Transcript

00:00 I always say I lived the American dream from my kitchen to Shark Tank and we got to the point where we needed money or we were going to fail. We stood in line for 8 hours. Convinced we are going to be on Shark Tank. At the end of the day. 0.2% of people get to that level and it's pretty life-changing Coachella was coming up and Alex we kept popping up in her videos organically like she's so amazing that we decided to go all in. It was almost like a reality show that people were like tuning into versus an influencer posting on a paid trip in house. It was real it was authentic. We couldn't quite find a Super Bowl ad they were all sold out. Someone called us like hey we got a Super Bowl ad for you. This was 4 days before the Super Bowl aired 1 minute before halftime right before Usher went on. It was like the most magical moment. We tripled our awareness overnight and it was such a great inflection point for the brand.Here the stories learn The Proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan well the first question that I wanted to ask you is how did your personal health. Challenges inspire you to start poppy goodness. That's such a good question. I feel like a lot of people come up with great ideas in life and they usually stem from personal stories or personal problems. But previous to starting Poppy I worked in oil and gas and I traveled and I guess. My question for you is have you ever been on the road and travel constantly and had access to one good food a place to even work out or got in good sleep. No no and I just feel like in my previous career. I was traveling for like seven years and it was a constant toll in my health and I was just desperate to find something uh that made me feel good and I did what we're all guilty of and I started Googling symptoms and what kept coming up on the Internet is uh to reset and detox your body through eating healthy or eliminating certain foods or items from your diet and that's just kind of started my journey onto path of Health and Wellness yeah. So when did you start the brand. So when I first came up with the idea was back in 2016 when I was going through this health. Journey spending time in my kitchen is when I discovered the ingredient apple cider vinegar and how high sugar and what it does to your body and I had horrible tummy problems. My skin was a mess um and that was in 2016 and then we launched poppy in 2020 but there was a lot of crazy entrepreneurial um stories that got me from there to the day of launch and then to where we are today. So I want to jump into all of these stories. But the first one that I have to ask you is. You had no experience in the beverage industry.No experience in man manufacturing products. How did you navigate just the whole supply chain piece. You started this brand with $115,000 like how talk us through that I think for me I was raised by entrepreneurs so my dad was a Serial entrepreneur and he did it for the rise the the build and not the money um and so when I finally got into it where I was like okay we want to do this we want to start this product. It was almost like you say yes and figure it out later um just navigating through supply chain manufacturing and not having money. I look back and I think well that is kind of crazy once you kind of say it out loud. But there was just no other option because I'd created something. I was so passionate about and at the end of the day I just wanted to share it with people um and with that it was funny. We were at the farmers market and one of my friends. He had a brewery and it was local in Dallas Texas and he's like hey I can actually show you guys how to make your pro product on a bigger scale. It's very similar to brewing beer I like well that sounds easy enough and we just started buying equipment and we would work during the week to then buy more equipment on the weekend at the farmers market and just it was this cycle of six months of working working working to get one more little piece of equipment. To continue to scale. We were filling bottles. One can at a time one bottle.At a time then we got a filler and we could do four at a time and we just slowly built our way to I think we got to about 500,000 in revenue and it was just a slow build and it was slow and steady and we just didn't give up yeah. So you launched in 2020. During Co how did you get your first sales especially when you started selling at farmers. Markets talk us through that because it was humble beginnings it was very humble. I mean we both gave up our careers. I was three months pregnant. When I decided to do this. We had just bought a house and we took our life savings and put it into this and we got really lucky early on. We had a local forager for from a grocery store come up to us and say look there's nothing really. Like this. In a grocery store. You guys should take this past hobby to business and it was an aha moment for me to be like huh. Maybe I can do this maybe we can make some money but now how do we scale it. How do we. It was just me and my husband that saying at that time go from two people to then selling in a grocery store. I mean I didn't even know what a nutritional panel was on the back of a of packaging or how how do you figure out how much sugar is in a product. It's these simple things that you don't know at the beginning and once again um. There's a lot of resources out there to kind of figure it out if you if you do the research and you dig and we got into local Whole Foods which is the grocery store chain and then we got into a point where we were building a brand. It was successful and I always say I lived the American dream from my kitchen to Shark Tank and we got to the point where we needed money or we were or we were going to fail right.We were going to go out of business and you don't want to take on stupid. Money is what everyone always said and I was like oh Shark Tank that makes sense yeah. So you raised 125,000 from friends and family leading to a $500,000 in sales. In your first year of business and most of those sales. They came from farmers markets right and then Whole Foods. So we were in 14 locations. That's it 14 grocery store locations. A few cute little shops that were coffee shops or um you know sandwich shops and then of course we did sell a little bit online but it was absolutely nothing okay all right and like that's pretty impressive growth for firsttime founder new business you know during like you know. Co days right um talk me through kind of what were some of the key strategies or decisions that made that possible. I think that's like the early days with the 500,000 in Revenue. But after going on truck taking getting a deal the big piece of that was we had a great product had a great story of why I started this right. I started this because I wanted to share it with people um and and at the end of the day the next step was was to continue to build the brand. So we decided to take 9 months off at that point and do a total Rebrand right uh from what color is your packaging. Do we change the name what are we trying to say who is our consumer cuz. I think a lot of entrepreneurs when they're starting a business. They're like how do I make this product to get in on the shelf and we were manufacturing ourselves and we were more concerned with. How do we get caps on bottles than building a brand and building a community and those are very different things and so through the process of building the brand and going through a Rebrand. We were able to launch poppy actually knowing who we were in March of 2020 and that is of course right when Co hit so talk me through that Shark Tank experience. What was that like I I actually when Shark Tank came to Australia for the first season. I applied for founder like when we just had a magazine.No podcast show nothing and I was like got to the first round or the second round and they put me and saw how I was behind camera and the and the producers they said to me I never forget they said to me Nathan. This is incredible what you're building with founder whatever happens you know whether we put you forward or not like congratulations on all your success. I'd only been working on it for about two years and I just went fulltime on it and I thought for sure. I was going to be on Shark Tank and I followed them up and they said yeah. We'll be in touch and then like 2 weeks later. I got an email saying sorry. You didn't get make the cat and I was like oh my God but to be honest. I didn't go on there to raise money. I went on there for publicity like talk talk like nobody says that though like know that yeah that's right. That's right so so tell me like tell me about your experience with shark tank. So mine was wildly different in the way of I love how green I was when it came to being an entrepreneur of the say yes and figure it out. It was what you did. You went on Shark Tank so when we got to the point where we needed money and let's be real me and my husband. He was working a second job. I'd had my first. We put every ounce credit cards were maxed out right.

09:51 We are like all in at this point and this is a we need this moment and I remember going to an open casting call. It was the first time I'd ever gotten a babysitter for my first born and we stood in line for 8 hours. Same thing pitched my heart out to them convinced. This is we are going to be on Shark Tank. We did you know I know you didn't but we did get call backs month after month and it was crazy through that whole process it was a six-month process really from that to actually being on the show. So there's so many layers in between there's a ton of background checks they dig into your. Business are what you are saying or selling. Is it the truth right and then is it something that could be mass for everybody and after that whole process. I remember being three months pregnant with my first. By the time I got on the show. I ended up being 9 months pregnant and had the baby 10 days later. But it so blind and you don't know what's going on look I I've learned. Since then you can apply online and you don't have to go through all that and they actually reach out to a lot of businesses as well that are success ful. So I'm really proud of from standing on line to getting on to getting a deal.I think it's like a 0.2% of people get to that level and it's pretty life-changing. It definitely changed my life so you raised $400,000 from Ro Rowan oosa um and you said you took nine months off. So you stopped selling and you took N9 months off to do. The Rebrand talk me through kind of what that looked like and what that proc was like cuz. I think that's a really interesting thing like you said that you guys you know your husband's working a second job and you guys put everything into it to just stop and go hey we're not going to sell like. There's no sales coming in there's no money coming in like like talk us through that that's that's a bold courageous approach yeah and it was interesting because even once you get a deal on Shark Tank. It's not like you have the money the next week. There's diligence that you go into and sometimes the deals fall through afterwards. So it took us about 6 months from getting the deal to actually closing it and it's funny we closed the deal. Friday in our episode aired Sunday so we still had not been funded.We were kind of still where we were through that whole process and in that meantime we had gotten approval to go and almost Nationwide to Whole Foods with our previous product and we thought look we want to do a Rebrand here. In the way of we have a fantastic liquid. We call it lightning in a bottle it tastes amazing people are obsessed with it but how does the brand match it and if we launch it. As is it you know you get you get literally like 3 seconds for people to decide. If they're going to one drink you or you know try your product right and we wanted to make a good first impression and it was really hard at the time to be like no we're not going to launch. We're going to say no and wait a year. But it really was the best decision cuz. We launched knowing who we were instead of launching and trying to figure it out as we went so let me this right when when the episode aired you guys weren't taking on sales. So when the episode aired we had done the 500,000 in Revenue um with our previous brand. It was called mother beverage and then once we got a deal we took time off and then launch poppy in March of 2020 and I think we launched in March during Co in our first year. In business. We did like 3.5 million in just like 6 months so it was a really quick growth just even in the first year year um. But yeah it was one of those things that we definitely pulled back but I love that we launched during Co because we were a new brand. I didn't have a traditional background in marketing and so when it came time to start marketing to our consumer from the beginning.I was like oh we'll just do this different and I think that played a huge piece into how poppy so digital first is because if you think back that was the only way to talk to Consumers at that time and we've used that since and tell me what were some of the key things that you guys did with the Rebrand which you think when you did. Relaunch was like so like really showed that pathway to Rapid growth so it was funny going through that process. We had two schools of thought. We were going to you know something as simple as when you're doing brand exercise uh. We were going to do white cans or colored cans right. We have like our product here and the reason we with colored cans. Is we are soda for the Next Generation. So Poppy's mission is revolutionizing soda for the Next Generation we're better for you we taste amazing right it's very simple but if you look at color it screams fun. It screams taste. It screams delicious versus a lot of better for you products they go white. They think clean and healthy. But we want to scream taste fun and flavor um and the name we renamed it poppy. It's a playoff of soda pop. So we just kept leaning into everything that we aspired and now are right is soda for the Next Generation Poppy's the number one selling soda on Amazon.It's been crazy and it's because we've been brandir leaning into taste flavor and not being like this thing will cure XYZ like nobody wants to be told like that. They're healthy right. They just like love if it's healthy but at the end of the day taste is Keen M so let's talk about taste right like how do you what does that testing process work like like how how do you decide on the flavors. When I first started we created products and flavors that I thought were like a sister to kombucha. So for example I had like a Le lavender lemon or an orange cinnamon and nowadays we're seeing consumers just want products that they know and love so. For example instead to Orange cin we have orange soda right and if you think of the word soda it usually invokes an emotion that you have within you you might think of movies or date nights or you know Root Beer Floats or whatever it is. But the problem with soda is the excess sugar kind of like a dirty word. Now the way that we see Poppy and the way that we think of our flavors. It's giving you the freedom to Love Soda again at its best. So we've given you the freedom to love orange soda again as an ad adults grape soda as an adult or allowed you to have root beer again and not feel guilty about it um. And so we really lean into those type of flavors uh.But I do love we still have some of my ogs like our raspberry. Rose uh flavor and our strawberry lemon which is my personal favorite so um when it comes to like the I guess you've talked through kind of the flavors. Do you have like a like a testing groups and like how do you work out like what taste it is it you deciding is it like is it like how do you work that out up until recently the first you know nine or 10 flavors were my original recipes in partnership with the other founder my husband and us just playing around the kitchen of what tastes good taste is King now that we are definitely a more established brand. We have a whole insights and Innovation team so we do flavor radar study. We ask our consumers what they want and then we do have a testing quote unquote board where we'll bring stuff in and we do blind tastings and vote on what are our favorites what we love about them. Do. They need more acid do. They need more lemon do they like what does it need um and what I love is with. That is my taste um. Palette is very different than my husbands. I always joke around his is like total Middle America.

17:56 I'm like more on the healthy end and so then when we find something that really hits in the middle we know we've we've had a home run because we know both will love it. So. It's quite a bit more of a process now. But at the end of the day there's a few flavors. We wanted to launch but haven't because we haven't be been able to nail the taste so we're not just going to launch it cuz. The data says we need to launch it either yeah. Look I think one thing I've learned in my journey. Is it's a combination of data and gut intuition right and you need you need that both if you rely on just the data things don't always pan out and if you rely on just your gut intuition and not the data that things don't always pan out. It's that that's that entrepreneurial Spirit no I mean that's like my life uh when I first started out. Everything was got intuition and then I was very resistant to the data because I was like look. I figured it out up until this point and. Now I feel like over this last year. I've gotten over that hump to appreciate it as long as you don't let it rule right and it took me a while there just like as an entrepreneur to be able to get there because we usually have this feeling as an entrepreneur just like my way or is the high you know or the highway type of saying or what I want is the way to go. But I found learning to work with a team and have insight and to do it the right way.It's almost more refreshing as long as you can keep your Edge which I think Poppy's really good at so talk me through I guess. You said the first nine flavors were created in your kitchen right um that's pretty impressive that you guys have been able to create this incredible brand as fast as it's been able to grow really off your you and your husband's taste buds right like getting the flavor obviously getting The Branding the packaging the marketing the execution. There's a whole ton of other things but one thing that I've found which is very consistent across all the super successful. Founders that I interview is getting. The product right is so key and if you don't get it right then it doesn't matter how good your marketing is right and you got. The product right how how long did you really spend like really like back in your kitchen working out those nine flavors. How many tests did you go through how many variations just for our audience to really get an understanding of what it takes to create products that get product Market fit that grow like wildfire to create like you said one of the fastest growing beverage.Brands out there like how many variants do you went through for just one F to get that rot. It's funny I will say for anyone that's in business with their spouse or significant other um. It's an interesting place to be and in our lives our number. One thing that we have ever fought about is product right and it's so funny just looking back years ago. When we first started we got a great piece of advice early on. I think it was maybe two months in we had just won a beverage competition called new beverage Showdown and we were sugar-free at the time and he the one of the judges came up to us and said this has the makings to be so successful. But I recommend adding a teeny bit of sugar and I remember being like. No I started this because of my health issues how could I ever do. This absolutely not and my husband's like I actually think we should and we like had this big fight about it and I remember right before Shark Tank. All these things we decided to make the change. We immediately saw our sales double overnight over the next few months and I'm talking little sugar right our our cans have anywhere from 3 to 5 grams of sugar. In the entire can 20 calories or less like 25 calories right like we're not talking that much.But I remember that was one of my first good lessons and product and in change as an entrepreneur that it's okay to like change. You don't have to hold so steadfast to like the beginning of this or that you know it's like at the end of the day work with people. I made that in my kitchen that's original nine but we've made so many iterations over time for example adding a little bit of sugar into it working with different distributors with our ACV or the stevia that we have in it or the juices right you get so stuck on these early days the way you've done. It. Now how do you scale that over time and what some manufacturers that you work with at the beginning can't scale to the level that we're even at today right and so you've had to change and iterate. And I think as long as we stay core and true to who we are. We're always working on making our product better. So you say like how many iterations thousands hundreds right because from what we started with to where we are today and continually trying to make sure we have. The most clean best.Ingredients in our product is priority number one cuz at the end of the day if it doesn't taste good and it's not good product. People aren't going to buy it so I think some people get complacent and they're like. This is a product and this is what it is and how it is and and it's tough as long as you're not like selling out right and like totally doing off-the-wall crazy stuff which I'm not here for um. I think it's an always Evolution to make sure you have the best product. It can be thanks for sharing and I'd love to talk about shelf space so that's something that is difficult and a major challenge for most brands. What would you share in regards to kind of advice or your experiences for getting your product placed on shelves in R yeah. What I think a lot of people don't realize especially in food and beverage is how expensive. It is to be on shelf and grocery stores so a lot of grocery stores especially especially at the beginning want you to pay for that space. So they'll do a fill fee or something that you know you spend $100,000 and will'll put you on the Shelf. But then once you're on the Shelf. You have to figure out one how to Market it in store and online. So for example what are you going to do at two for four are you going to do anything a sweep. Stakes are you giving away anything online on social are you running paid ads against this right. It is a constant thing to drive people into retail and to get that shelf space and then once you're there.How do you keep it right because I think a lot of people think oh. It's on there good to go no. That's just where the the work starts and then how do you even get there in the beginning. So I think a big piece of advice and my favorite thing that we did at poppy is I think like our third employee was our chief of sales. We brought in someone that knew more than I did knew more than my husband did and had been working in beverage for a really long time and some people might not be able to bring some on right away. Salary wise at the beginning equity can be worth. A lot you find people you ask for favors will you work part-time will you work on the side will. You send an email to introduce me to ex buyer right. You can always find a way and once you're in and if you have a good product you have a brand and a plan you know it'll speak for itself yeah and when it comes to I guess finding that right person. How did you find that person yeah he had been working in quite a few other beverages um. We brought him on because he had been working with Rohan OA. One of our shark right our shark that we got the deal with and honestly food and beverage is a really small-knit community of people. There's a lot of great people. But it's small and so you kind of know the key players and we're constantly especially where we were then to where we are now um. There's very few in far between that are like really good.

25:58 So it's easier s than done though but networking is like key yeah and look that I think what is often underestimated when it comes to building. Any company is the people that you have around you and being able to scale out your vision through incredible people that are better than you at at that certain thing and if you can get the right people. That's that's how you scale right like you scale a business through people 100% I think at the beginning in March of 2020 it was two employees now. Poppy has over 20000 in just four short years and it has been a roller coaster for me as a leader and an entrepreneur to learn through that process of I did everything myself from bottling it to making it to delivering it to marketing it right and now we have highly smart special ized people that are doing that and learning to let go through that process is something. I think hard for a lot of entrepreneurs and I think a piece of advice that I got a while ago was instead of resisting it. If you can embrace it and be part of that process. It feels so much better and then it's as a leader seeing other people do amazing things.It's also another way to be really rewarding as an entrepreneur. So you know I talked to a couple other entrepreneurs about this and was like how did you do that how did you do it. It wasn't easy at all. There was like a lot of crazy nights but once you get over the other side it feels really good. Hey guys. I really hope you're feeling inspired from today's interview. The truth is there's never been a better time to build an e-commerce business and the best part is you don't need to do it alone. That's where founder plus comes in which I'm really really really excited to share with you. If you are feeling stuck in your e-commerce business lacking the confidence to really move forward or you're worrying about making costly mistakes or how to drive your sales. Founder plus is here to support you you get access to a customized learning pathway with proven Frameworks from successful e-commerce. Founders for fast results a supportive Community. We have weekly live mentorship and workshops and exclusive savings on Startup tools and 24/7 real human support. You can try founder plus today for just $1 for 7 days. So you can accelerate your business. Goals just visit founder. Comom slstart dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial.All right now let's jump back into the show yeah. That look I think and I've talked about this before I think that transition from founder to CEO is difficult um or or even just found her to operator is very very difficult because you started the business and a lot of the times what you did. When you started the business is a is like a totally different job to now the business has grown you have a leadership team. You have an exec team and you actually getting in people's way often times if if you hold on to how it was at the start and it's just a totally different Journey yeah but will say through the process. The players were bringing people in because I was part of it even though it was hard um. It also showed the value that I had as an entrepreneur right me as the Visionary and the disruptive and the creative you know Poppy I still run all of our creative and this thinking of how do we keep the entrepreneurial Spirit Alive. And since this process we were part of it everyone. Embraces that about me which I absolutely love you know a lot of times you get in you're like oh you have to get kind of corporate things got to change the entrepreneurial Spirit has to change but that's what makes poppy special and everyone has actually seen that and so it's. It's one of those things that you feel like there's there might be a lot of loss and changing these things.But if you can keep at the core of what's important it's been really fun to see that and I think in in our culture and our brand you you see it you know like we're the digital first the Tik. Tok the fun the happiness our community like really comes through yeah and look. When you guys launched in 2020. Your obviously you didn't plan for the pandemic. How did your like strategy change um and how did you deal with the challenges there that that was posed by the pandemic. I remember we had been doing the Rebrand right and then it was March of 2020. We went to this big event that everyone goes through. It's called Expo web and it's in Anaheim California and it is huge every brand goes and that's where you pitch and it was like our coming out party right. We go we go set up. We're one of the smaller Brands. We'd put so much money into going into this and there was maybe 10 cases of Co and the big Brands. They weren't showing up and they were like not coming. I was like we can't afford not to do this.We're here and they cancelled the event and then on the way home we were like flying home. All sad about it and there was thousands of cases of the co. It just happened so quick and it was just within a few days and I remember looking at Stephen and saying well. This won't last long. Let's just act like how do we Okay. We can't go in public but how do we talk to people and we were so happy.

31:44 One of um our shk we' filmed a shark tank update. We decided to go on to Amazon as a brand versus D Toc right. A lot of people are like wait isn't Amazon DC. No. It's not. It's not direct consumer on our own website. We do just sell on Amazon and we had made a couple of those decisions earlier and one of our updates had aired on Shark Tank and it aired April second month of lockdown and I always just say like how many times is everyone sitting at home but on a Friday night of second month of lockdown and we had basically a National Commercial date our month two and we went from 9,000 in sales to like 250,000 in sales on Amazon like overnight and it was really eye openening for everybody to be like yeah.Let's not give up like let's keep pushing forward with this. Co thing let's not like don't let the gas off. Let's just think differently and you guys during that that air update you guys I read that you trended higher than Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian. Like that's next level is that correct it is so when our episode aired because everyone was watching it like highly viewed Shark Tank Episode. We hit uh number one Amazon's hot new product list which is like unheard of your second month to get your Amazon choice and all of that and then the Google search Trends. It was during crazy times that Donald Trump was president and everyone was Googling and we hit higher than Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian and people like what is going on here and uh so that is correct and what about stock like did you run out like what happened. There. You know I will say inventory was really tough in the First Years in scaling because we were scaling.We did triple digit growth every year since. We've launched the brand and we're four years old and what's Wild if not some of the years we did like 500% growth. But it was wild during the pandemic. There was aluminum shortage of cans so we got good partners. We found a way to get through it. We overpaid we stayed in business um. We were lucky to have good partners in keeping us funded and we just found a way to get through it and it was very difficult to scale that fast. I think that was the number one issue is with poppy is how do you build a plane while it's flying right. It's we've grown so fast but this year and for next year we're we're. There we have the team we have the product we have the manufacturing um. So if you just hang in there and you can get through that and get to a good place and build a product people and platform.You can you can make it took me through through Amazon right cuz. That's an interesting approach right. You went Amazon first instead of building a Shopify store DTC. Like what people tend to do is they go D Toc and then they do retail and then they might not even touch Amazon. Some people don't really like to touch Amazon at all right so you guys went straight into Amazon Amazon first where did that like why how did you come up with that. So I think what a lot of people don't to speak about with Amazon is meet your consumer where it is right how many people have Amazon Prime. It's actually going to be harder for you to find people that don't have it and so instead of spending that time trying to figure out how to drive people to our website and do Google ads and all of those things it's like everyone's already buying on Amazon. Let's make it easy for them and with that said we're heavily Omni channels. So we wanted to build our in grocery as well as our online presence at the same time and scale both a lot of Brands pick. One of the other and like get to it maybe a year or two later but we wanted to do both cuz. We wanted to be a digital first brand most people will be in say a Whole Foods going through the grocery store and they see a new product. They're not sure what it is. They probably open their phone open Amazon and start reading reviews. So it can also help with in store purchase and driving that channel as well and you know it's. It's really paid off for us. You don't have multiple teams for you know customer service. Serv not have to deal with returns shipping right like Amazon shipping you get those rates there's just so many added things especially for beverage. That's Heavy to ship that was such a benefit for us that we weighed at the beginning and went all in like all in Amazon.

36:14 A lot of people will be like oh I'll test. It. No we like dove in and it was such a successful decision yeah and what other things are you guys doing differently to really make poppy stand out. You've got an incredible product. You talk through the package and The Branding are there anything else. You. Guys are doing because the soda space is highly competitive is there anything else that you could share no. I think a huge piece of our success. Especially early on was social media and Tik Tok and telling our story there before a lot of other brands did. So I think a lot of people get scared. Yes we got on we were one of the first brands on Tik Tok. We have two billion views multiple videos. Over 100 million views and a lot of people see that as an entrepreneur coming on the scene or even one that's been on for a while and is looking for that next step to break. They're like everyone's doing that. Maybe I shouldn't no you are you holding you back at the end of the day. Every day. I'm still getting on there creating content and going viral and meeting new households new consumers telling my story in a different way and it's been such a breakthrough moment for us to build community and build a brand not just a product and I think it we just leaned in so early in that space um even in Instagram right.I'm not just saying on Tik Tok. We see such an incredible community on there as well and we're just authentic and real and it's part of our culture. What advice would you have for Founders that are launching their brand and and using like creating like a Founder founder. Le content type brand like you said you you're getting on there on Tik Tok. All the time what what would you say like for for a Founder that wants to understand these platforms and create content that that goes viral and that that gets views and that gets seen like what what advice would you have. While they're trying to manage so many different other spinning plates like where do you allocate your time.So there's a few things first don't leave it up to the young kid. The intern the you know person your daughter whatever like sure you can have them help you and show you but you have to know these platforms. Yourself so get on test make a dummy account that you no one knows you. Then your friends know start posting do things whatever you need to do to get comfortable talking front of the camera and being on the platforms. Because unless you understand it. It's not going to be a priority and then I think second is guess what it's $.99 for you to get on and it's your time. And it's a way for you to talk to your consumer that costs absolutely nothing and if you can't make time for a marketing effort that is actually free.Then you're not thinking straight right right like. It's like crazy that you would not want to go out there and just scream from the rooftops of what you're doing and then I think through that you'll start learning and getting more comfortable and understanding what's part of culture. What's on Trend how to be authentic how to film how you know what sometimes it's way more viral if you don't know what you're doing. And it's funny and you take people along for the ride and you tell them hey guys. This is my first time in here I have no idea what I'm doing drop below in the comments and tell me how right like you want to like figure this out and and that's building Community from the beginning. So I always tell people like get on.Now don't wait till you have the perfect packaging don't wait until the product like ask people. Hey do you guys like this one logo or this logo and I think as entrepreneurs we get so caught up on it being perfect before X that it holds us back from just going yeah. I love that advice um like I think a lot of times. Founders they have that impostor syndrome and it's scary to create content yourself and work out all of that kind of stuff when all like the fun stuff is for some people just creating the product and doing the marketing but the marketing of you being part of it. It's it's scary you don't want to you worried about what other people think how do you get through that like that worrying about what other people think yeah and a lot of people are like hey Alison. I'm not like you I I I will never be a Founder faced brand right and I say look there's so many other ways to do. It do reviews have Community find someone that will do it for you. There's a ton of creators out there that you can hire on to do it um. You know there. There's so many other avenues and all I'm hearing is you making excuses on why you don't get online and talk to your community and start talking to them now. And I think it's easier said than done. I hear you 100% of the time.But it's not going away and it's going to continue to grow and this is the future of marketing so you know I yes. There's going to be wildly successful people that are never on Tik Tok and have amazing Brands. But it's going to be a lot harder. I agree so one of your posts. One of Poppy's Tik Tok posts did over a 100 million views in 2021 speaking directly to the Gen Z audience when it comes to building a community on Tik Tok. How do you keep your strategy fresh. So I think there's a few few things you can do. Trends and culture moments and stuff. But I do think that that can get a little like Hollow with it. Yes you can be part of it but that can't be your strategy just to do Trends and to do what the cool people or the cool kids or the Gin zers are doing. I think the the piece that made us like really stand out is just talking about our product telling my story letting people kind of see behind the scenes. What is our team doing in office. I'm working on this product. Let me show you the color of the liquid. You know sometimes. It's the simple things and you don't have to overthink it that are going to be the most successful I always joke around. I'm 37-year-old mom. I have three kids and I'm really cool the jiny and I don't know how I did it other than just being myself. You know and so I don't think you need to try hard either and just people love.

42:19 Authentic realness nowadays versus the high glossy glossy like perfectness if that makes sense yeah. I agree I agree um that vulnerability that rawness in content is yeah. TI Tik Tok Tik Tok has effectively made that okay like before before before Tik Tok. It was much more polished on Instagram but now more than ever that kind of selfie Style ugc Style that rawness that you can get away with that yeah and it's honestly better. I think my more viral content. The one with I think it's like 120 million views. It's like growing. It's AB actually Wild how how big this video has gotten. I think it was like a Friday night. I just put the kids to bed I'd gotten out the shower. I had no makeup on my hair was wet and I was on the couch and I just told my story and so I think people just see that and to your point like the raw the better and then nowadays if the team comes in and no matter what they're like hey fil. I was like sure let's do it. It's not like has to be perfect and we've been working on this script for this amount of time. I think a lot of people get caught up in a Content plan or it being perfect or the script perfect perfect. It's like test it and if it doesn't work who cares do it again three different words change it and then do it again if you think of it. No one really Scrolls down the feed by the way yeah. I think the last time you really did that on someone's post like nobody cares yeah especially on Tik Tok Tik Tok is like you just don't you just don't naturally do it.You know no um okay so we got to talk about Super Bowl. You debuted a Super Bowl commercial that reached over 29 million households. What was it like to have the most watched ad of the game talk me through that process. What that felt like the creative like just you have to share. So we were ready to start running media linear streaming cable TV and so up into that point we had just created some fun flavor spots that were just all about flavor and Bubbles and can and juiciness and we're like. What is the next evolution of that so we went into a creative process and came up with what our super ad was. But we did not make that as a Super Bowl ad which I think is really interesting. It was just a piece of created that we thought was like an evolution of uh poppy. We created it and we started testing it and it was performing really well. People were connecting with it and we're like this is special. Maybe we should throw this up on the Super Bowl.Not a lot of Brands can one say that or two actually follow through and do that I get that not not a lot of people can wake up and just be like I'm going to do a Super Bowl but we just felt with the brand and our community and the momentum and our growth. It was like our moment and our time well. There was a problem we couldn't quite find a Super Bowl. Ad they were all sold out um so we started calling around like crazy. I was part of this group found someone sent emails. We ended up anyway. Someone called us look hey. We got a super W for you. This was four days before the Super Bowl wow and the thing is we'd been wanting one for a while. We've been looking so we were fully prepared. We had the creative we had the budget we were like ready to go. It wasn't like we were like fumbling trying to get it last minute but it ended up coming through 4 days for the Super Bowl. But the crazy catch was it was a floater ad so a lot of people don't know we didn't have an exact spot. We didn't know when it was going to air and we just knew that it had to air within the Super Bowl before the end of the credit said and thank you for watching SE the Super Bowl it could have been like after right we decided to go for it. No we did not get a discount and we were so lucky.It aired 1 minute before halftime right before Usher went on. It was like the most magical moment where everyone's getting re ready to watch like you know the halftime show and it just really hit home for people because it wasn't celebrity soup which every soup will ad has like 38 celebrities in it and it was just this anthemic piece of why we are. Soda and Poppy is soda. I think we said soda 17 times and it was actually like crazy. We counted and we tripled our awareness overnight. Our household penetration went up just the amount of people being like wow poppy is soda for the Next Generation just like overnight happened and it was pretty special of that process. But I don't think that's a normal process people go through with their first Super Bowl y and is it worth. It absolutely worth every penny. What I think a lot of people don't realize though is once you do you can't just do a Super Bowl. Ad you have to also have budget to sustain afterwards. So now a bunch of people heard about you. But then if they ever hear about you again. It's like well. What was that point okay that was a flash in the pan. One thing. So you have to also have you know depending on your media plan or your marketing plan an ability to continue to talk to and retarget those people um in multiple different ways afterwards. So there's a lot more more planning and process and then on top of it.You want to make sure you have product right. You don't want to just do a Super Bowl ad and then sell out and be out for four months. So we were well stocked with our partners um throughout that process. But you know I think most people plan like a year out but it it was so worth it and it was such a great inflection point for the brand yeah look what a great story thank you for sharing um. This just crazy like how far the business has come from Humble beginning selling at farmers markets in Texas um so talk me through n Nike. We have to work towards wrapping up but you've talked before that you. Guys have aspirations for poppy to be like Nike in terms of emotional attraction. What do you mean by that and can you tell us what Nike has taught you about building a brand with that level of connection. I think there's a lot of brand brands that call themselves Brands right. At the end of the day. They're just selling a product and telling you why you need your product the difference with Nike is they found a way to emotionally connect with their consumer and I love they're saying just do it right there's an athlete in anyone. It's the same way as you look at like apple and how they' built this brand like people. It's like a want to be seen with with an iPhone right.It's part of a social like you're not cool. If you don't have an iPhone right type of situation. It's this. It's this feeling this emotional feeling. You have to be a part of this community. You have to be part of this movement versus I've said like a couple.

49:05 Other brands are like well. You should wear these shoes because it can help with your arches like that doesn't make me want to buy that you know and so with poppy it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's this this soda moment right. There's so many soda moments like the movies and cookouts and all these things and we've given you the freedom to Love Soda again. It's such an emotional connection versus being like. We're 5 gr of sugar with prebiotics and it tastes good you know. We don't talk that much about that stuff and I think that's the difference um and where I want to continue to lean in our number. One goal at poppy is brand awareness versus Performance. Marketing right we're not trying to shove ads into your face. We're doing fun Tik toks and talking about why we're working with Paris hton and like doing these fun things. It's like a Community Driven brand that we want to be um. We want people to be a part of versus you should drink it. Forx does that make sense yep does 100% thank you um advice for.Founders in the food and beverage industry would you recommend manufacturing inhouse or using a co-packer. Especially in early days. Absolutely do not make it yourself. I would not wish that upon anyone to manufacture yourself because it's what you're doing is you're spending one money either your own or money. You've raised on equipment versus marketing uh building that connection with your with your community try to find someone that can do it for you. It might be a little bit more expensive at the beginning but then that will allow you as a Founder to focus on other things. Like I don't want to be in the manufacturing business. I want to be in the getting as many people to drink poppy business and so I think look we did that at the beginning cuz we didn't know any better so learn from our mistakes and get out of the kitchen but isn't there magic in that like the fact that you did things that didn't scale and that you kind of worked out a lot of that stuff and and perfected it and you bootstrapped and you know what I mean like isn't there magic in that I mean there's so much magic in it and and the piece of it too. Though is it gave us a great intimate understanding of how our products made so now with our big Partners my husband. You know he runs our innovation supply chain. Still to this day. He's made it himself with his own hand so he can speak to it. Knows is the product better than most probably Founders do but I do truly still believe you can be part of that while allowing someone else to do it.Right you can be in the lab and taste testing but let them do it and yes I did in my kitchen and and that's part of the process where where we were. But I think it depends on do. You want to stay small farmers market brand or do you want to be X for the next generation and for me like I always said I didn't start this company to get rich or to do this like I want everyone to experience poy and drink it because you know I just love it so much so. It's a different place looking back. I wouldn't change it no but wow did it make it harder and do we spend more money yes yeah okay. Uh I have to ask you as well. This is a recent one um talk to me about Poppy's approach to working with creators like for example how partnered with Alex Earl at Cella like what talk us through that. What's the thinking there yeah. So we've always been a Creator Community First brand so it kind of goes back to the early days when we first launched and had to think differently. I think before we had ads spend before we even had a PR agency or did anything we did influencer gifting because everyone was stuck at home. They were desperate to post about something and we saw a crazy just love right off the bat. If we sent people the product and they wanted to talk about it and we're like wow. This is really special if we continue to lean into this Creator first.Uh ability and a big piece for us was finding people that actually love the brand and actually drink it because I think people see through it if if they don't love it um and Alex was one that we kept popping up in her videos organically and not just recently it was like back in college before she was big. She was drinking poppy like years ago um and for us that's really important for us to have the authentic connection with any partner that we work with or why you know you just don't want to pay someone to pay someone and so there was a few things going on she'd reached out. She loved the brand we loved her and then you know Coachella was coming up and it was so funny because people were like you guys are so amazing you just did Alex. We're like Alex is Alex like she's so amazing that we decided to go all in and I'm really big in the don't just cram a bunch of people together to get your EMV higher. It's what's authentic like let's let her bring her friend. She actually likes going to festivals people at Coachella like to go and just take pictures and like leave She Likes music. It was real it was authentic. It goes back to those keywords and she brought her friend. She had a blast and it was almost like a reality show that people were like tuning into versus an influencer posting on a paid trip in a house. So I think that overall it just worked out really really well across the board.Now our problem is how are we going to top it next year. There you go that's awesome well look Alison. This has been an incredible interview you've shared so much gold so many incredible experiences and stories and your journey. Just is so impressive how fast you've built this business. The last question I have for you is what are you excited for next and any final words of wisdom for our community yeah. I think for us at poppy we have a couple new flavors coming and some exciting Partnerships that we're excited to talk about in the next few weeks. Um. We're launching new flavor literally in 3 weeks and I'm excited about just continuing to do what works at Poppy and doubling down and growing and then going into 25. How do we triple the business again and but keep the core of who you are. And I think my biggest piece of advice that I always say from now until however big we get is say yes and figure it out later and never forget the entrepreneurial Spirit love. It well congratulations thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with our community. This is really going to help a lot of people thank you awesome thanks for having me all right so if you love.This episode make sure to check out my interview with Alex hosi on how he scales companies from zero straight to $2 million. A month in less than a year. People were like how have you cheap cheap like there's 5 years of my life that disappeared. In fact I lost all the money which I talked about in the book. I had all the gyms I did the turnarounds and then I had zero 5 years later because of mistakes that I made. But the things that I was gaining was not the money. It was the skills. It was the character traits and the beliefs.