High Impact Marketing with Poppi from Shark Tank

We went on to Shark Tank and we ended up getting a deal. And the shark that we got a deal with was Rohan Oza, and his nickname honestly is called the Brand Father, and he builds brands. He looked at us and he said, listen, like, I gave you guys a deal. Your, your liquid is fantastic, but your branding sucks. And we're like, that makes total sense. We've spent zero time on it. I'm here with you. Like, let's do this.

In this podcast, we share how we grew a 7-figure food business out of our 2-bedroom apartment in Chicago, all during the height of a global pandemic, and bring in expert entrepreneurs to share their stories and wealth of knowledge in business strategy and innovation. I'm Annie Slobotsky.

And I'm Morgan Lerner. And let's bite into business, shall we? In today's episode, High Impact Marketing with Poppy from Shark Tank, we're bringing in Alison Ellsworth. Hi, Alison.

Hi guys, excited to be here.

Yes, the founder of Poppi, the prebiotic soda company that was on Shark Tank, is now taking over the functional beverage category and is such a notable brand in the health food and beverage space. We thought, what better guest to have than the brand that's seen tremendous success with their marketing strategy with over 130,000 followers on TikTok and 100,000 on Instagram. Big shout out. So we'll be talking all about some of our favorite topics social media strategies, brand awareness activities, and other marketing channels. So we are so excited to dive in. And without further ado, let's bite into business. So back in 2018, Poppy, back then Mother, struck a deal on Shark Tank, then completely rebranded and have since seen skyrocketing growth, most recently closing a $13.5 million round of funding with investors like Olivia Munn, Ellie Goulding, Kevin Love, So Allison, we would love to take us all back to the beginning, especially our listeners who may not know of Poppy, about how you guys got started. Tell us the story.

Yeah. So once again, thank you for having me today. Excited to jump in. So I started the company a few years ago and it really came from an organic need that I found when I was traveling on the road. And I worked in oil and gas research previous to this career, and I was always on the road, and I didn't have access to good food or exercise. Maybe I could go for a walk outside or something, but there's like these small towns without even gyms. And so I just found my health and wellness was kind of deteriorating, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on. I didn't feel good. I was always bloated. My skin was kind of always broken out. I just had a total lack of energy. And so I started going to different doctors, and I mean, I probably spent 5 to 7 years going to doctors, spending tens of thousands of dollars for them to just keep throwing medication at me. They'd be like, oh, you have Candida overgrowth. Like, here's this pill that you're maybe supposed to take twice a year. And they're like, just take one every day. Just like so excessive. And it almost made me feel worse than my symptoms. And so I was really fed up and I couldn't really get to the bottom of it. And so I think I do what a lot of people do, which they tell you not to do, is I went online and Googled my symptoms. You're like, ah, scary. You probably shouldn't do that. But I'm so happy I did because I ran across this magical ingredient, which is our key ingredient in Poppi, and it's apple cider vinegar. And so I started reading about it, and at this point I was like, oh, yeah, okay, whatever, I'll try this, no big deal. But something that was just really amazing is I started drinking it every day, and I was shocked at how amazing I felt after after drinking it for 2 weeks. And I would just take it and I would put it in a big cup of water with some lemon, and I would just, like, sip on it all day. And my symptoms subsided. I felt amazing. But I was like, I have to drink this the rest of my life. Have either of you guys taken a shot of apple cider vinegar?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I went through a phase.

It's for sure.

Everybody has. Yeah. And it's not sustainable, literally. What you just said is so important to say. It's a phase. It's a moment. It's not sustainable, right? You're like, oh, great. Yeah, I see the health benefits and I see why people do this, but can I really do this for the rest of my life? Like, every single day? Probably not. And so for me, it was like, oh, my goodness, I found something that worked. I felt amazing. And I wouldn't say it cured all my symptoms, but what it did is it made me feel better, helped with my bloating and digestion, which made me start eating healthier. I found ways to exercise. So it set me onto this road of health and wellness. Realizing what you put in your body can heal your body. And it was just like this life-changing moment for me. And so a part of that journey was I'm going to figure out a way to make this taste good, right? So I went to my kitchen and I created Poppi, which previously was called Mother. And the liquid's the same, but the name has changed, which we can get into that a little bit later. But basically what was really important to me is I wanted to create something that was healthy and tasted good. And really, those are things that are really hard to do, right? If you really think about all the products on the market, and you guys know this, is like, how do you create stuff with clean ingredients? How can it taste good on top of it? Because I don't want to be super niche. I want people to consume and enjoy my product. And then on top of it, they're getting health benefits. So we started sharing with our neighbors and our— my cousins and my dad, and everybody was loving it. So that's when we decided to go ahead and take it onto the farmers market. And we had the Whole Foods buyer come by our booth. She told us it was amazing, handed us her card. She was a local forager. Keep in mind, our headquarters is in Dallas, Texas, and Whole Foods is in Austin, so it was really easy. And then after that, we opened our own production facility, went all in, quit our jobs. I was pregnant. Like, it was just a crazy entrepreneurial startup, and we just like went all in. And then obviously led us onto our path to Shark Tank.

That's such an amazing story. And also a Yiddish word for meant to be that we say a lot in my family is basharet, and it was so Besharat that like the Whole Foods buyer was at your farmers market. That's really amazing. So it was definitely Besharat that the buyer was at the farmers market. And I know you said that you were in oil and gas, you know, before you started this company. Did either you or your partner have any background in starting a food company, or how did you guys learn how to open up a production facility and sell things that were safe to sell in a grocery store?

Looking back, when we were selling at the farmer's market, I think we had no UPCs, no nutritionals, you know, making it in our kitchen, and we had no idea what we were doing. Like, it was just straight up, let's get this product that we love to as many people as possible. But then when this, this Whole Foods buyer came into our lives and was like, hey, you guys have to be in Whole Foods, basically she— a lot of people don't realize is when you're in CPG or food and beverage, you get one chance with the buyer once a year, and they do resets once a year. So you, you present, and then you usually launched that reset about 10 months later. And it's like this really strict schedule. And so basically we pitched, she let us in locally into the 14 stores, Whole Foods stores in Dallas, and we had 10 months to prepare. So within that 10 months, we got our stuff together and we got our packaging figured out. We got our UPCs and our nutritionals. We actually opened our own production facility, like took our life savings and set it up similar to like a brewery. So we were like brewing it and we were just like literally putting caps on bottles ourselves. But it, you know, we had all the right certifications for our facility and everything to be able to sell in grocery store. And we had 10 months and we hit the shelf and it was like wildly successful, right, right out the gate.

That's crazy. Um, I would love to see one of the first products that was on the shelf and compare it because we were watching the, the Shark Tank episode and you see the bottles and the, the previous branding. And we're so curious because today Poppi is this bright can, vibrant, and we loved the bottles. They're just totally different feels. What was that transition like?

I think what a lot of people don't realize again is like when you're at a startup, like you're just worried about getting the product on the shelf and you're making it and figuring out business plans and like how to pay the bills, right? You're not really focused on the brand and you're not focused on the packaging and how you're presented to the world, what your Instagram should look like and all of these little things that really elevate at that time. That's we were just like, make the product, get on the shelf. And so when we were to this point where we had some revenue and we went on to Shark Tank and we ended up getting a deal, and the shark that we got a deal with was Rohan Oza, and his nickname honestly is called the Brand Father, and he builds brands. He looked at us and he said, listen, like, I gave you guys a deal. Your, your liquid is fantastic, but your branding sucks. And we're like, that makes total sense. We've spent zero time on it. I'm here with you. Like, let's do this. And so we made the decision even after our airing our first episode of Shark Tank to pull our product back from the market. And we were going to spend 8 months to basically develop packaging, branding, and changing our name after doing a national quote-unquote commercial on Shark Tank. And there was like nothing in my head that was like, oh no, we shouldn't do this. Like, I was like, okay, let's go all in. You couldn't trademark the word mother, so that was an easy fix. You can't own it. So then we went through and we went through a couple exercises and we named our new brand Poppy, and a playoff of soda pop. It pops off the shelf. Our colors are really vibrant and fun. But we did, we did a lot of work in those 8 months before we launched. And part of the branding process, I don't think a lot of people think it's just so important to have a brand as well as having a product. So what I mean by that, and I use this example often, is you have Nike and Asics, for example, and Nike has a brand and Asics doesn't, but they both have a fantastic product. And so if you just kind of like think of it it that way where how do you create a brand? And so for us, we did a lot of exercises like, okay, if Poppy was a person at a party, what— who would that person be? If it's a car, what kind of car would it be, right? We, we think of Poppy as its own person. So a lot of times we're like, oh my gosh, I think that is so cute, we should post it. We're like, but is that Poppy? And you don't let your personal feelings go into it, or your designer's personal feelings, or your social or your head of marketing or anything like that. What is Poppi? Right?

Right.

And you stick, you stick to it and you keep it really strict and really straightforward. And then you want to have like your brand guidelines. So for example, we have like our strawberry lemon flavor and it will never be anything but pink and yellow. So anytime we're doing anything with text or any advertising or anything, it's pink and yellow. So freaking strict. And you have to be strict because you personally might be getting really sick of it as your own brand. You might be like, I've seen this 700 times. But that's okay because you want your brand to be recognizable to the masses so that that consistency of every single POS looks exactly the same with the same brand. And you want that. That's like—

that's—

yeah. And it's, it's 101, right? Like, this is nothing like surprising, but it's like, don't get caught up in like, we need to change and optimize. No, get really strong and in a really good place and then hammer it home, hammer it home. You know, you might have a tagline. For example, our tagline is like, be happy, be healthy. And it's like, that's our tagline. Like, don't try to change it every, you know, once again, back to Nike, just do it, right? Like, how often are they changing their tagline? Like, they're not changing their tagline. You know, I think once I say that stuff, you're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But it's so, so, so important when building a brand to get that— those little things like figured out. And then if you have a fantastic product and a fantastic brand, the sky's the limit.

Yeah, absolutely. But I love how you almost ignored that at the beginning and were so focused on the product and refining it because that's where it all starts. You know, both product and brand are important, but you can't have one without the other. And focusing in on that product first to then build that brand is so important. And then brand also builds that loyalty, which differentiates you against the competition, especially food and beverage space is getting pretty concentrated. And even in our industry, baking is kind of growing now, so we may face more competitors. How do we differentiate ourselves? Our brand, our mission, our story, all those things. So I do think both are important, but there is a little bit of an order of operations.

Yeah, and it's funny, I love that we had 2 years to work on our product, to your point, because there's a lot of people out there that have fantastic brands and you get really excited, you try it and you're just like, ooh, right? Oh, this isn't that good. And, and, you know, and it's, it's— I want to be like a generational brand. Like, I want to be around that my kids, you know, it's still here with my kids. Like, I want that. And so to your point, product is just as important, but I, I, in my head, that's like a 50/50.

Absolutely.

It's funny you say that because I don't know if you know this about our brand, but we started as Go Bananas 4 years ago when we were, um, freshmen at the University of Michigan, and we sold pre-made loaves actually. And we were just like you in the beginning. We literally hand-stickered every single loaf. The branding was non-existent. And then we spent a year branding those mini loaves, you know, with an outside group and creating our colors. We had like endless meetings And then we pivoted during the pandemic to sell our mixes, which is now All We Sell.

So good.

We had that foundation of the colors and the— we— our slogan is "Not Your Nana's," and we put that everywhere. So it's just funny, there's a lot of synergy there.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's so nice speaking to other people like you guys that get it, right? And the time that you guys had and all of those stories and experiences, like, define and make things better. And it's funny, I think as entrepreneurs, you guys can relate, is like looking back at, you're like, wow, I don't know if I could do that now again, but you would, right? Like, it's so hard. Like, the amount of struggle and how real it is, is, is like so next level, but it builds it and it makes you stronger. And now we have those experiences to apply them going forward. It's, it's amazing.

Absolutely. It makes you so grateful for each kind of milestone too, because you look back and you almost can't ever believe where you are today. So it all makes it worth it and it gives gives us such fulfillment and purpose. We always talk about that.

So true. Oh, but man, it's for the young. No, it's funny. I like, like, we originally started the company, I was pregnant with our first. We had just bought a house. We always joke about this, like, we were crazy. We were pregnant, we just bought a house, and we quit our jobs and started company all within one year. And it's like, the amount of risk it takes as an entrepreneur and like craziness is unreal. But like, it just shows how much, you know, I believe in Poppy. And I'm sure you guys have similar experiences where it's just like, you don't care because you believe in it. And it's what you're doing and you love it. And you wouldn't change a thing.

100%. If you don't have that, you don't have a shot.

So true.

Speaking about things for the young, I know Morgan briefly mentioned your large TikTok presence. That's something that we're building up as well. I actually manage the GoNanas TikTok. And one thing that was all over my, um, For You page this summer was the Poppy Hamptons house. I would love to hear about that, what the— where the idea came from, how it was facilitated, just everything about that crazy, um, thing you guys did.

Yeah, so Poppy, after the rebrand, we launched officially in March of 2020, right during the pandemic. And so is what it did is it really forced us right out of the gate to be a digital-first brand. And we didn't have a lot of opportunity to do like the Hamptons House or like any of those like in-person type situations. And so we had to pivot to Amazon. How do we break through on social channels? And for me personally, like as a founder, it was something— TikTok in particular— that I was really obsessed with. And so to your point, like I personally managed it. I didn't want my team to take any time off from it. And I was doing the trends and posting and like, I was like, I got to break through. There's just like millions of people that can see us on here. And what was interesting and how we finally broke through kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier is I just talked about the brand and our story, and I was really authentic. And my Shark Tank story, I posted a video like a Friday night, it blew up. Um, I think we have over 17 million views on it now. And it was one of those things that I think we did $100,000 in 2 days on Amazon. It was just like this crazy like lift, um, that really just like took us to the next level on TikTok because people really want authentic and real, right? So that's, that's like what really broke us through on TikTok. But we also found like we connected really well with the perfect consumer on there, young, old, and people that go to buy in retail. It was like everything about TikTok was really, really amazing and it played really well into our brand. So then once the world kind of opened up and we got a little glimpse before Delta threw the hammer down on us, was in July of last year, we were like, okay, we haven't had an opportunity to do anything in person. Like how do we go big here? And influencer marketing has been a really big piece of what we do. Poppy. I think it was like the— like, we were in influencer marketing for 6 months before we ever even did a paid ad. Like, it was like one of the first pillars of what we ever did in our first launch, and we knew it was really successful for us and everything that we really owed, like, our beginning success to. So we wanted to find a way to, like, give back. We wanted to bring influencers out to the house and celebrities and just, like, go really big with it. And I will be honest, it was a very heavy lift to spend a month in the Hamptons. I sent my entire team out there. It was like, oh no, now my marketing team's gone for a month. They're all in the Hamptons, like, doing— we did— I mean, it was like guerrilla roots sampling events, PR, celebrities. We had a 24K Golden concert that was hosted. I mean, it was just like everything that we could possibly do, like, we did in a month. And it was so successful because what it does is a lot, a lot of it was like top of funnel brand awareness, but is what it does opened our the doors to a lot of other opportunities down the road. Like, other people saw it, wanted to be associated with the brand. On top of it, we got great press. And then it just— I think during that same time, like, we had like JLo post, right? Like, it was all these like really top of funnel. I think in your— for years you just want brand awareness, you want people to know about your product. So it was really successful, and we're looking to do some fun stuff times 10 this next year. So stay tuned.

Well, hopefully we get the invite because that sounds so fun.

I know, Seriously, banana bread.

Yeah, I know, I love it. I love that idea. It's just so creative. And you know, as you mentioned, that's definitely something that's super top of the funnel, right? Because it's, it's big on brand awareness and you know you're getting so many eyeballs. How do you guys at Poppi evaluate the success of something like that?

So there's a lot of metrics that go into play. We use a lot of different platforms to measure success of influencers' posts. And what I think a lot of people don't realize is a lot of top of funnel and awareness is what it is. To measure it and to like push forward and try to like really analyze it, at the end of the day, it's really hard for people to digest the fact that it's brand awareness and you don't see an immediate like jump on your Amazon sales or your, your social accounts where you're like, followers are going crazy. It's like you want to see that stuff, but you have to realize when you're doing top of funnel brand awareness, that's not the goal. That's not what you're going for. So it's really hard for people to do that. Like, you do other activities for ROI and other activities to convert specific influencers for Amazon. But when you're running these kind of programs, we have— we use some data, it's called like Tribe, and it tracks EMV. So it's— which is earned media value, for anyone out there that's curious what that means. But it's one of those things that, yeah, you do it and you take all this into account with your Amazons, you layer it And you, you just try as best you can. From us, layering it in with what our always-on stuff— I mean, yeah, it was one of our highest EMV months literally of all time, right? Because of that. And so for us, that's a measure of success. We had a great month on Amazon. It was like all of these things. But at the end of the day, marketing is, is a guess sometimes. And you do it and you see if it's successful. And you, if it is with what you can pull in, Then you do it again and you learn and you test and you optimize. Like it's just, it's just an always, it's an always-on game.

Yeah, absolutely. On that note, going kind of back to your influencer strategy from the get-go, how did you choose that channel per se to kind of start? Because there's a lot of things you can do for brand awareness, whether it's PR or paid ads or lots of other things. How did you hone in on influencers to start and what did that outreach look like?

The reason we leaned into influencer marketing was because this is the world of people— I know this sounds like almost a double-edged sword, but like, people want to hear about your product from a person and an authentic person. So it does go a lot to who you partner with and who you don't. It's one of those things that today we still don't run like those high-gloss beautiful ads. We're going to start testing some of that next year, but influencer marketing works really great as ads. Ads, right? So you can repurpose that content. It's great on your own channels, it's great on their channels. Um, it's just, it's very multifunctional across like the marketing, and you can get a lot of bang for your buck, if that makes sense. And so it's a lot different than just creating that and running on Instagram. Yeah, right? Like, that's— it is what it is. And for us, it was just like right out the gate something that we knew we were gonna do. Honestly, we've kept all of that in-house. A lot of people use agencies, but it's something I managed for the first year and a half personally, and we brought on a partnership and influencer marketing director who runs it now with, with my help. But, you know, it's just something that you do outreach, you own those relationships yourself. I highly recommend not using agency for that because you want to own those relationships, and you build this like community of influencers that are obsessed with your brand. They're your go-to people, they're trusted. And then something really big that we did is a lot of seeding. So we just sent out a bunch of product and we saw who genuinely likes the product, and that's who we worked with. We didn't want to work with somebody that just was getting paid, a contract kind of situation, because it's not authentic, it's not real. Like, they genuinely had to like our product. And so it takes a lot of time and effort, but then in the end it really does pay off.

Yeah, absolutely. How did you get in touch with some of the higher profile people? I know that can be hard to reach out to. It's easier when you have that relationship. So maybe some you already relationships with, or was it kind of that cold outreach where you're Googling, you're trying to find out their manager, you're emailing?

You know, it is still that. You gotta slide into those DMs. I mean, I am telling you, to this day, every single day we are doing it. I have a team of 3 people. They have a quota to get out over 100 samples each every month, and they have to do outreach double that every month, new people. And growing, and you slide into DMs.

You—

a lot of them have emails in there, in their Instagrams. You Google, you reach out to agencies, um, like, well, not on our end, but like their reps, right? Agencies. And here's who's your roster, and you go through their roster and you look at their analytics. It's a full-time job. It's a lot, but it's, it's definitely worth it.

Absolutely. It's, it's sales, it's people, but then you also have to structure it in a way, because in a way you are trying to get them to do certain things. Maybe you have a launch and there you want them all to post or something, but it's, it's also relationships at the end of the day.

Yeah. And I think people, you know, with us when we launched in March of 2020, right in the pandemic, everyone was stuck at home. So we really leaned into the seeding of it because we knew one, influencers were desperate for content to post about because they were stuck in their house. On top of our product was healthy, it tasted amazing, it was shelf-stable. Pantry-loading type situation. So we really leaned in and sent out double, triple, quadruple what we could, um, just because we knew people would be home to receive it. We definitely built a lot of relationships and, and gained a lot of like brand loyals. And to this day, like, I'm friends with some of these influencers now, and, you know, we've gotten really close, and, and they're real and they're authentic people, and we love, absolutely love working with them. It's, it's, it's a really great like like back and forth relationship.

Absolutely.

That's, I mean, amazing. You guys have seen such success with that. I'm curious though, what other things are you either currently, or if you have any that you're able to share, doing for brand awareness? Because I know you mentioned you're not currently doing Facebook ads.

No, so we do do Facebook ads, uh, well, a little Facebook, some Instagram, and mostly TikTok. So we do do quite a bit of that. And I think what's really important is people need to know is like, if you are going to run all three, you need three types of content. You can't run the same thing across all three platforms. So one, that's really, really important. Even if you're running influencer content, like, if we're running the same thing on TikTok and Instagram, you need to have the text for Instagram on your Instagram and the text for TikTok. You want to be authentic to that platform, if that makes sense. You don't let that watermark says TikTok, like, that drives me insane, and people see right through that. So don't do that. But some top of funnel stuff, so we have a continuance of seedings that we're doing. So we're doing a really fun seeding here in December for January where everyone's getting some like beanies and socks and a Poppy like thank you gift. Seedings really successful. And once again, own those relationships, reach out, get addresses, don't use anyone else to buy anything off of, and, and own those and send out product to people to that want to do that. So right, that's really great for top of funnel brand awareness. On top of it, we have, um, content that we're leaning into. So Poppy's moving close to— we want to be more of like a, also a content house, right? So creating viral docuseries type situations where you have to kind of think of it once again, it's like a siloed content. It's not going to convert quite right away. It's building the brand, building your audience, building your community, right? All of those things are really important versus just conversion, conversion, conversion. You know, find different ways of how do you get involved with stuff on meetups on college campuses, all of these things. It seems like, oh really, should I focus on that right now? Like I have 500 things. Yes, because that's just building the brand and building the awareness. And I know it comes down to like manpower and bandwidth, but it's something that I get my hands really dirty on and like get in and get in the weeds with my team and that I truly believe in because there's always something you could be doing. I think that with that said, if you're a smaller brand and you're starting out, you know, I'm not sure who's listening here, but like there's always good places to start. So for example, don't try to do everything all at once. Pick like 3 or 4 things and do those well. So within the pillars of marketing that I think are really great places to start is one, focus on your brand. We've been talking a lot about that, but is email and SMS marketing— is that really important to you, or is it okay to wait? For example, we didn't even start that until December of last year, so we've only been doing it about a a year, and it was because we didn't have the bandwidth, like, to send emails out, to design emails, to make sure your lists are scrubbed, to make sure you're compliant, right? It's, it's a lot of jobs. So don't get frustrated if you're not trying to do all of it at once. Do you want to do influencer marketing? Is that right for your brand? It's not for everybody, right? Do you do paid ads? What platforms? Are you selling on Amazon, right? There's so many things. Like, don't try to do all of them. Pick 3, do those well, and then layer in, you know, one we haven't even talked about is PR. Like, I do not recommend doing PR until you're pretty far along. It's very expensive, very difficult, and you'll always be disappointed.

Yes, we've gone through a little bit of that.

It's like, don't do it until you're— yeah, it's so expensive, it's so frustrating, you know. And so it's like, sometimes it's hard to hear these things, but I'm very real with a lot of this. It's like, you know, where are your dollars and bandwidth best and then focus on those. And when you're doing really, really well, then add in like one thing, one other thing, and then another thing, you know. And don't get so overwhelmed like, I have to do it all at once.

Like, it's okay, prioritize and focus. Yeah, that makes sense. On the Amazon notes, how did you choose to sell your products online exclusively at Amazon? Because that is a unique strategy. We know that they have such a great advertising platform and it's kind of its own search engine. So did, did those come into play in that decision?

Day one, we knew we wanted to be all on Amazon. There was never that discussion whether we should do our, our own or not. And I think it's just the way the future and the way that like we believe, because 85% of households have Amazon Prime and it's the only platform that you can guarantee like people will be on, right? And so on top of it, it goes into retail. So if somebody's standing at a Whole Foods or a Target and they're like, should I buy this product? Chances are they're going to pull their phone up. One, make sure, is it cheaper on Amazon? Should I buy it there? Or two, let me read the reviews. So it also helps convert in retail. So there's a lot of really, you know, on your own website, people aren't going to do that same thing. They're not going to go to your website, they're going to look at your reviews and maybe be like, yeah, yeah, are those real reviews or not? But Amazon, you can't fake the reviews, right? right? And so, um, that was something that we took into account. And just the ease of it, right? If Amazon's doing it, you don't have to have a customer service department and a returns department, all this stuff. And it takes just like this whole thing off of your plate. With that said, we still have a VP of e-com now having to run it. He has an agency that's running all of our Amazon paid, and there's a lot of creative going to it. So, you know, take that with a grain of salt, but it was something that we just knew right off the bat, and it's been really successful. For us and was a really smart decision.

That's awesome. It seems like it. It's cool to hear about all the unique decisions, channels, marketing that you guys have built at Poppi because it is unique and you guys are such a standout brand. So it's really cool to hear. And something fun that I wanted to ask too is what, one, is your favorite Poppi flavor? And two, what's your favorite thing to do in the business as the founder, co-founder?

By far my favorite flavor, strawberry lemon. Same. Yeah, it's our number one seller, and I've tried to like drink the others, which I do rotate in, but I always find myself like going for this one. But fun fact, I still formulate and create every single flavor we have. So I originally made in my kitchen anything new. We just launched like a classic blend. Like, I spend months and months and months in the quote unquote, kitchen lab, creating all of our new flavors. They're all my babies, but there's a lot of them, like, for example, watermelon, that I'm not necessarily formulating for me. I'm formulating it for the masses, right? We do a lot of consumer surveys of, like, what kind of watermelon does everyone want? Do they want, like, a cantaloupe melon one, or do we want more Jolly Rancher? Well, most people want more Jolly Rancher, so, like, we'll go that way. For me personally, I'm like, I might be more Cantaloupe. So it's like, I love all of our flavors. For me, probably my favorite thing to do is, is like I run creative. And so like, for me, it's just like everything creative. So another fun fact is like everything you guys see on Instagram, like I still do that and I post it. I run all our photo shoots. Like I'm really crazy about like our branding and the way we look and messaging and everything. So for me, if I could just just focus on content and creative, like, I would be so happy.

That's how I am. It's funny, we, we make all of our products as well, so it's Annie and I baking rounds of muffins and testing this one versus that one and running our socials. And it is the fun part. I think being creative is probably our, our favorite part, like you said, the product development and the content creation. But obviously you wear so many hats as a business owner, so there's just so many.

Yeah, like take the trash I know, you know, you just like everything. It's crazy.

But that's unique. That's like so fun part of it. Yeah.

And that's what, you know, you're like a really good founder entrepreneur, which I hear often. There's a lot of entrepreneurs that the company will get really big and they're like on vacation doing that stuff. And it's like me and my husband are like, which he's the CEO and I run brand and marketing and we're like, oh, maybe we should take a vacation. Like we can't pull ourselves away from the business. And then when we are on vacation, we're talking about work. So that's when you know you love it and there's the passion.

Yeah, absolutely. Can relate.

Also, I was gonna say, um, we have— we were best friends before we started the business, and we obviously live bicoastal, so we fly to see each other all the time. And it's so hard. We'll be like, okay, we're gonna go out and we're not— we're not gonna talk about work. And then like 10 times we'll be like, one last thing.

I know, sometimes it's just okay.

Yeah, yeah. I think when it's also with the people close to you, it's a little bit different, right? It's not just like, oh, this is work and not fun. It's like, oh, this is what I'm passionate about. We're exchanging ideas and it's fun. It's, it's stimulating. I don't know. So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

That's when you know you're doing what you should be doing.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you guys for listening to this super fun episode all about high-impact marketing with none other than the Poppy co-founder, Allison. It's been such a treat to learn all about your innovative marketing tactics, from the Poppy Hampton summer house to your Amazon exclusive strategy. So this episode was definitely a great reminder that to make a brand name for yourself, you have to push the boundaries, be intentional with your marketing spend and meet your customers where they are, even if it is in the Hamptons.

I love it.

So yeah, thank you guys.

Thank you.

And that is all for this episode of Bite Into Business. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day, and we will catch you guys in 2 weeks where we bring 2 very special guests on the podcast to talk all about working with your best friend.

So stay tuned.

Bye, guys!