Poppi cofounder maxed out credit cards and sold her car to fund the company—now, she’s a multimillionaire after a $1.95 billion sale

For many entrepreneurs, building a unicorn means betting their own finances long before any massive payday is within sight. Poppi cofounder Allison Ellsworth became a mega-millionaire after selling her prebiotic soda brand to Pepsi Co for $1.95 billion—but just one decade ago, she and her husband were maxing out credit cards to get the business off the ground. “I remember the first time we realized we had a business,” Ellsworth recently told The Wall Street Journal. “We were at a farmer’s market. We had just bought a house, I was three months pregnant with my first kid, and I said ‘We need to go all in.’” “My husband told me I was absolutely crazy, but he trusted the vision,” the cofounder continued. “So we maxed out our credit cards, sold one of our cars to buy bottles, [and] opened our own manufacturing facility.” The 39-year-old entrepreneur said she and her husband, cofounder Stephen Ellsworth, invested about $90,000 into the business in its first year. And not only did it require them to sacrifice their possessions and financial stability, but also their time and energy. Ellsworth said that her husband briefly worked as a waiter before he landed a gig working nights and weekends to cover their mortgage. And their side-hustle grind—alongside running the business at the farmer’s market—eventually paid off. Within 18 months, their better-for-you soda brand “Mother Beverage” had generated $500,000 in revenue. The Poppi cofounder said that, like many other entrepreneurs, “you’re almost working two jobs” on the come-up. And she’s spent a decade scaling her brand into an industry disrupter; Ellsworth began concocting prebiotic drinks in 2015, founding her business just one year later. And the entrepreneurial duo’s appearance on Shark Tank in 2018 really set the company on a new trajectory. They made a $400,000 deal with investor Rohan Oza for a 25% stake in the budding business, and rebranded to Poppi. In the eight years since, the brand has built a dedicated fol