Couple who sold to Pepsi for $2 billion says going into business with your romantic partner is ‘not for the weak’ Stephen and Allison Ellsworth, the husband-and-wife cofounders of prebiotic soda brand Poppi, sold their company to PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) last May for $1.95 billion…
). Roughly nine years prior, Allison was just mixing apple cider vinegar in her Dallas kitchen — she had no idea it’d become a soda brand with $500+ million in annual revenue (2), earning the Ellsworths an estimated $100+ million personal payout, according to Fortune (3)
In a School of Hard Knocks interview published in March, the couple — who have three children together — went into greater detail on what it takes to run a business with a spouse (4). Asked whether other couples should follow their lead, Stephen, 38, didn’t hedge. Must Read “It’s definitely not for the weak,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise against it, ‘cause I mean, look at us, we built and sold a business for nearly $2 billion, and built a family.” Allison, 39, was more blunt. “There’s no such thing as balance,” she said. “There’s spreadsheets in the bedsheets.
We maxed out our credit cards. We did everything we could to survive.” Bubbling up Before Poppi took off, the Ellsworths invested roughly $90,000 of their own savings in the first year, with Stephen working night and weekend gigs as a waiter to cover their mortgage, Fortune previously reported (3). Allison, a former landman in the oil-and-gas industry, started mixing apple cider vinegar with fruit juice and seltzer in her Dallas kitchen in 2015 to manage chronic stomach issues (5).