're out playing pickleball or golf or axe throwing or a panic room. Like, I\n\n876\n00:41:53.500 --> 00:41:54.160\nknow it sounds\n\n877\n00:41:54.160 --> 00:41:58.310\ncheesy, but we were really intentional with making sure we did stuff like that\n\n878\n00:41:58.310 --> 00:41:59.360\nat Poppy that it wasn't\n\n879\n00:41:59.360 --> 00:42:03.880\nall work because then people come back refreshed. They want to work harder. And\n\n880\n00:42:03.880 --> 00:42:04.720\nwe saw a bigger\n\n881\n00:42:04.720 --> 00:42:08.590\nreturn. And I always think laughter prevents negative health issues, all sorts\n\n882\n00:42:08.590 --> 00:42:09.760\nof things. So\n\n883\n00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:13.490\ndon't take life so serious. And that's kind of, was the culture at Poppy? It\n\n884\n00:42:13.490 --> 00:42:14.480\nwas this work hard,\n\n885\n00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:21.060\nplay hard mentality. Be silly. And now you have this group of axe throwers. Yes\n\n886\n00:42:21.060 --> 00:42:22.400\n, exactly. Anyone\n\n887\n00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:26.160\nthat wants to sign up pickleballers and axe throwers. I love it. You know,\n\n888\n00:42:26.160 --> 00:42:27.520\nthere's this phrase that I\n\n889\n00:42:27.520 --> 00:42:34.610\nhear a lot, you know, mom guilt. Has that shown up to you in any point? And if\n\n890\n00:42:34.610 --> 00:42:36.960\nso, how do you navigate\n\n891\n00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:41.860\nthrough it? Yeah, I mean, I think people have all sorts of guilt when you are\n\n892\n00:42:41.860 --> 00:42:43.360\nworking, you know,\n\n893\n00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:47.120\n80 hours a week and gone constantly. I think for me, I had a good support\n\n894\n00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:48.240\nsystem at home and my,\n\n895\n00:42:48.240 --> 00:42:53.390\nmine were very little. And I think early on, me and my husband, we worked\n\n896\n00:42:53.390 --> 00:42:54.720\ntogether, we're both\n\n897\n00:42:54.720 --> 00:42:58.960\nthe founders of Poppy. So it was 24/7 Poppy. It was like, all we talked about\n\n898\n00:42:58.960 --> 00:42:59.920\nin our households.\n\n899\n00:42:59.920 --> 00:43:04.870\nAnd early on, we kind of said, let's let the guilt go. We're already working so\n\n900\n00:43:04.870 --> 00:43:05.920\nhard. We are\n\n901\n00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:10.640\nso tired. And we're just making it harder on ourselves. Let the guilt go. No,\n\n902\n00:43:10.640 --> 00:43:11.920\nare the kids happy? Are they\n\n903\n00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:16.980\nloved? And do they feel safe? And once we kind of got to the bottom of that, I\n\n904\n00:43:16.980 --> 00:43:18.080\n'm pretty good at\n\n905\n00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:21.220\nletting that stuff go. Yeah, I do. I miss them when I go to town. Yes, but like\n\n906\n00:43:21.220 --> 00:43:22.240\n, they're fine. They're\n\n907\n00:43:22.240 --> 00:43:27.670\nloved, they're safe, and they're happy and healthy. So I'm better at it than\n\n908\n00:43:27.670 --> 00:43:30.160\nmost because I just feel\n\n909\n00:43:30.160 --> 00:43:34.310\nlike we're all human. And sometimes you don't have to be so hard on yourself.\n\n910\n00:43:34.310 --> 00:43:34.960\nNow you and your\n\n911\n00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:40.500\nhusband, Steve, and built this business from scratch as a team of two. And it\n\n912\n00:43:40.500 --> 00:43:41.440\nwas that way\n\n913\n00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:46.220\nfor quite a while, you know, what advice would you give to others when working\n\n914\n00:43:46.220 --> 00:43:47.360\nwith a spouse?\n\n915\n00:43:48.320 --> 00:43:53.200\nJust know what you're getting into. At the end of the day, we do very different\n\n916\n00:43:53.200 --> 00:43:54.080\nthings.\n\n917\n00:43:54.080 --> 00:43:58.480\nAnd we have such incredible talents at what we do, right? I did the creative\n\n918\n00:43:58.480 --> 00:43:59.360\nand brand. He ran\n\n919\n00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:05.510\nour ops and supply chain and our innovation team. And I respected what he did.\n\n920\n00:44:05.510 --> 00:44:07.600\nI think he\n\n921\n00:44:07.600 --> 00:44:11.950\nrespected what I did. No, I know he respected what I did. And I think that we\n\n922\n00:44:11.950 --> 00:44:13.120\nsaw value in that in\n\n923\n00:44:13.120 --> 00:44:19.040\nthe sacrifice that we had was towards one common goal. Like all teams are all\n\n924\n00:44:19.040 --> 00:44:19.680\nthings you're doing.\n\n925\n00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:23.410\nIf you guys have a common goal that you're both working towards, it's really\n\n926\n00:44:23.410 --> 00:44:24.000\nrewarding.\n\n927\n00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:27.730\nI'll be honest, now that we've sold Poppy and we're on the other side and we're\n\n928\n00:44:27.730 --> 00:44:28.320\nworking on almost\n\n929\n00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:31.820\nlike different goals, it's a new dynamic that we're working through. Like, wait\n\n930\n00:44:31.820 --> 00:44:32.320\n, what? You're\n\n931\n00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:35.130\ndoing what? You're doing this. And we're having to like relearn how to work\n\n932\n00:44:35.130 --> 00:44:36.000\ntogether. But that's\n\n933\n00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:39.760\njust adaptability and change that now I'm like, got to figure that one out. So\n\n934\n00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:40.960\nI think that\n\n935\n00:44:41.840 --> 00:44:45.520\nmost people can't do it. I would never change it and not do it with them.\n\n936\n00:44:45.520 --> 00:44:49.360\nYou know, has there ever been a moment when you two completely disagreed on\n\n937\n00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:50.160\nsomething and\n\n938\n00:44:50.160 --> 00:44:57.920\nand and it actually made Poppy better? Yeah, one of our biggest fights was when\n\n939\n00:44:57.920 --> 00:44:58.320\nwe were going\n\n940\n00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:04.220\nfrom mother beverage to Poppy. And he wanted to add sugar to it. So how I\n\n941\n00:45:04.220 --> 00:45:05.520\nstarted Poppy is I had\n\n942\n00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:09.760\nsome health problems and my tummy hurt and I was tired all the time. Surgery in\n\n943\n00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:10.880\napple cider vinegar\n\n944\n00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:14.610\ndidn't like the taste of apple cider vinegar. So I went to my kitchen and I\n\n945\n00:45:14.610 --> 00:45:15.360\ncreated the first\n\n946\n00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:18.840\nversion and he was like, it's good, but it can be a little bit better. Let's\n\n947\n00:45:18.840 --> 00:45:19.520\nadd five grams of\n\n948\n00:45:19.520 --> 00:45:23.720\nsugar. And I was like, never, we're never doing that. And then he totally just\n\n949\n00:45:23.720 --> 00:45:24.480\ndid it anyways.\n\n950\n00:45:24.480 --> 00:45:31.220\nAnd then ourselves like triple quadrupled. It was wildly successful after that.\n\n951\n00:45:31.220 --> 00:45:31.520\nAnd what we\n\n952\n00:45:31.520 --> 00:45:35.750\nrealized is people say one thing and they do another. So people want to be\n\n953\n00:45:35.750 --> 00:45:36.960\nhealthy, but they\n\n954\n00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.320\naren't right. And so five grams of sugar was like that that cusp of I still\n\n955\n00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:43.040\nfeel pretty good\n\n956\n00:45:43.040 --> 00:45:46.770\nabout myself. And then we opened ourselves up to so many more people because it\n\n957\n00:45:46.770 --> 00:45:48.000\ntasted way better.\n\n958\n00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:52.150\nAnd so it was one of those moments where I was wrong. He loves when I say that,\n\n959\n00:45:52.150 --> 00:45:53.680\nbut I will say,\n\n960\n00:45:53.680 --> 00:45:56.080\nyou know, like there's stuff like that that it was just like, I thought it was\n\n961\n00:45:56.080 --> 00:45:57.200\nthe right way.\n\n962\n00:45:57.200 --> 00:46:00.300\nAnd then he wanted and vice versa. We have multiple where I was like, nope, we\n\n963\n00:46:00.300 --> 00:46:01.200\n're doing this and\n\n964\n00:46:01.200 --> 00:46:05.140\nand he got behind me. Now I got to ask you this, take me behind the scenes of\n\n965\n00:46:05.140 --> 00:46:06.240\nyour PepsiCo deal.\n\n966\n00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:10.880\nWhat's something people don't know about how it all came together?\n\n967\n00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:17.040\nOkay, so I think something that's kind of fun is we were having crazy growth.\n\n968\n00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:23.140\nAnd we never did a formal process. So a lot, what that means is like you hire a\n\n969\n00:46:23.140 --> 00:46:23.280\nbank,\n\n970\n00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:27.010\nthen you kind of go out to the market and say we're for sale. Well, we weren't\n\n971\n00:46:27.010 --> 00:46:27.760\nsure because we\n\n972\n00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:31.690\nwere having crazy growth. It's always a balance of right time. You don't want\n\n973\n00:46:31.690 --> 00:46:32.400\nto do it too soon.\n\n974\n00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:36.320\nYou don't want to do it too late. And so we had almost been kind of like\n\n975\n00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:37.360\ntalking to Pepsi and\n\n976\n00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:43.780\ndating them. But then when it was finally time to do it, I think we made one\n\n977\n00:46:43.780 --> 00:46:45.120\nphone call and they\n\n978\n00:46:45.120 --> 00:46:49.840\ngave us an offer in three days. And it was I think one of the fastest M&A\n\n979\n00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:51.440\noffers and acceptance,\n\n980\n00:46:51.440 --> 00:46:54.410\nI mean, I don't know the ins and outs of other ones, but I mean, it was just so\n\n981\n00:46:54.410 --> 00:46:56.480\nwidely fast because\n\n982\n00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:00.460\nwe had been dating them, done the in-person meetings. It was like all of that\n\n983\n00:47:00.460 --> 00:47:01.920\nstuff already that when\n\n984\n00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:05.650\nit was finally down to get down to business, we just knew they were the right\n\n985\n00:47:05.650 --> 00:47:06.240\npartner.\n\n986\n00:47:06.240 --> 00:47:09.970\nThey gave us a fair offer. We didn't want it to drag out and hurt relationships\n\n987\n00:47:09.970 --> 00:47:10.400\n. And we said,\n\n988\n00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:16.500\nyes, really, let's let's go. And it sounds like, you know, while Pepsi has 100%\n\n989\n00:47:16.500 --> 00:47:17.120\ncontrol of the\n\n990\n00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:21.470\nbusiness or did they own 100%, they bought 100%. Yeah. And but you're still\n\n991\n00:47:21.470 --> 00:47:23.120\nrunning the business.\n\n992\n00:47:23.120 --> 00:47:27.360\nYou and the CEO and the team and they're they're it's pretty much hands off.\n\n993\n00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:29.040\nAnd is that that,\n\n994\n00:47:29.040 --> 00:47:33.190\nam I describing it that properly or they're working? Yeah, they're allowing Po\n\n995\n00:47:33.190 --> 00:47:34.320\nppy to say Poppy. So\n\n996\n00:47:34.320 --> 00:47:39.750\nour CEO is still running the business. I obviously am no longer an employee\n\n997\n00:47:39.750 --> 00:47:40.960\nbecause I sold my business.\n\n998\n00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:45.200\nSo I came back on as an advisor. So I'm still advising with the same team on\n\n999\n00:47:45.200 --> 00:47:45.920\nthe creative and\n\n1000\n00:47:45.920 --> 00:47:49.650\nbrand and all of that. So yeah, they're their whole thinking was like, don't\n\n1001\n00:47:49.650 --> 00:47:50.880\nmess up a good thing.\n\n1002\n00:47:50.880 --> 00:47:55.120\nBecause you know, this brand is your identity. I mean, it's it's like letting\n\n1003\n00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:56.080\nyour baby go. How\n\n1004\n00:47:56.080 --> 00:48:00.930\nhard was that? You know, I just kind of feel like she's at college now. So I'm\n\n1005\n00:48:00.930 --> 00:48:02.400\nhere to like guide her,\n\n1006\n00:48:02.400 --> 00:48:07.330\nbut I know for sure the team. I mean, some of the team has been with us since\n\n1007\n00:48:07.330 --> 00:48:08.960\nday one. They are they\n\n1008\n00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:13.660\nknow stuff and are way cooler than me and a lot of stuff. So I also think what\n\n1009\n00:48:13.660 --> 00:48:14.560\ncomes with a good\n\n1010\n00:48:14.560 --> 00:48:19.450\nleader is trust. And I truly trust the team. And I'm so happy that I could kind\n\n1011\n00:48:19.450 --> 00:48:20.560\nof like step back\n\n1012\n00:48:20.560 --> 00:48:24.750\nand advise and just like really see it grow. And I'm I'm seeing it. We're just\n\n1013\n00:48:24.750 --> 00:48:25.920\nstill doing such\n\n1014\n00:48:25.920 --> 00:48:30.480\nsick stuff. That's great. And you disrupted an industry dominated by giant\n\n1015\n00:48:30.480 --> 00:48:31.440\ncorporations,\n\n1016\n00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:36.550\nlike PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. What do you think it is that you understand about\n\n1017\n00:48:36.550 --> 00:48:37.600\ntoday's consumers\n\n1018\n00:48:37.600 --> 00:48:42.850\nthat maybe big players don't get? And I'm not just talking about PepsiCo and\n\n1019\n00:48:42.850 --> 00:48:44.080\nCoca-Cola, you know,\n\n1020\n00:48:44.080 --> 00:48:48.060\nlet's procter and gamble. You pick the company. Well, what do you think it is\n\n1021\n00:48:48.060 --> 00:48:49.040\nthat that you get\n\n1022\n00:48:49.040 --> 00:48:52.770\nthat maybe others don't? I think to make impact, you don't have to spend a lot\n\n1023\n00:48:52.770 --> 00:48:53.120\nof money.\n\n1024\n00:48:53.120 --> 00:49:00.720\nI think that big marketing campaigns and to break through to build community\n\n1025\n00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:01.440\nisn't highly\n\n1026\n00:49:01.440 --> 00:49:06.120\nproduced content. It isn't over the top in real life activations. It's not\n\n1027\n00:49:06.120 --> 00:49:07.520\nspending a ton of money\n\n1028\n00:49:07.520 --> 00:49:12.790\nrunning TV ads. It's finding out where your community is and meeting them where\n\n1029\n00:49:12.790 --> 00:49:13.440\nthey are.\n\n1030\n00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:16.880\nAnd that's where you should you should invest. And I think, you know, I always\n\n1031\n00:49:16.880 --> 00:49:18.560\nsay, I think if\n\n1032\n00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:22.970\nthree years from now, and I see like an ad where people are giggling around a\n\n1033\n00:49:22.970 --> 00:49:23.360\npool,\n\n1034\n00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:27.550\nlike cheersing a poppy with cheesy smiles on the face, like that's my worst\n\n1035\n00:49:27.550 --> 00:49:28.480\nnightmare to have\n\n1036\n00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:33.760\nlike this overproduced like we're having fun ad. It's like they just try so\n\n1037\n00:49:33.760 --> 00:49:36.160\nhard versus what is\n\n1038\n00:49:36.160 --> 00:49:40.440\nculturally relevant. And it's really hard to figure it out, but hire young and\n\n1039\n00:49:40.440 --> 00:49:41.360\ntrust your team.\n\n1040\n00:49:42.080 --> 00:49:46.360\nNow, in your business, you know, how big is your brand right now in terms of\n\n1041\n00:49:46.360 --> 00:49:46.800\nsales?\n\n1042\n00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:52.730\nYou know, poppy is well, we have 250 employees. We are in the US, Canada,\n\n1043\n00:49:52.730 --> 00:49:54.640\nMexico, looking to go\n\n1044\n00:49:54.640 --> 00:50:00.170\ninto the UK and then, you know, on track, you know, sometime next year, do over\n\n1045\n00:50:00.170 --> 00:50:01.200\na billion.\n\n1046\n00:50:01.200 --> 00:50:04.800\nSo you're a billion and you, you know, in the sort of business typically,\n\n1047\n00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:10.240\nyou obviously want to make that as mainstream as you possibly can, you know,\n\n1048\n00:50:10.240 --> 00:50:10.560\nand\n\n1049\n00:50:11.600 --> 00:50:16.480\nhow, how do you balance this community versus going broad?\n\n1050\n00:50:16.480 --> 00:50:20.080\nNo, you just, you don't forget where you came from. We had a good lesson one\n\n1051\n00:50:20.080 --> 00:50:20.400\nyear.\n\n1052\n00:50:20.400 --> 00:50:26.210\nSo if I had to say there was one step along the way with poppy was our Super\n\n1053\n00:50:26.210 --> 00:50:27.840\nBowl last year,\n\n1054\n00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:34.460\nwe ran an ad and we wanted to figure out a way to 360 amplify it. And we sent\n\n1055\n00:50:34.460 --> 00:50:35.680\nout vending machines.\n\n1056\n00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:40.960\nAnd we sent them to 30 different places because we wanted to be in like all the\n\n1057\n00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:41.760\ncities across the\n\n1058\n00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:47.280\nUS. And the internet thought that we had gifted vending machines to influencers\n\n1059\n00:50:47.280 --> 00:50:47.600\nand they were like,\n\n1060\n00:50:47.600 --> 00:50:51.020\npoppy, this is just too much. You already did a Super Bowl ad. This is like out\n\n1061\n00:50:51.020 --> 00:50:51.680\nof touch.\n\n1062\n00:50:51.680 --> 00:50:55.410\nWhy would you give them? And then our biggest competitor got into the\n\n1063\n00:50:55.410 --> 00:50:56.560\nconversation and started\n\n1064\n00:50:56.560 --> 00:51:00.480\nputting false information out of there that they were $25,000 vending machines.\n\n1065\n00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:01.120\nAnd it was this.\n\n1066\n00:51:01.120 --> 00:51:04.380\nAnd so it just started to spiral and it felt really out of touch and not\n\n1067\n00:51:04.380 --> 00:51:05.600\ncommunity driven.\n\n1068\n00:51:05.600 --> 00:51:10.500\nAnd so it was a good lesson for us to remember where we came from that we didn\n\n1069\n00:51:10.500 --> 00:51:11.280\n't really need to do\n\n1070\n00:51:11.280 --> 00:51:15.130\nsomething so extravagant in that versus this year, you know, we're just going\n\n1071\n00:51:15.130 --> 00:51:16.240\nto do some fun watch\n\n1072\n00:51:16.240 --> 00:51:19.550\nparties. Like you don't need to go that big every time if you're already doing\n\n1073\n00:51:19.550 --> 00:51:20.880\na Super Bowl ad.\n\n1074\n00:51:20.880 --> 00:51:25.840\nSo I think for us, we're still learning and it was a good lesson for us.\n\n1075\n00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:29.600\nYou know, this has been so much fun. And Alice, I want to have some more with\n\n1076\n00:51:29.600 --> 00:51:30.480\nmy lightning round\n\n1077\n00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:34.630\nof questions. So are you ready for this? Okay. The three words to best describe\n\n1078\n00:51:34.630 --> 00:51:35.680\nyou authentic,\n\n1079\n00:51:35.680 --> 00:51:41.780\ndirect and kind. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who\n\n1080\n00:51:41.780 --> 00:51:42.320\nwould it be?\n\n1081\n00:51:42.320 --> 00:51:47.040\nMartha Stewart. What's your biggest pet peeve? People chewing really loud.\n\n1082\n00:51:47.040 --> 00:51:53.280\nWho would play you in a movie? Anne Hathaway. What's your go-to poppy flavor?\n\n1083\n00:51:53.280 --> 00:51:57.760\nStrawberry lemon. What's something from your early prototypes? You're glad\n\n1084\n00:51:57.760 --> 00:51:59.200\nnever made it to the shelves.\n\n1085\n00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.720\nGlass bottles. What's a piece of feedback you've never forgotten? Figure out\n\n1086\n00:52:04.720 --> 00:52:05.920\nyour non-negotiables\n\n1087\n00:52:05.920 --> 00:52:09.920\nearly and hang on to them. What's something you've been curious about lately\n\n1088\n00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:11.120\nthat has nothing to do\n\n1089\n00:52:11.120 --> 00:52:17.520\nwith work? Golf. What's the one thing you do just for you? Golf. Besides your\n\n1090\n00:52:17.520 --> 00:52:19.280\nfamily and friends,\n\n1091\n00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:24.550\nwhat's your most prized possession? Maybe my jewelry. My family owned a jewelry\n\n1092\n00:52:24.550 --> 00:52:25.200\nstore and I\n\n1093\n00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:29.350\nhave some beautiful pieces from my grandfather that gave to me. I thought you\n\n1094\n00:52:29.350 --> 00:52:29.920\nmight say it was\n\n1095\n00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:35.350\nyour lob wedge after those two goals. I know, right? If I turned on the radio\n\n1096\n00:52:35.350 --> 00:52:35.920\nin your car,\n\n1097\n00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:39.820\nwhat would I hear? A podcast. What's something about you a few people would\n\n1098\n00:52:39.820 --> 00:52:40.240\nknow?\n\n1099\n00:52:40.240 --> 00:52:44.920\nI was a dance major in college. What's one of your daily rituals? Something\n\n1100\n00:52:44.920 --> 00:52:46.160\nthat you never miss?\n\n1101\n00:52:46.160 --> 00:52:52.640\nFive-step skincare routine. I love it. That's fantastic. You're out of the\n\n1102\n00:52:52.640 --> 00:52:53.520\nlightning round. Great\n\n1103\n00:52:53.520 --> 00:52:59.700\njob. What's next, Allison? Both for Poppy and you personally? I think for Poppy\n\n1104\n00:52:59.700 --> 00:53:01.600\n, it's to continue\n\n1105\n00:53:01.600 --> 00:53:07.750\ndoing what we do best and revolutionizing soda for the next generation. Then\n\n1106\n00:53:07.750 --> 00:53:08.400\nfor me,\n\n1107\n00:53:08.400 --> 00:53:15.620\nfiguring out personally how to step back with my kids a little bit. My husband\n\n1108\n00:53:15.620 --> 00:53:16.560\n's very eager to\n\n1109\n00:53:16.560 --> 00:53:23.040\nstart another business already. Give me a second. We'll see, but I definitely\n\n1110\n00:53:23.040 --> 00:53:24.960\nsee another business\n\n1111\n00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:29.440\nin me. I'm not done yet. I have to ask you, what's your handicap? What's your\n\n1112\n00:53:29.440 --> 00:53:30.560\ngolf handicap?\n\n1113\n00:53:30.560 --> 00:53:35.950\nOh, it's horrible. Since \"retiring,\" I've been taking golf lessons twice a week\n\n1114\n00:53:35.950 --> 00:53:36.080\n.\n\n1115\n00:53:36.080 --> 00:53:43.280\nI did a 97 yesterday, which is for three months in is not bad. 25 handicap.\n\n1116\n00:53:43.280 --> 00:53:47.120\nI mean, you're getting there. It's horrible. It's okay.\n\n1117\n00:53:47.120 --> 00:53:53.220\nThree months in, I'll take it. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd\n\n1118\n00:53:53.220 --> 00:53:54.240\ngive to anyone\n\n1119\n00:53:54.240 --> 00:54:00.480\nwho wants to be a better leader? Be comfortable with being uncomfortable if you\n\n1120\n00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:01.200\nwant to scale\n\n1121\n00:54:01.200 --> 00:54:05.880\nand grow quick and don't let your ego get in the way of growth. Fantastic.\n\n1122\n00:54:05.880 --> 00:54:06.480\nAllison,\n\n1123\n00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:11.330\nyou're something else. I really enjoyed this. The time flew. Fantastic. Thank\n\n1124\n00:54:11.330 --> 00:54:11.760\nyou.\n\n1125\n00:54:11.760 --> 00:54:21.680\nDavid, I had to run out of Poppy on the very day that we record the episode\n\n1126\n00:54:21.680 --> 00:54:22.640\nabout Alice in\n\n1127\n00:54:22.640 --> 00:54:27.750\nEllsworth. What's wrong with you, Kula? I mean, everybody has Poppy in stock\n\n1128\n00:54:27.750 --> 00:54:28.880\nnow. It's a hottest\n\n1129\n00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:33.360\nnew soft drink beverage out there. Well, I agree. It's why my fridge is\n\n1130\n00:54:33.360 --> 00:54:35.440\nnormally stocked with Poppy.\n\n1131\n00:54:35.440 --> 00:54:38.640\nHowever, I drank the last one I had last night and didn't have time to make it\n\n1132\n00:54:38.640 --> 00:54:39.280\nto the store today,\n\n1133\n00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:43.520\nbut I was hoping to cheers you with a can of Poppy as we debrief this episode.\n\n1134\n00:54:43.520 --> 00:54:47.670\nI love the way that Allison goes about building a brand. She says that a lot of\n\n1135\n00:54:47.670 --> 00:54:48.400\nstartups make the\n\n1136\n00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:52.550\nmistake at the beginning of focusing way too much on their product and not\n\n1137\n00:54:52.550 --> 00:54:53.840\nenough on the brand.\n\n1138\n00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:57.990\nAnd when that happens, people don't feel a strong connection to the product\n\n1139\n00:54:57.990 --> 00:54:59.040\nbecause there's no real\n\n1140\n00:54:59.040 --> 00:55:04.320\nbrand that they can develop a relationship with. When those priorities compete,\n\n1141\n00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:05.440\nDavid, product and\n\n1142\n00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:10.120\nbrand, how do you guide your team through that tension and create a great\n\n1143\n00:55:10.120 --> 00:55:11.760\nproduct while also\n\n1144\n00:55:11.760 --> 00:55:15.520\nbuilding momentum around a brand people feel connected to? Well, I think they\n\n1145\n00:55:15.520 --> 00:55:16.880\n're inextrinkably\n\n1146\n00:55:16.880 --> 00:55:21.120\nlinked. I think if you have to understand what your product is, then you then\n\n1147\n00:55:21.120 --> 00:55:21.120\nyou\n\n1148\n00:55:22.240 --> 00:55:27.910\ndevelop the emotional connection that exists between your product and the\n\n1149\n00:55:27.910 --> 00:55:29.600\ncustomer. In her\n\n1150\n00:55:29.600 --> 00:55:37.350\nparticular case, she developed this fantastic new brand that basically is\n\n1151\n00:55:37.350 --> 00:55:39.120\nsolving the problem in\n\n1152\n00:55:39.120 --> 00:55:43.370\nthe soft drink category. Most soft drinks are perceived to be not healthy for\n\n1153\n00:55:43.370 --> 00:55:44.560\nyou. She's created\n\n1154\n00:55:44.560 --> 00:55:52.000\na healthier soft drink and it only has 25 calories, 5 grams of sugar,\n\n1155\n00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:00.560\ngreat ingredients, and it tastes good. That's the key here. She's really\n\n1156\n00:56:00.560 --> 00:56:01.280\ncreated a better\n\n1157\n00:56:01.280 --> 00:56:05.040\nfor you brand that tastes good. Anytime you can do that in the world of\n\n1158\n00:56:05.040 --> 00:56:06.320\npackaged goods,\n\n1159\n00:56:06.320 --> 00:56:12.040\nyou've usually hit in the home run because people don't want to sacrifice on\n\n1160\n00:56:12.040 --> 00:56:12.880\ntaste.\n\n1161\n00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:16.610\nSo if you can give them something to taste good, it's better for them. You're\n\n1162\n00:56:16.610 --> 00:56:18.160\nall set. In fact,\n\n1163\n00:56:18.160 --> 00:56:21.890\nI was introduced to this product and I mentioned on the podcast by my grandkids\n\n1164\n00:56:21.890 --> 00:56:22.720\n. My grandkids\n\n1165\n00:56:22.720 --> 00:56:27.250\nloved the product. They said, \"Ogo, you've got to taste this product. It's\n\n1166\n00:56:27.250 --> 00:56:28.000\ngreat.\"\n\n1167\n00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:36.880\nI did and it's a terrific product. My granddaughter, Audrey, says, \"Pepci out\n\n1168\n00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:36.960\nof\n\n1169\n00:56:36.960 --> 00:56:42.880\nthis.\" I said, \"They will.\" Sure enough, as I mentioned earlier, they did. She\n\n1170\n00:56:42.880 --> 00:56:43.600\n's found the\n\n1171\n00:56:43.600 --> 00:56:48.560\nmagic of linking a product with an emotional hook, a real benefit that the\n\n1172\n00:56:48.560 --> 00:56:49.920\nconsumer buys into.\n\n1173\n00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:56.560\nShe's really a tremendous marketer. One of the things I really love about the\n\n1174\n00:56:56.560 --> 00:56:57.360\nway she\n\n1175\n00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:01.880\nmarkets the brand and stays culturally relevant is in her team, there is an\n\n1176\n00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:03.040\nentire team called\n\n1177\n00:57:03.040 --> 00:57:07.320\nthe culture team. She talks about this in the episode. It's not HR internal\n\n1178\n00:57:07.320 --> 00:57:08.480\nculture. It is a\n\n1179\n00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:14.180\ngroup of Gen Z-ers who are constantly scouring the internet for culturally\n\n1180\n00:57:14.180 --> 00:57:15.520\nrelevant trends\n\n1181\n00:57:15.520 --> 00:57:20.070\nthat they can latch on to to build momentum for a brand. They even have a Black\n\n1182\n00:57:20.070 --> 00:57:21.120\nOps budget.\n\n1183\n00:57:21.120 --> 00:57:25.040\nIt's basically like carte blanche a little bit to this team to say, \"Hey, if\n\n1184\n00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:25.760\nthere's a trend\n\n1185\n00:57:25.760 --> 00:57:29.490\nand you see something that would work, go ahead and do it. There's no approval\n\n1186\n00:57:29.490 --> 00:57:30.320\nprocess for social\n\n1187\n00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:34.720\nposts at Poppy.\" She's created this environment where people really feel the\n\n1188\n00:57:34.720 --> 00:57:35.760\nautonomy to see\n\n1189\n00:57:35.760 --> 00:57:39.520\nsomething that might work and test it out, and they have the resources to\n\n1190\n00:57:39.520 --> 00:57:40.640\nreally do that.\n\n1191\n00:57:40.640 --> 00:57:44.370\nI'm curious, as you were talking about that in the interview, David, what do\n\n1192\n00:57:44.370 --> 00:57:45.280\nyou think the real\n\n1193\n00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:50.320\nlesson is there for leaders whose brands might not be trying to stay culturally\n\n1194\n00:57:50.320 --> 00:57:51.120\nrelevant, but\n\n1195\n00:57:51.120 --> 00:57:55.040\nthere's surely a lesson there in empowering your team? Yeah, well, I think the\n\n1196\n00:57:55.040 --> 00:57:55.520\nteam has been\n\n1197\n00:57:55.520 --> 00:57:59.250\nempowered to execute what the brand stands for. What she said is that everybody\n\n1198\n00:57:59.250 --> 00:57:59.920\nunderstands what\n\n1199\n00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:04.410\nthe brand is. Therefore, she can turn them loose. You go out on social media\n\n1200\n00:58:04.410 --> 00:58:05.520\nand you get the message\n\n1201\n00:58:05.520 --> 00:58:12.100\nout, but you do it in a way that's consistent with our brand. If you're in\n\n1202\n00:58:12.100 --> 00:58:13.600\ncharge of X,\n\n1203\n00:58:13.600 --> 00:58:17.760\nyou go out and you do as many tweets as you can possibly do that's consistent\n\n1204\n00:58:17.760 --> 00:58:18.880\nwith our brand,\n\n1205\n00:58:18.880 --> 00:58:24.480\nand whether you're doing it with Snap or Facebook or TikTok, it's amazing what\n\n1206\n00:58:24.480 --> 00:58:25.440\nshe's done on TikTok.\n\n1207\n00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:31.760\nShe's the TikTok maven. The statistics of the people that know her, have seen\n\n1208\n00:58:31.760 --> 00:58:32.720\nher over seven\n\n1209\n00:58:32.720 --> 00:58:42.340\ntimes was amazing. A third, 33% of all TikTok users have seen her seven times,\n\n1210\n00:58:42.340 --> 00:58:44.000\nand she said she\n\n1211\n00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:48.690\nbasically posts on TikTok almost a hundred times a month, and she's out there,\n\n1212\n00:58:48.690 --> 00:58:49.680\nand they built that\n\n1213\n00:58:51.120 --> 00:58:55.680\nbrand without spending a lot of marketing dollars relative to a lot of other\n\n1214\n00:58:55.680 --> 00:58:56.960\ncompanies in a category\n\n1215\n00:58:56.960 --> 00:59:00.770\nwhich is driven by Coke and Pepsi, and they're spending millions and millions\n\n1216\n00:59:00.770 --> 00:59:01.520\nof dollars,\n\n1217\n00:59:01.520 --> 00:59:05.000\nand they did go on the Super Bowl, but they went on with the coolest ad that\n\n1218\n00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:05.760\ngot the most\n\n1219\n00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:14.250\npublicity and the most likes. It was amazing what they did in social media\n\n1220\n00:59:14.250 --> 00:59:14.960\nbecause they took it\n\n1221\n00:59:14.960 --> 00:59:20.160\nvirtual, and so they compounded that Super Bowl ad, and probably it was maybe\n\n1222\n00:59:20.160 --> 00:59:21.440\none of the best\n\n1223\n00:59:21.440 --> 00:59:26.120\nSuper Bowl buys in the history of marketing. I love that you make the\n\n1224\n00:59:26.120 --> 00:59:27.600\ndistinction that the\n\n1225\n00:59:27.600 --> 00:59:31.360\nteam is empowered to act on what the brand stands for, and she's very clear\n\n1226\n00:59:31.360 --> 00:59:32.160\nthroughout the whole\n\n1227\n00:59:32.160 --> 00:59:36.380\nepisode. We are Poppy. We are fun. We sell fun. Poppy is popping off the\n\n1228\n00:59:36.380 --> 00:59:38.000\nshelves, and you kind of\n\n1229\n00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:42.150\nalluded to this earlier, but what I love that she has leaned so hard into is\n\n1230\n00:59:42.150 --> 00:59:43.520\nthat they really sell\n\n1231\n00:59:44.320 --> 00:59:49.750\nfun in a soda, and then, oh, by the way, it's better for you than Coke or Pepsi\n\n1232\n00:59:49.750 --> 00:59:51.280\n. What is the\n\n1233\n00:59:51.280 --> 00:59:55.010\nlesson in not necessarily leading with the features of your product, even\n\n1234\n00:59:55.010 --> 00:59:56.320\nthough they might be valuable,\n\n1235\n00:59:56.320 --> 01:00:01.170\nbut instead leading with this kind of brand identity piece that people really\n\n1236\n01:00:01.170 --> 01:00:02.960\ncan create a\n\n1237\n01:00:02.960 --> 01:00:07.920\nconnection to? Well, she has a great name, and she has a terrific product,\n\n1238\n01:00:07.920 --> 01:00:10.160\ngreat name exudes fun.\n\n1239\n01:00:10.160 --> 01:00:15.760\nThe soft drink category is a fun category, but the magic of that is that people\n\n1240\n01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:16.560\ndid discover\n\n1241\n01:00:16.560 --> 01:00:24.720\non their own that it was better for you product. I think the fact that she sold\n\n1242\n01:00:24.720 --> 01:00:25.600\nthe benefit of the\n\n1243\n01:00:25.600 --> 01:00:29.820\ncategory and the consumer then realizes exactly what differentiates it on their\n\n1244\n01:00:29.820 --> 01:00:31.680\nown was extremely\n\n1245\n01:00:31.680 --> 01:00:36.730\npowerful, because anything that a consumer can convince themselves of is\n\n1246\n01:00:36.730 --> 01:00:38.160\ninfinitely more\n\n1247\n01:00:38.160 --> 01:00:43.190\npowerful than being told something. And so, hey, I get this great tasting\n\n1248\n01:00:43.190 --> 01:00:44.720\nproduct that's fun,\n\n1249\n01:00:44.720 --> 01:00:50.560\nand by the way, it's better for me. Not bad. Pretty good formula.\n\n1250\n01:00:50.560 --> 01:00:53.920\nI mean, I was pretty surprised the first time I took a sip of Poppy that it was\n\n1251\n01:00:53.920 --> 01:00:57.490\nactually delicious and amazing. Like, I thought it was going to taste watered\n\n1252\n01:00:57.490 --> 01:00:58.480\ndown and kind of\n\n1253\n01:00:58.480 --> 01:01:02.240\ngross, because my friend, it says, you know, prebiotic soda on the can. I'm\n\n1254\n01:01:02.240 --> 01:01:02.880\nlike, what is a\n\n1255\n01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:06.640\nprebiotic soda? It's going to taste nasty. What's cool about that, and I love\n\n1256\n01:01:06.640 --> 01:01:07.600\nthat story, is that,\n\n1257\n01:01:07.600 --> 01:01:12.000\nyou know, you've got to have good, healthy debate along the way. And her\n\n1258\n01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:13.040\nhusband, who's in charge\n\n1259\n01:01:13.040 --> 01:01:17.890\nof supplies, chain management, manufacturing, basically said, Alison, you've\n\n1260\n01:01:17.890 --> 01:01:20.000\ngot to make this\n\n1261\n01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:22.570\nproduct taste better. It just doesn't taste good, and people aren't going to\n\n1262\n01:01:22.570 --> 01:01:23.120\ndrink it if it doesn't\n\n1263\n01:01:23.120 --> 01:01:26.630\ntaste good. And he said, you got to put a little sugar in it. She said, no, no,\n\n1264\n01:01:26.630 --> 01:01:27.600\nno, no, this is a\n\n1265\n01:01:27.600 --> 01:01:32.280\nhealthy product. This is vinegar and, you know, all this stuff, it's going to\n\n1266\n01:01:32.280 --> 01:01:32.960\ngo after gut.\n\n1267\n01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:36.720\nWhat is a gut? What's the phrase? Gut health. Gut health. Oh, yeah, you know,\n\n1268\n01:01:36.720 --> 01:01:37.200\noh boy,\n\n1269\n01:01:37.200 --> 01:01:40.770\nI really want to drink that stuff, you know. And he says, put some sugar in it,\n\n1270\n01:01:40.770 --> 01:01:41.280\nsay, put a little\n\n1271\n01:01:41.280 --> 01:01:45.640\nsugar in it, may taste good. And it flew off the shelves. But they had healthy\n\n1272\n01:01:45.640 --> 01:01:46.800\ndebate. She was\n\n1273\n01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:51.350\ntotally against it. But he helped define the brand and take the brand in the\n\n1274\n01:01:51.350 --> 01:01:52.480\nright direction.\n\n1275\n01:01:52.480 --> 01:01:57.680\nAnd they and, and she freely, freely acknowledges the fact that they wouldn't\n\n1276\n01:01:57.680 --> 01:01:58.560\nbe as successful if\n\n1277\n01:01:58.560 --> 01:02:02.910\nthey hadn't made that decision. It certainly sounds like she and her husband\n\n1278\n01:02:02.910 --> 01:02:04.160\nact as truthtellers for\n\n1279\n01:02:04.160 --> 01:02:08.160\neach other. And we talk a lot about that and how important it is on the show.\n\n1280\n01:02:08.160 --> 01:02:08.960\nDavid, after you\n\n1281\n01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:12.740\ntalk to Alison and as you were kind of reflecting on this conversation, if\n\n1282\n01:02:12.740 --> 01:02:14.080\nthere's one thing\n\n1283\n01:02:14.080 --> 01:02:17.810\nthat a leader listening to this episode should really take away and try to\n\n1284\n01:02:17.810 --> 01:02:18.000\napply to\n\n1285\n01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:20.810\ntheir own life, what do you think it would be? Well, it's interesting. I was\n\n1286\n01:02:20.810 --> 01:02:22.560\nreally, you know,\n\n1287\n01:02:22.560 --> 01:02:26.800\nimpressed with how confident she was. You know, and I always, people always ask\n\n1288\n01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:27.520\nme all the time,\n\n1289\n01:02:27.520 --> 01:02:33.040\nwhat do I look for in the very best leaders or what the best leaders really ex\n\n1290\n01:02:33.040 --> 01:02:34.560\nude. And I always\n\n1291\n01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:39.120\nsay they have an uncanny combination of confidence and humility. And I think\n\n1292\n01:02:39.120 --> 01:02:40.080\nshe's a good example\n\n1293\n01:02:40.080 --> 01:02:44.260\nthat now it's hard to tell from a one hour podcast. Okay. But you know, she was\n\n1294\n01:02:44.260 --> 01:02:44.800\nextremely\n\n1295\n01:02:44.800 --> 01:02:47.880\nconfident. I mean, she knew her brand. She, she knew how they would\n\n1296\n01:02:47.880 --> 01:02:49.520\ndifferentiate themselves.\n\n1297\n01:02:49.520 --> 01:02:53.250\nWhy wouldn't you be confident? She just sold a brand for $2 billion. You have\n\n1298\n01:02:53.250 --> 01:02:54.240\nenormous success.\n\n1299\n01:02:54.240 --> 01:03:00.080\nBut she was very humble. She gave so much credit to the team and talked about\n\n1300\n01:03:00.080 --> 01:03:00.080\nhow\n\n1301\n01:03:00.080 --> 01:03:03.840\nand her husband for how they got to where they are. And I think when you have\n\n1302\n01:03:03.840 --> 01:03:04.640\nthat uncanny\n\n1303\n01:03:04.640 --> 01:03:10.320\ncombination of confidence and humility, which means you don't know everything\n\n1304\n01:03:10.320 --> 01:03:10.880\nand you need\n\n1305\n01:03:10.880 --> 01:03:15.030\nother people. That's great. And by the way, she really is rooting for Poppy and\n\n1306\n01:03:15.030 --> 01:03:15.840\nshe's rooting for\n\n1307\n01:03:15.840 --> 01:03:19.600\nwhatever their next brand is. So she has that third thing that great leaders\n\n1308\n01:03:19.600 --> 01:03:20.080\nhave too,\n\n1309\n01:03:20.080 --> 01:03:24.440\nwhich is a healthy to satisfaction with the status quo. I mean, she's got some\n\n1310\n01:03:24.440 --> 01:03:24.960\nunfinished\n\n1311\n01:03:24.960 --> 01:03:28.690\nbusiness out there. And she's going to try to help Poppy get there because she\n\n1312\n01:03:28.690 --> 01:03:29.200\nreally believes in\n\n1313\n01:03:29.200 --> 01:03:33.160\nher team. And she's also going to probably come up with another, another new\n\n1314\n01:03:33.160 --> 01:03:34.880\nproduct. And I hope\n\n1315\n01:03:34.880 --> 01:03:39.280\nshe can go on Shark Tank and sell it, although she's a shark tank consultant.\n\n1316\n01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:40.720\nNow she's actually\n\n1317\n01:03:40.720 --> 01:03:45.180\nasking the question. And by the way, she has the money now. So she won't have\n\n1318\n01:03:45.180 --> 01:03:46.080\nto go on Shark\n\n1319\n01:03:46.080 --> 01:03:50.560\nTank. So I'm pretty impressed with that too. I love it. I love it. I will\n\n1320\n01:03:50.560 --> 01:03:51.680\ncertainly keep my eyes\n\n1321\n01:03:51.680 --> 01:03:55.410\non Alice and all sort of inner husband to see what they do next because if it's\n\n1322\n01:03:55.410 --> 01:03:56.080\nanything like Poppy,\n\n1323\n01:03:56.080 --> 01:04:02.190\nit's going to also be popping off the shelves. I agree. Well, David, thanks\n\n1324\n01:04:02.190 --> 01:04:03.200\nagain for another\n\n1325\n01:04:03.200 --> 01:04:07.370\nexcellent episode of How Leaders Lead. And thank you for listening to this week\n\n1326\n01:04:07.370 --> 01:04:10.240\n's episode. See you next week.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL7445364437.mp3?updated=1766014432","dx_media_id",2617,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2025-12-18","itunes_episode_id",270,"youtube_id","wM4iTGpIO7Q","2025-12-18T15:09:02.000000Z","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/Xfch0SMREfDhhudkqqRuuDinWB5EyK4TZGjxOkTN.mp3","dx_filename","Xfch0SMREfDhhudkqqRuuDinWB5EyK4TZGjxOkTN.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","WsNT6bsoLCk8EJPHP7pty2QaLgJZYJw8bPCidOXdqpo","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/2617.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",3850571,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/wM4iTGpIO7Q/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_95":79,"_96":77,"_97":-5,"_31":81,"_33":98,"_99":-5,"_100":83,"_86":87,"_101":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","01pA6uSBdQcv3uwpC5fh402oMpptei94gI6L29smRAeRI","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Allison","last_name","Ellsworth","job_title","poppi, Founder and Lead Creative","Allison Ellsworth, poppi, beverage, founder, entrepreneur","external_links","https://www.instagram.com/allisonellsworth,https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-ellsworth-50528a27",0,"image_media_id",2601,2602,"2026-07-20T20:38:52.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/LMtQ0ccp0eU6RU31AJKkbFlWEErZSLBwyjx1fsh6.jpg","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/uXXeIZ6DukZDbIbu5QQe5djSpMhH19DLUlZqfQRp.jpg","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/258/allison-ellsworth","industry_id",8,"industry",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":137},"industries",[132],"image_media",{"_13":113,"_95":131,"_96":118,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},{"_13":114,"_95":130,"_96":119,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},"uXXeIZ6DukZDbIbu5QQe5djSpMhH19DLUlZqfQRp.jpg","LMtQ0ccp0eU6RU31AJKkbFlWEErZSLBwyjx1fsh6.jpg",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":136},"name","Food and Bev","pivot",{"_35":36,"_121":122},{"_35":36,"_121":122},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_146":147,"_148":149,"_150":151,"_152":153,"_154":155},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]