In 2016, she made gut-healthy drinks in her kitchen. 9 years on, she sold her soda brand to PepsiCo for $2 billion

In 2015, Allison Ellsworth was successful her room experimenting with antithetic gut-healthy portion recipes, trying to marque pome cider vinegar sensation good. Little did she cognize that the concoctions she was mixing would yet go a cardinal dollar business.

Today, the 38-year-old is the co-founder of prebiotic soda marque Poppi, which she started alongside her hubby Stephen Ellsworth. Almost a decennary aft her room experiments, successful May 2025, Ellsworth sold the concern to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion.

The woody includes $300 cardinal successful anticipated currency taxation benefits for a nett acquisition terms of $1.65 billion.

Ellsworth has ever been a hustler.

"I conscionable knew I ne'er wanted to enactment for anyone ... I was bully at, like, hacking systems and ... I ever had this truly large acquisition to beryllium visionary [and] spot done cracks," Ellsworth told CNBC Make It.

While successful college, she took a afloat twelvemonth disconnected to question and inactive managed to postgraduate successful 4 years. During her studies, she besides worked respective jobs wherever she figured retired however to execute much efficiently than expected.

"I worked astatine a telephone center, and I learned truly aboriginal moving there, that if I did definite things, I could [double], triple ... 5x the income of everybody else," Ellsworth said.

After college, Ellsworth spent years connected the roadworthy moving successful lipid and state research. She would question each astir the United States by herself, which yet began to measurement connected her health.

"I did that for 7 years ... moving each implicit the U.S. I've driven done each azygous authorities by myself, stayed successful teeny, small towns and motels and ran huge, multi-million dollar projects successful my 20s. It was crazy." she said.

But since she was ever connected the road, she had occupation accessing nutritious food. "I felt ill. So my look started breaking out, my tummy was hurting. I was allergic to each sorts of antithetic things ... and I couldn't fig retired what's going on," she said.

When doctors couldn't help, she began to Google each of her symptoms and decided to effort taking pome cider vinegar, which is known to person galore wellness benefits, but is unpalatable erstwhile taken connected its own.

"I conscionable fell successful emotion with pome cider vinegar, and the mode it made maine feel, but I wanted to marque it sensation better," said Ellsworth.

By 2016, she and her hubby were preparing for their archetypal kid erstwhile she decided to instrumentality a interruption from her occupation and each of the travel. With much escaped time, she decided to vessel up her gut-healthy drinks and merchantability them astatine her section farmers marketplace nether the sanction "Mother Beverage."

Within 3 weeks of selling astatine the farmers market, they were discovered by Whole Foods, she said. "When the Whole Foods purchaser came to our booth and was like: 'We don't person thing similar this successful Whole Foods. Here's my card.' That was that infinitesimal I was like: 'Oh, I person a business,'" she added.

"I remember, my hubby was inactive working. I was 3 months pregnant. We conscionable bought a house, and I was like: 'We're gonna bash this. We're going each in.' He thought I was crazy, but ... we conscionable ne'er looked back," she said.

The mates discontinue their jobs to absorption connected Poppi.

By 2017, Mother Beverage was selling successful Whole Foods and by 2018, Ellsworth said the company made astir $500,000 successful revenue. In the aforesaid year, they went connected the tv amusement "Shark Tank" wherever they pitched Mother Beverage to a lineup of concern moguls.

During the filming of the show, Ellsworth was 9 months pregnant. "I had the babe 10 days later," she told CNBC Make It. Ultimately, the mates landed a woody with businessman and capitalist Rohan Oza — who offered $400,000 for a 25% involvement of the business.

After the woody took place, the institution went done a nine-month rebrand. They added a interaction of sweetener and swapped their solid bottles for colorful cans, and "Mother Beverage" became "Poppi."

"We decided to spell with colored cans due to the fact that it screams soda ... If you deliberation astir it, soda is the biggest TAM (Total Addressable Market). Everyone drinks soda," said Ellsworth. "We knew who we were. We're revolutionizing soda for the adjacent generation, and that is our North Star."

Poppi launched successful March 2020, close astir erstwhile the pandemic deed and consumers were looking for healthier products, she added. From there, Ellsworth and her squad poured into their branding.

"We were a digital-first brand. We were 1 of the archetypal brands to get connected Tiktok and spell viral and truly physique ... a societal archetypal community," she said. "We did omnichannel, truthful we went Amazon and retail astatine the aforesaid clip ... and past we conscionable brought successful an unthinkable elder squad with a batch of acquisition beauteous aboriginal on."

"We had a bully spouse who kept america funded, and [so] we weren't ever starved for cash," she said. "We conscionable had the close people, close time, close product, and immoderate clip we saw momentum, we invested successful it." All of these decisions created the cleanable look for Poppi's occurrence and for the company's $1.95 cardinal acquisition by PepsiCo.

When asked wherefore she decided to merchantability her company, Ellsworth said: "We [wanted] to proceed to get Poppi to arsenic galore radical arsenic possible, the lone happening to truly unafraid that is to bring successful a organisation spouse similar Pepsi."

She added: "It was conscionable a gut feeling, I guess."

Want to beryllium your ain boss? Sign up for CNBC's caller online course, How To Start A Business: For First-Time Founders. Find step-by-step guidance for launching your archetypal business, from investigating your thought to increasing your revenue.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for occurrence astatine work, with wealth and successful life, and request to articulation our exclusive assemblage connected LinkedIn to link with experts and peers.