FROM KITCHEN EXPERIMENT TO A $1.9 BILLION EMPIRE: How Allison Ellsworth Turned a Gut Fix into a Billion-Dollar Pop Culture Soda
A Health Struggle Turned into Discovery
Back in the early days, what started as a desperate attempt to fix her gut turned into Poppi, a drink so good it made Pepsi cough up $1.9 billion. At the time, Allison Ellsworth was working in the oil and gas industry and kept struggling with digestive issues. Then a colleague recommended apple cider vinegar. It worked for her gut health, but there was just one problem: it tasted terrible. Drinking apple cider vinegar straight from the bottle is like eating salad with battery acid.
Kitchen That Gives Birth To An Idea
Instead of giving up, she thought, “If this stuff is so good for me, why does it taste like torture?” So, in 2015, she began experimenting in her kitchen. She grabbed apple cider vinegar, water, squeezed in some fruit juice, and other ingredients—boom, she created a drink that didn’t taste terrible. These homemade sodas became the first version of what she called Mother Beverage. Her first audience was friends, neighbors, her brother, and her husband, Stephen. Their feedback was “wait…this actually tastes good.”
The Farmers Market
Shortly afterward, with encouragement from her husband Stephen, Allison took her drinks to the local farmers’ market in Dallas. People loved it. Within weeks, a Whole Foods buyer spotted the product and told her the magic word every entrepreneur dreams of: “We’ll stock it.” Whole Foods started placing it on shelves. At that moment, she and her husband quit their jobs with no plan B, emptied their savings, created a small factory, and started making it in bulk, pushing it out to Whole Foods.
Going To The Shark Tank
Business started booming, they needed more capital, so in 2018, Allison, who was nine months pregnant, pitched Mother Beverage on Shark Tank. Her boldness paid off. She secured a $400,000 deal from celebrity investor Rohan Oza. It gave her the confidence to expand the brand. Soon after, Mother Beverage was rebranded to Poppi. Changing normal bottles to neon cans, same content but different vibes.
The TikTok Takeover
Now they have the capital but how will they continue to expand the business?, so she went to TikTok and started talking about the Soda like she was FaceTiming a friend, no script, no filters, just her pouring poppi, taking a sip and saying “Hey this isn’t just a soda, it’s a soda with benefits” That little video went viral and suddenly the next day they made $100,000 racking up over 2 billion TikTok views and became the best selling soda on Amazon. People started ordering, and they started shipping to different states.
Poppi Becomes a Movement
She realized the power of storytelling, so she started telling her stories, she kept pushing her product on TikTok, and gradually, their revenue started growing, from local shelves to national retailers like Target, Amazon, and Costco. Poppi’s grew faster. By 2024, the company was pulling in over $500 million in revenue. A magical rise in less than five years. A soda that was created to cure her digestive issues made her a millionaire. Allison didn’t just create a product; she created a movement because Poppi managed to be everything at once. It became a trend, it’s healthy, has genuine tastes, and makes people feel cool and better about their guts.
The Billion Dollar Deal
The deal of a lifetime came through. In 2025, PepsiCo came knocking with a jaw-dropping offer: $1.95 billion.
Allison and Stephen became billionaires overnight, but as a sensible woman, she didn’t just cash out and disappear; instead, Allison stayed on as Chief Brand Officer, making sure poppi didn’t lose its worth under a bigger corporation.
Allison has been asked how she felt multiple times. When asked how she felt after selling her company, she summed it up perfectly: her response was “you’re happy, but have anxiety”. It’s like a mix of pride and nerves, like watching your children go to school, but instead of a school bag, they carry half a billion dollars.
Her Legacy and Family
Through it all, Allison has stayed grounded. She and her husband, Stephen, are raising three boys while running a soda empire. She talks about chasing a dream even when life isn’t convenient. Just imagine how she went on Shark Tank, heavily pregnant, about to give birth.
Her philosophy? Don’t wait for “someday”, start messy, start scared, just start.
Poppi isn’t just a soda anymore, it’s now a proof. A proof that a kitchen experiment can rewrite an entire industry. Allison turned sour vinegar into success, and in the process, it became one of the most refreshing stories in modern business.
If there’s one lesson to take from Allison Ellsworth, don’t wait for the perfect moment to chase your dream. Allison wasn’t a tech genius or a corporate executive; she was just a woman with guts problems, a kitchen, and a blender. Instead of giving up on Apple cider vinegar because it tasted horrible, she experimented until she created something good. That little fizz in her kitchen became a company, a big brand, and later made her a Billionaire.
Her story proves that success starts small; it might be messy at first, but you just have to keep trusting the process. She built a billion-dollar brand not just by waiting for perfect timing, but by showing up consistently and becoming creative in her own way.
So what’s the advice? Start now, with what you have; your little idea won’t be “little” if you make a move about it. Turn your experiments into opportunities, your struggles into solutions, and your crazy ideas into a movement. You don’t need perfection; you need courage, persistence, and willingness to fizz things up.
If Allison can turn Vinegar into billions, what’s stopping you? Dive into more stories on our website, because success is way more than fun when it comes with a twist.
Stay jiggy. Stay fresh, Stay real.
Life is better when you Stay Jiggy !