I built a $2,000,000,000 business on vibes

First time we did a Super Bowl, let me lay, lay this down for you. We bought the Super Bowl 5 days before the Super

Bowl.

Literally.

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let's travel.

Sam, you wanna do like an intro real quick? Yeah.

So you and your husband are one of the founders of Poppy, which sold for $2 billion. And I would have to say you probably win the award for brand glow up. Because one of my favorite things to watch is this old Shark Tank video of you guys.

So good.

And the way that it started and where you are now, that gap is huge.

Yeah. What was it called originally? Mothers or something?

Oh, so embarrassing. You had to say it out loud. Mother Beverage. And yes, I think it was a globe of the century. The best of all time.

What was the story?

It was just one of those beautiful entrepreneurial American dream stories where you start start in your kitchen because of a personal problem. I had like tummy problems with drinking apple cider vinegar, you know, hated the taste. And I was like, I, I have an idea, I can make this taste better. Little did I know how intense beverage is. Looking back, I don't think if I knew what I knew now I would have done it. And it's not knowing is just such a beautiful thing.

But you basically like were, were selling something at a farmer's market that was kind of curing your own problem. And I think you did that for more than a couple years, and then you hooked up with the guy who kind of like was like, hey, this is amazing, but why don't we tinker with the packaging a little bit? And then you raised a little bit of money and it was like off to the races. It was like zero to like $20 million to like $60 million to like $120 or something like crazy like that. Was that—

Did you ever feel imposter syndrome doing that? Because like, you know, whenever I have a little bit of success, I'm like, oh man, is this real? Does this— this is wild. Our success was a lot slower than yours.

We were just going so quick, it was hard to even sit back and even realize or fathom what was happening because it was so not normal. Like, people don't understand, like, what we had and what growth we had is not normal. It was truly lightning in a bottle. And so I don't know if there's imposter syndrome because, like, I'm very confident. We were confident in what we were building, but it wasn't a guarantee, right? And so it's this thing of, like, Do I celebrate? Well, it's too soon to celebrate. So when we finally sold, it definitely was like, wait, what just happened? That was 4 and a half years, 5 years of this crazy growth. And I don't think I ever stopped and smelled the roses.

Did you? You know, when, when there's like a movie and they always have like act 1 of the movie is the main character and they're just sort of stumbling and fumbling and they're, they're, they're, they're struggling and then they finally start to figure something out. Act 2 is always the montage where things start happening sort of fast and furious. And that's kind of the growth phase that you're describing. But they usually, you know, they sort of figure some one or two things out, right? One or two things start to really work and then they lean in and double down into those. And it's like the things that makes all the other dominoes fall. So for you guys, you're saying timing was obviously beneficial, but what were you guys doing as entrepreneurs or founders? What were the key dominoes that started to fall?

You sort of have this energy that I've, I've seen with a lot of my very successful friends, particularly the women, where They basically are like a bull in a china shop, which both men and women are. But you've like wrapped it in a much more like appealing package where like a lot of my friends who are bull in the china shops, they like— I look at them, I'm like, you're a— you're kind of a wreck, but like, you're probably going to figure it out. But when I watch your stuff on Instagram, you're very relatable, even though that— even though you're crazy successful and yet you still have this like attribute where it's like A is here, B is here, the straight line, and just go and run as fast as you can.

Yeah, well, I think it's confidence. So people ask me all the time, like, Allison, how are you so confident? I'm confident because I failed and made a total fool of myself for so many years to kind of figure out what works and how, how to be confident. Like, for example, everyone sees this $1.95 billion exit, but they don't see or remember me standing at a farmer's market at a folding table saying, you want to try this apple cider vinegar drink? Like, that's so embarrassing. And so it's this ability of like, I have lived the American dream. I was raised by a single mother. I have kids myself. Like, end of the day, even post-exit, I still have soccer practice tonight I have to go to, and we're in Texas and it's 100-degree weather. Like, I'm just living life. And I think within it, it was relatable with people online because they saw themselves in me. And then that confidence piece is like, I wasn't always that confident, but I think that I've just allowed myself to share so openly and authentically the entire journey. And so people have kind of seen the journey of me becoming confident as well.

How'd you get on Shark Tank? What was the story?

I think the best way to become successful is to see how other people did it, whether you're gonna copy them or just use it as inspiration, because then now you know what's possible. So starting at the age of 24, I did this relentlessly and I was very methodical about it. And I created a spreadsheet where I tracked roughly 50 people who were uber successful. And I looked at the year that they were born, the year that they started their apprenticeship, and then the year that they started the first thing that made them successful. Finally, the year that they broke through. And I aggregated all this data along with the stories of what they did to be an apprentice and what they did to finally break through. And I put it together in a database. And HubSpot went and found this thing that I frankly even forgot about, but it did change my life. And they resurfaced it, they made it even better, and they put it into a thing that you can download for free right now. So if you click the link in the description or click the QR code right here, you can see this database that I made when I was 24 and it changed my life. And so if you're looking to become successful or you're already successful and just want some more inspiration, check it out.

What was the, you know, Sean's in the e-commerce space. We've had a bunch of people in e-commerce. I've not been in it personally, but I've been able to like live voyeuristically through these folks. And what it seems is like the fastest you, the faster you grow, the more cash flow sucks in terms of inventory management. And there's like a lot of like issues where like the top line number is amazing, but some of the other stuff is kind of breaking. Were you cash flow positive the entire time? And what was that like?

I don't think we were profitable until like right the year before we sold, but it was intentional. I think we could have starved the business and really focused on conversion and how do we really be profitable. But if you are brand building, it's expensive. It's expensive to do a beverage. So every step of the way with the board, the senior leadership, the founders, We were intentionally reinvesting back in the brand and raising the entire time. Right.

Was it $40 total?

I think it was closer to like in the $70s.

And do you— you spent all of it?

You, you mentioned Rohan. He came on the pod. I was kind of blown away. I thought, I think that guy's awesome. I've heard about him from a few other people that he's invested with, and I think he's kind of a, like, bit of a savant with marketing or beverage. I don't know what— I don't know the way to describe it, but this is just me from the outside. I'm curious from the inside, what was something very useful or insightful that he did or, or taught you guys about or, or helped guide you guys towards?

You know, I think it's in different stages of the business. In the early days, it was the money and the connections. Right? I think that if you are taking on capital or any kind of investment and you can't get that network that's actually meaningful network, it's pointless. Because then now you have all this money and you spend it and you don't have— you're like, what am I doing here? So he helped us get our first like 5 hires within his network that were incredible and with us till the exit, right? That was a huge impact on the business. On top of it, he has this, um, woman Stevie he's worked with for 15 years, and he might have mentioned her on the podcast, but she is just brilliant in brand positioning and, and, uh, messaging. And she's the one that did all the rebrand with us from Mother to Poppi. So being able to bring that to life really early on allowed us to then focus on the brand. So what I mean is, when we were in Mother, we were so focused on putting caps on bottles, I, I couldn't even have thought about what the marketing strategy was. But when we got a deal on Shark Tank, we took 9 months off, we went through, we did a rebrand, And we asked ourselves, who is this product for? Who is our consumer? We stepped back. What are we doing here? Then we went out and started selling. So then when we were selling, we knew who we were. A lot of brands don't do that work. They're just constantly concerned with how do I get the next sale? How do I get the next account? Not why am I here? Why am I doing this? What is my can? Like, you're not— they're not asking these questions. And so I think We allowed ourselves to have time with this. And then I think as the stage of the business grew, Rohan then started really trusting the team. We brought in incredible senior leadership, so it moved over to like more of a board-like role. He was always heavily involved throughout, great in the brainstorming conversations and all. But I think as the business grew, we hired on really smart people, people smarter than me to come in and like really advise.

Hey, what's the economics of a Super Bowl commercial? You guys did— did you guys do 2 or 1?

Well, do you remember the all-in costs? And then was there like analytics live and like looking at your website traffic? What was that like?

First time we did a Super Bowl, let me lay, lay this down for you. We bought the Super Bowl 5 days before the Super Bowl. Literally. So—

That must have been stressful.

Sean, how does that make you feel? Because a bunch of our friends who are in e-commerce and probably many of the ones that are like significantly less successful than the greats are so like CAC-driven and so metrics-driven. And she's sort of saying the exact opposite.

Well, Look, that's why, that's why we do the podcast is because there's 1,000 different ways to win. And so we like inviting people on to understand how, how did you win? What did you do? What are, how does your brain work? That's part of the beauty of it. But also they're not in e-commerce, they're CPG, they're in retail. And so like, I was just looking at the Super Bowl ad, the first one you were talking about, and it starts with like, you're a human on earth and in all of human existence, but things have been done a certain way and soda has been done a certain way. This is Poppi. Poppi looks like soda, it tastes like soda, but— and then it has the differentiator at the end of it. And so like, I kind of dig that. Like the— I think positioning is super underrated. I don't think most founders know how to do positioning at all. I think they jump straight into trying to go sell, sell, sell, but they haven't done the upfront work of figuring out, well, how is this going to live in someone's mind and why would anybody want to buy this? Because they don't care about you and you have to sort of fit into their worldview. in some unique way to break through, to make all the selling more effective. And so what I really like is like the name, the brand, the packaging, the positioning. You know, you guys kind of did a masterclass on that, and I think that's a pretty underrated founder skill. I don't think many people do that well. Who do you— do you think people do that well, or do you think people screw that up? Like when you walk through the stores, are you just like, oh God, that's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong?

Most people do it wrong, unfortunately. I teach like masterclasses and I go all over and I speak on brand and how you can break through on TikTok and all of these things that are inherently so first experience for me, just like second nature. And it's blowing their minds. And then they'll go in and their mind is blown and they're still not doing it. And I just like actually don't get it. So when it comes to brand positioning, it is so core to what we've always done that it's actually always an ever-breathing document. So when you We were revolutionizing soda for the next generation. We knew we were giving everyone the freedom to love soda again. It's at its best without all the baggage. Cool. North Star. That is never going to change. But what does change is how culture changes.

But can I, can I pause you real quick? Because you're saying we knew we were going to revolutionize soda. But the Shark Tank thing is a really interesting thing because you were on there with a brand that was not that great, packaging that was not that great, not talking about soda. So something happened in that 9 months. After the Shark Tank deal where you guys had some sort of like, you know, rebirth and some conversation in a meeting room somewhere where somebody asked some good questions and somebody had some good answers. So can you describe what was happening in those meetings or like what was the useful either question or exercise or consultant or whatever you did that helped you kind of get that level of clarity?

You know, and, and I think it's, it's this ever-breathing document. So when we first launched, it was apple cider vinegar, prebiotics, like super simple gut health. We knew we were going after soda. No, it goes back to nobody believed us. We didn't even know. But hey, we're gonna try. This is a huge category. And kombucha was on the decline. Sparkling water wasn't giving everyone that full flavor, like soda feeling that they wanted. So we knew all of those things are the facts that we know. And what we knew is once we launched, people were starting to have this use occasion where they were drinking Poppi in the same occasion as soda. And so it was, we got more data points along the way. So I sit here, I joke with like, we're brand forward. We were actually incredibly, incredibly, you know, sophisticated in our platforms and our processes as well, which made us, I think, such a strong company. But I do think then we learned, oh wait, this occasion. Okay, so on the front of our packaging, our tagline used to be, uh, be gut happy, be gut healthy. We're like, wait, people don't really care about that that much. We changed it to Soda's back better than ever. We were constantly tweaking and changing as the consumer was changing and the use occasion of what people were saying about us online, what we were listening to our consumers. So, and that's what I mean within building a good brand is focusing on what you know, what's your North Star, but then you can change, you can change. And it's really hard for entrepreneurs to change, by the way.

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What I've noticed is that, like, have you read Peter Thiel's Zero to One? Okay, so he like has this whole chapter or chapters on like moats. And he's like, one moat is, I forget what he says, network effects, this or that. And then he gets to the last chapter and he's like, there is one more moat. It's called brand. I know it's important. And I also know I don't know much about it, so I'm not gonna write about it. But if you can figure it out, you're gonna be amazing. Mm-hmm. And it's like, it's like kind of funny because it's like kind of a stereotypical Silicon Valley thing where it's like tech and product is number one and like all the other stuff, like brand is number two. And Sean has talked— Sean loves comedians and like the creative process. And we talk about this idea of being sensitive and how you have to be sensitive in order to find like good stories. Like you gotta see, like you have to be sensitive when, when you see what resonates. And something that I've learned about branding, and I, and I'm not good at it, I'm trying to learn, is that you do have to be very sensitive. And so like you're talking about these things I've noticed, and you're making like very small observations, or they, they feel small. Like you're talking to like maybe let's say. 50 people over the course of a day at a farmer's market or whatever, and you're noticing like, actually people care about X, Y, and Z. And those small changes appear to have in sum created this massive outcome along with a bunch of other stuff. And I think that's what's interesting. Is there like an 80/20 rule where it's like, if you focus on these handful of things, it will make a meaningful difference?

Was there any, um, book or resource that you read that changed your perspective when it came to branding?

No. So fun fact about me, I'm like severely dyslexic. I'm— you could not like pay me to read a book. I'll listen to a book. I'll listen to a podcast. I'm obsessed with doing that. But I think it's so funny. I think there's this like theory that you have to like read all these like self-help books and you have to like be on this train of like meditation, all these things. Like, I think all that is bullshit. Like, that's not how I live my life. I, I, I like wake up, you know, as my child's like hitting me in the head asking for his iPad code and me being like, you, I took iPads away, you know? And I'm like trying to get coffee and my kid's out the door. Like, I don't have time for that stuff. 'Cause what I do know is I listen to culture. And I was saying that we moved at the speed of culture. What is culturally relevant in society from social speak to not only social speak, but like what are people talking about? Meme culture to tentpoles within society that are culturally relevant. So you look at the calendar, Coachella's a tentpole, Grammys. How do you break through? Hamptons is a hotspot, right? That people are at during the summer. So for me, it was like with brands, it's so tied to culture and that was my obsession. And, and my team's obsession, we hire people really young. We love to hire Gen Z smart people that are living the moment within culture and we trust them, which is also hard for, I think, some people to do.

You, you sent us a list of ideas because one thing we like to do is we like to brainstorm with other founders. And how lucky are we that we get to sit with somebody who's built a multibillion-dollar CPG brand and be like, hey, what else is interesting? Maybe something, maybe, you know, you guys are doing a new thing now, but something you won't do, something you don't plan to do, but you think, hey, there's an opportunity there. Because once you start to win, you see all kinds of opportunities in adjacent spaces that you're never going to have the time or energy to go do. What, what's on your mind? What do you see as opportunities, white spaces, things that you think, you know, somebody like you could go, you know, the younger version of you could go and attack?

well, podcasting was just an age— one long continuous AG1 ad for a while.

Yeah, it started with MeUndies and then it went to Athletic Greens.

Athletic— yeah, and you're just like, oh my gosh, it's everywhere. But I actually feel like they filled To like innovate, you know. Then Gruens comes along and does it in the gummies, and they exit. AG still has not exited. So I'm not here to say you can't be late to the game and still win. It's just way harder, and you almost have to do it better, smarter, and different if you want to be successful. So for me, I think protein's hot. Good luck breaking through the market. It's very crowded right now. I think everyone is also trying to figure out the creatine craze. The gum, do you put it in powder or do you put it in gum? How do we get women on it, right? Everyone's talking about these things, but it's almost like you need to have been the first creatine gummy. So I'm not here to say, like, I don't even know what's next other than I am starting another company and I can't tell you guys what it is. And I do think it's what's next. So it's hard for me to, like, speak to it.

Well, maybe a different question on that. Okay, we can keep it a mystery, but tell us your mindset on it. So are you like, I wanna run it back. I know so much, I'm gonna go kind of same, same genre of business. Or, you know, sometimes people are like, oh my God, so much scar tissue from that. Now I wanna go do real estate. I wanna go do something so different over here.

How are you just thinking about it? 'Cause I think every entrepreneur on their second act, their third act, they get to decide.

What's, uh, okay, so we asked you for some, like, we asked you about this topic in advance and you wrote down a word that I keep seeing. I don't entirely know what it means, but you said lymphatic massage. I follow a guy on Instagram, and every morning at 4:30, he posts these videos of him doing lymphatic jumping.

You follow a guy? I'm doing this. I'm laying there with my legs on the wall. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know if this does anything. Somebody

told me that is the word I keep seeing.

They go, you might feel a little sick at first, but that's how you know it's working, which is the ultimate marketing sales pitch. It's like you want trying to get healthier. You might feel You might feel sick at first. That's how powerful this is.

You know, and I've never been sick from it, but is what happened is, you know, I worked for 10 years at Poppy. I think I went to the doctor like once. You know, you're just like on this build mode. But I was like, oh wait, okay, I need to like get my life together on like the wellness front. And I started doing all sorts of things, doing longevity doctors and, you know, getting all the function health and like understand. And then you get all this data and you're like, well, what do I do with this? And so for me, I just recently had a surgery with the whole mommy makeover. I had like a tummy tuck and I'm like living my best life. And the doctor's like, the number one thing you can do is lymphatic massage. I started doing it after surgery 3 times a week. I still do it twice a week.

But what's like lymph? Is that a body part?

I don't even know. It's the lymphatic. It's the system that helps flush out all the toxins and get everything out of your system. And so The idea behind lymphatic massage is you are slowly working those fluids to your lymphatic system for detox and flush you. So you feel lighter, you feel, you know, not as bloated, more energy. You're just getting like all of that bad stuff out of your system.

But like on a scale of woo-woo to proven, with woo-woo being totally fine, that's not an insult. Where does it rank? Like, where is it on that spectrum?

I don't think that it's something that, um, there's like a lot of science behind it by any means. For me personally, I always think like personal recommendations are always better. It's like, it's been life-changing for me through— I mean, there's like, you say you're like running a marathon, like Steven's running the New York City Marathon and he's been having knee pain. I was like, go get lymphatic massage. And he was like, for 3 weeks, he was like, oh my gosh, like my pain is gone. That's so cool. And so it just helps the soreness, Just all that stuff built up in your body, it gets it out. So I challenge you to go do it. And one of the best people in the space, it's, it's really comes from Brazilian lymphatic massage. So this is really big in Brazil. Her name is Josie and she lives here in Austin and she's like, does all the stars from Miley Cyrus to Katy Perry to all these people. So like, test it out. Might not work for you.

Sam, just go to the spa and ask for a Brazilian and see what happens. I think, I think that'll work.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

So you talked about you can't announce your company, but can we guess? Can we just take 5 blind guesses and in a year we just come back and see if we had it right?

Sure. I mean, I won't say anything.

You don't have to confirm or deny. You could just say, that's interesting.

I'm just thinking, I'm thinking where you go into— let me ask you one question. We had Eric Ryan come on.

He created Ollie Gummies and Method Soap and a bunch of amazing Welly Band-Aids.

And he had this great line where he goes, I walk through the aisles and I look at— I look for a sea of sameness.

No, for me it's personal need. So it's like, I think there's this whole new wave of this like GLP-1 era that people are sleeping on and not catering to and thinking that it's going to go away. And so I lost 60 pounds on GLP-1s. It's absolutely changed my life. And that like there was just like a personal need there. And it, and I think that people, it's not that deep either. I think that you make the best brands and the best businesses are 10 to 15% better than the established norm. It's not the niche products, like I said.

Can you explain that? Because what I hear all the time in San Francisco is the, uh, you got to be 10 times better is the kind of like the thing. And who could argue with that? Hell, might as well say 100 times better, right? Like, You know, who doesn't want that? But you have a— you're saying something a little bit different. You're saying actually a small kind of angle difference, 10 to 15%, can be enough. Can you explain that?

By the way, I started drinking Poppi so much more when, uh, the prebiotic or probiotic messaging was a little bit different. Before, when I used to see it, I used to see it at Royal Blue grocery store, and I was like, is this supposed to be like a health, a health drink? I was like, what is this?

What's this thing that you listed called Nello?

Oh, Nello. They're so good. So magnesium, anything I think around sleep health. is really important as well. I think I always say if you're stressed out or having a bad day or you wanna blow up on an employee or your friend or your coworker and you're just like, ugh, nothing a good night's sleep can't cure.

But what is Nello?

Nello is a powder within the calming space. So it's magnesium. And there's a lot of studies around magnesium and helping you sleep. We're also, I'm obsessed with like my Orion sleep system. I don't know if you've seen these, but like regulating temperature at night. And so, like, my side of the bed is different than Steven's side of the bed, and you can sleep, and then it auto-changes throughout the night and tracks your temperature so that, you know, like those nights where you, like, wake up and you're, like, sweating or you're freezing, it tracks that before it happens. So it keeps you in REM, it keeps you in your deep sleep state. And so it's all of these things that I feel like these calming powders, all of these things to bring you more sleep has been, like, a game changer for me personally. And they're blowing up, they're everywhere, they're killing it.

What are some other little gadgets or drinks like that that you're playing around with or you're like, you know, nerding out even as a health consumer or like a businesswoman who like cares about seeing the latest and greatest?

I think another big movement that I purchased for my household is called Preston Lane cleaning products. And it's clean, like the ingredients are clean. So you're spraying it on your table where your kids are. And you have all these other ones with all these like harsh, harsh chemicals in it. Well, I switched my whole household over to Preston Lane, and not only does it smell amazing, the ingredients are safe, but they also make like candles and they make dish soaps. And so it all also looks really aesthetically pleasing in your house and it matches versus you have that old school like Clorox bottle, right? You're like, oh, how do I hide all this? Or the Dawn soap, how do I hide all this under the cabinet? And they've done a really good job also with the spray. It's a scent so that like your house smells good at the same time versus that lemon pledge.

Doesn't that sort of go against one of the points you made about like how protein is played out? And so it's going to be a lot more challenging because when I thought about like clean, better, first of all, like, yeah, like better for you, like soaps or Clorox or whatever, I would have thought that there's one called like Blue, Blue, I forget what it's called, Blue something. Yeah, like it's— and then there's like, you know, we just talked about Eric Rein. His whole thing was, how do I create a bottle so like cool or pretty that you'd keep it on your countertop instead of hiding it away? But it seems like there's still like some pretty cool emerging brands that are popping up because of that.

Yeah, I think Blueland is an incredible brand. It's more around like, how do they reduce plastic and their recyclable— Oh, got it. So they're like taking on the oceans and they're killing it. So that's a whole other use occasion where it's like, I want clean ingredients that make my house smell good, that look cute on my counter. Sure, you could argue maybe like a Method, but I still don't think they're that cute. They look— they're not like high-end Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford type look, whereas I think Pressed Elaine is. So, and it's an affordable price. And so—

They're definitely not anymore. Like, I remember when it came out originally, it was awesome. Now it's like, it is definitely— it's old now, you know, it's probably like 20 years old.

It is. And so I think that there's still innovation within categories. And they're doing it just 10 to 15% better. Right. And if you really look at it, no one else is really doing it in this space right now. And they're pretty new.

That's kind of a good guess, Sean, for what she's going to do next. I think cleaning supplies is someone who's saying

All these things are great and I can't wait for you guys to find out in the fall, but You haven't guessed it yet, so stay tuned.

Okay. The thrilling podcast where we just simply guess things that the guest can't say.

I know, isn't it really?

Well, tell us about making money, because one thing I like about you is you're not one of these people who's just kind of like— at least you don't come across this way where you, like, pretend that you didn't care about money when you became a business person. Like, this is really weird taboo that a lot of business people who obviously care about succeeding and they want to be wealthy, they want to be financially successful, but then they kind of have to pretend, they feel like they have to pretend that they're not. And our podcast is called My First Million. We, we sort of, we're pretty blunt about like, hey, look, like one of the main reasons we got into entrepreneurship, yeah, we like the creativity, we like the autonomy, the independence, but like the prize is also really fun. And, um, you know, you guys did fantastically well. Can you tell us like what it was like to, Get rich.

Well, would you say it kind of works both ways, right? So there's one side is insurance in case it all fell over, you know, you have the safety net. But the other side, like maybe you experienced this, I did for sure, which was you take a little bit off the table, you sort of satisfy that first level, and then you're almost free to swing bigger because Yeah. You're not all or nothing now. What did you feel that way when you guys did it?

Yeah. What type of conversations? I think you said your oldest was 14?

Oh, he's 9. So 4, 8, 9. Yeah. It's crazy.

Okay. Well, 9 is just getting to the age where you can start having some observations. and like questioning certain things? Have you— do you have regular conversations with them?

The thing is, they are still little, but the difference is our exit was very public. So we're in every headline, every single one of his teachers, friends, our friends, everybody knows that it was $2 billion. And everyone obviously thinks we took all the $2 million, which is not true. Or $2 billion, excuse me. So I remember like one time, I think it was like 2 days after the exit. And once again, I'm dropping my kids off at school in Crocs and socks and like my hair in a ponytail. My life hasn't like, you know, you're just living life. And a little girl, she was in kindergarten, she walked up, she's like, are you a billionaire? And I'm like, oh, we gotta have some conversations with our kids. Like, I didn't realize like how big it was. So we sat 'em down and we were basically like, hey, it's ours, not yours. Our lives aren't gonna change. We're gonna continue to be good people. We're gonna continue to be kind and give back and do all that and then not shy away from it. So we got them all Fidelity investment accounts. and put a little bit of money in so that they can start learning how to invest. So they have quarterly meetings with our financial advisors, and we're continually having these conversations because we're not naive to think that they don't know.

What are they investing in?

Are they like Micron stock right now? Like, what are they doing?

They're like Tesla. I think at the time they were like, we're gonna do Tesla, you know, the OpenAI, and like Apple, Nike. They even wanted Pepsi because they wanted Poppy. Like all this stuff.

I mean, those all sound like great buys.

They, they were great, but we gave 'em $5,000 to invest, you know, and you come back and some were down, some were up depending on what they were doing. It, it's, it's just more of a learning thing for them to like work through it versus like going really big, which I love.

He's gonna have like QSBS at his 15th birthday. Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. Uh, they make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have

like maybe 7 or 8 businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? Uh, I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife, very easy to spin up virtual cards. Uh, one click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com/personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Column and A members FDIC. Okay, so you, so you, you do all that. Tell us about the sale, because I feel like the M&A process is one of the most important parts of any company. You as a founder, you get, you, you might do many businesses, you might work on businesses for years, but you, you really only do M&A like 1% of your entrepreneurial journey. So you don't get a lot of reps at it, but it's super important. Like the value can swing 30%, 50% based on how you approach that, when you go to market, how you go to market, how you do all that. Was it an easy process? Was it a super stressful process? Was there any great moments in the high-stakes negotiations going on? Like what can you tell us about the story?

Sorry, can you explain the distributor part? It's— you need the actual retail entry, you need a manufacturing plant. What do you mean by you need a distribution partner? Because you're obviously doing so well. What is it that they bring at that point that you need?

$500 million? Mhm.

When Rohan was on, is it Rohan or Rohan?

Rohan. Yeah.

When he— Rohan, sorry. When he was on, he told some crazy stories because I think, you know, he's now an industry veteran, but he kind of came up, I believe it was under Smartwater or Vitaminwater, or maybe that's the same guy. And he like told the story when they were wanting to sell where he was like, my mentor, the, you know, the guy who actually ran the company, he had some like swagger where like they made offers and he just like said no. And he stood up and he just walked out the room and they like grabbed him and they like said, all right, come here, come here, we'll renegotiate. Like, Like, he had some crazy energy. Was there any stories like that when you were negotiating because you were with him on— like, did you learn anything about negotiating?

Right before I had sold my last company, I used whichever— I forget which personal finance app I was using, but like you can track all of your bank accounts or whatever and you can manually enter like a bank account if you own something that can't be linked. And I remember I put in like my dream number, like 12 months before I sold. Did you do anything crazy like that leading up to it where you were like laying in bed, like trying to manifest like $2 billion? Or did you have a number in your head where you were like, one day I think we can become this and it became true? Or were you just along for the ride?

I remember when we first started, we were like, if we could just sell for $500 million, like, wow. And I think Vital Proteins had just sold. It was any— I forget what the numbers were from $500 up to $1 billion. I don't know. And I was like, well, I mean, what if it went for $800? Million. And it was just— and then every year in the business, you're like, oh, well, that number seems so small. Like, we did that in revenue. Like, what is happening?

So you had big aspirations early on. I mean, yeah, I mean, $500 million is a very big number.

Well, you look at beverage historically, like, it's big exits and there's very few that do it. If you can get to that $100 million, $200 million mark in revenue, you're in this like playing field that only like 15 other brands have been at. And so it's just one of those things that like when we started hitting these thresholds, it's really easy to start believing in that dream. And as an entrepreneur, sky's the limit the way you think. And you guys know, like you're, it's this thing of like, you know the ceiling, you know you can be there, why can't I do it? It's like we're fearless within it. And so I think for me it was more the, you know, you get there at the exit and then it's the life change afterwards. I don't know, did you guys have the post-exit blues or like, were you just like, nope, so glad, done, bye? Yes.

Yeah. I had heard, I had heard a lot about that and I was like, oh, I wonder. Nope. Uh, I felt amazing and I, I was like, wow, this is actually underrated. Most people don't. Well, I, I will say one thing. I felt relieved more than I felt excited when it happened. 'Cause M&A is like pretty grueling and you don't know. And it could like, it could always die. The deal could always die until the money's in the bank.

Anything can happen.

In the bank. In fact, I just sold a company recently and 5 days after we closed, um, like there was like an announcement by, you know, a law change that would've like, probably wouldn't have affected us that much, but it definitely would've spooked a buyer to say like, well, let's just like think about it a little bit more. And like, thank God, you know, just like 5, in 5 days. And you, and you never even know. That's not something we were thinking about necessarily, but like we just knew there's a million possibilities of how like this could fall apart. We don't even know which one. So I'd say definitely felt relief more than excitement, which was surprising. Then felt a little clueless on like, great, so now I'm going to— it's like, well, I don't really— I kind of was already living pretty well. Don't really need any, you know, like you can upgrade certain things, but it's surprising how little your day-to-day will actually change. That was also a little bit of a surprise, but I didn't feel the blues in terms of, I think people feel a sense of loss of purpose. Or like they go from high action with a team and an office to like a lot of, like a lot of silence and a lot of nothing going on each day. For me, that wasn't so big of a change. But the thing I do feel is like, you know, if you, if you spend so much of your life wired to chase one thing, once you get it, you do have to sort of redefine like, what am I doing this for? What do I want now? And I think that I do feel that like I think picking a new mountain to climb that has some meaning behind it takes some work versus just doing this, like, you know, because it was very obvious at the beginning. It's like, I got nothing. I want something that was very clear. I didn't really have to think about it too much, but now I find myself thinking about it a lot more.

But, and also, have you guys heard the phrase they refer to boxers when they get successful? They say, uh, it's a lot harder to wake up at 4 AM to go for a run when you're getting out of bed in silk sheets. And it's basically like, you know, it's hard to like go and get punched in the face figuratively or physically when you don't particularly have to. I've noticed post-exit on one, on one side, you definitely do think grander and you do have more resources to turn ideas into reality. But it could go either way. It could be like, well, because I have resources or because I have time, I can be starting 10 different things at once with which typically does not end well, that you, that lack of focus doesn't do good, or you just don't grind as hard. And, and I, I, I always have that fear. I'm like, oh, am I just soft now?

Allison, do, do, does any of what we just said resonate with you? Or are you like, no, I don't get that. I'm the opposite of that.

Yeah, I think it's, I think the purpose-driven piece is huge. You know, you, I think purpose is more important than money, but I think if you have purpose, money will come. And for me, I had a 10-year purpose, and then overnight it was gone. It was a lot of loss for me, for sure, like what you're speaking to. But I think that that's normal. You look at these Olympic athletes that retire, and then they're like, wait, now what? I think a lot of people deal with it in different ways throughout their life. And for us, it was just like, whoa, this is over. And It was really hard. But then once I worked through that and found out like, wait, there's more purpose to life than working and like this, right? I have an incredible, you know, friend group. I'm— my wellness is a huge piece of purpose for me now. And it's like, so it changed a little bit. And I think that, um, that's been really nice for me. And I feel like I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life personally with me because of that. But I am excited to build again and I am excited. I miss the chaos. I miss the team. I miss the drive. So I think both could probably be true.

But what about with kids? Um, I sold my company before I had a kid. Now that I've got, I've got 2 kids, Sean's got kids, uh, you guys each have 3. I definitely like, I wanna be home by a certain time, whereas before I didn't have that. But you have an interesting perspective. Your come up was with babies.

It's like all I know, and it's something I want them to see us to continue to work hard. I think, through example of us doing it again, even though we don't have to. I love that they can see that. But I agree with you, this time I think it'll be easier and having more help. They're older. I can take them with me to New York if I'm doing a trip for a press tour or something like that. Then it just allows for more experiences.

Hey, can I ask you, you probably get 10 times more of this than we do, but, um, you know, you're at an event, you're speaking somewhere, people come up to you and they're like, oh hey, I have this idea. Or like, I'd love to tell you about my thing. And you want to be nice and you want to be helpful. But also the reality of the world is that 99 out of 100 of those people are not serious enough to actually do the thing. And I often have this urge, which is just like, I feel like I wish I could just shake them and just give them some real talk. And I don't even know if they would want it or they would like it or they would listen to it. But there's this deep sense in me that like, I really— there's some real talk I wish I could just give to more people so that maybe that 99 out of 100 would change to 84 out of 100 only would, would not actually, you know, make it happen. But now 16, now, now 16 of the 100 would make it happen. And so I wonder what that is for, for you. Like, what do you think is the real talk that people need when, you know, when people come up to you after an event, what do you wish they actually, like, if only you knew, if only you understood what this is actually going to, what you actually need to do or what this is actually going to take, what would you say to that person?

So my biggest piece of advice, if you're lucky enough to be in a room with someone like you or me or anyone that can give actual advice, listen. Most people come up to you and they want to tell you everything about their business and they never ask a question.

They just want validation.

I don't know what it is. They're like, I'm studying this and we've done this and we have this manufacturer and we launched at Target and this is positioning, and this is what I'm thinking through. And I'm like, okay, like, I don't know what to— I don't know what to tell you because you haven't asked a question. And so I'm always willing to give advice. I'm not willing to do the work for you. And I think that's another thing that people get the line blurred. Hey, you've done this before, can I get 10 minutes of your time? Well, what are you doing? Well, I want to be an entrepreneur. I think this space could be interesting. Do not come to me with that if Figure it out. Come to me with real questions that I can add value and give back and actually move the needle for your life and your business. And that's, I think, my biggest asset. I don't think a lot of people realize if you're lucky enough to run into a Mark Cuban or a Rohan or me, ask real questions. And I think like if people can actually hear that, it would be actually helpful to them.

Yeah. And I think that they also, everyone asks for my time and my money. They want investment or 10 to 15 minutes to jump on it. I, I just, I don't have that time. Time is a luxury now. And so, to your point, I want to spend more time with my kids. I want to like be present with my friends and live my best life. I can't be on Zooms for 40 hours a week. Right. Giving you guys advice with you, to your point, you just want the affirmation versus really getting down and, and like understanding, uh, how I can help them. So I choose who I invest in and who I spend my time with very wisely. And I, I hope that doesn't hurt people's feelings because People give me advice and time over the years in building Poppy and Mother, but it's just, it's just this reality that we're in as well. But I think if I can, you can, at the right moment, at the right thing, you ask the right question, like, I will help you. I'm not mean. It's like, you know, I wanna give back and do all these things, but it's just, it's a tough position that, that, that people are put in.

Oh my gosh, the amount of times I've responded back being like, okay, what's the question? And then they, they never—

Then there's nothing. Silence.

Nothing.

I think I saw— did I? I think I saw somewhere, maybe it was Wall Street Journal. You did. Did you say you do a million-dollar vacation post-exit? Is

that right? Yes, it was a long one.

What was the vacation?

So I took like 20 of my family members and, you know, for my mom and dad and my sister and their kids and my dad and Stephen's parents and sisters. So like, it was a lot of people and we went to 4 different places over a period of over a month. And it was just like our one big, like, F-you trip post-exit. And I think a lot of people are like, what items did you buy? Like, I still don't even have a Birkin. Like, they're like, what piece of this did you buy? You know, I'm like, I want experiences. I want memories. I want all these things. And so have we done that since? No. Are we going to do that every year? No.

Was it even fun or was that like planning a wedding?

You know?

Yeah. 20 people. I don't think I would enjoy that.

I have PTSD on it, but I don't want to sound like ungrateful. But yes, because then We're on there and you don't have, like, it's so new within it. So you still feel a little uncomfortable spending money too. And so you haven't worked through those emotions. And then you're like, hey, I'm going to the spa. And then 7 people raise their hands and say they want to go. Then I'm on the call making 7 people's spa appointments. So yes, it was. And then you're like, the reservations and the food and the travel of it all. So yeah, I would not recommend it even though it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and it was marvelous and I'm very blessed.

Where'd you go?

We went to Tuscany, Lake Como, Montenegro, and Scotland.

There you go.

Well, you actually— this sounds almost a little like silly, but you're, you're a very— you and Steven are both very fun follows on Instagram. You guys have a lot of fun. Do you have— this is the silly part, but how do you think about like having fun? Like, do you have a framework for your fun? Well, let me explain why. Like, my wife and I just started doing like a The very simple date night, but it's like on the calendar and I'm like, oh, if we had to schedule this. I didn't think— I thought we could be impromptu, but we couldn't. We had to schedule this. But you've, you've amped it up. Like, you guys look like you have a ton of fun. Tell me, it sounds like Sean was making fun of me, but you actually might have that.

So I think somewhere along the way we were taught that being serious equals being successful. And then we, we were kind of taught that like fun is a distraction and that if you're serious, you should look serious and act serious and all of these things. And I'm I'm so here to like throw that theory out the window. And I think it isn't a distraction. I think it's fuel. I think it's fuel for like not burning out in life. I think it's the ability to like, you should be having fun at work, should be having fun in your life, and it actually fuels that success. And so like, that's actually been something like me and Steven talk about all the time is like the second we're not having fun, whether you're working hard, you shouldn't be doing that. So it's like all these people talk about hating their jobs and stuff like, Oh, that's such a toxic environment. I think it's like how we operated even at Poppy was it was fun, you know, the, the ability to put myself out there fully, awkwardly, authentically, like online and crazy dances. Like, it was the culture within Poppy too. We were having fun. And so, you know, the other day someone was like, why do you talk like that? And your voice is annoying. And like, you are doing fit checks and like all stuff. And I was like, Because I want to, and I'm a confident queen, and I'm obsessed. And like, why does it bother you? Like, you're not having fun. And so I think it's this ability to live life, not take it so serious. That's like, I don't know, don't you guys feel that too?

Preach.

Yeah, well, the part that I— I don't know if Sean struggles with this. The part that I got sucked into was like, to be successful, you have to be serious. And so like, I just started doing Instagram as well. And I feel it's very uncomfortable. I'm not used to have— I'm not— this, this motion I don't love still. And it definitely is rooted in like, don't want to look too silly. But also in terms of non-social media, just running a business, there is like a be serious, be successful type of energy. And I think the bigger you get, the more— like if you look at what Sean and I used to say like 6 years ago when no one watched this thing, it was a little bit different than now. And I think that like there you do fall in the trap of like you have to be more serious as you get bigger.

And you get more confident the more you do it. You know, you don't just become confident at the start. You start and confident catches up later. And so I think that it's funny, I pushed Steven to be online when we were post-exit. I think he had like 1,000 followers, and I was like, you got to get out there. People need to hear from you. He's so smart. We, we did very different things at Puffy. I ran our creative brand, like all the fun stuff that you get to see, and yet he ran our entire innovation team and supply chain and all this stuff, and like the hardcore business side. And that's why we make so many— such a good partnership. And I was like, your stories are so different than mine, and entrepreneurs need to hear them. And I hired him a social team to run them and like help him get up and running and to take that lift off so that all he needed to do was sit down and talk to the camera. And at first he hated it. Now it's— he's honestly, he's better at making the time for it than me, if anything. So. You just got to start.

Well, we appreciate you doing this. You're awesome. Thanks for coming on. Fun story. We've, we've been buying your product for years and it's nice to have you as a friend now.

We'll have you come back when you launch your new thing and we'll see if our predictions were close.

Even blown away. You're like, oh my goodness, why has no one done it and done it like this?

Well, now I must know.

Interesting.

Yeah. Well,

now we appreciate you. All right, that's it. That's the pod.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.

All right, let's take a quick break. I wanna tell you about Marketing School. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Siu. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses. And so if you want real-world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.