Did Austin Turn Soda Into Fashion? | Stephen Ellsworth, Co-founder, Poppi

Poppi is a fashion brand that happens to be soda. Stephen Ellsworth, Co-founder of Poppi, joins us to walk through the operating choices behind turning a vinegar problem into a modern soda badge. It’s how you build, scale, and exit a consumer brand. It’s another signal that Austin’s flywheel is real and accelerating. 

Highlights

• 01:48 Dark days, PMF before funding
• 08:05 Farmers market to Whole Foods
• 14:50 Rebrand beat Shark Tank awareness
• 24:58 Poppi as Fashion
• 33:46 Make healthy default via taste
• 38:54 AI palate mapping
• 46:48 Austin needs cross-sector collisions
• 51:40 What's Next Austin?

Guest Links
Stephen Ellsworth: Instagram, LinkedIn
Poppi: Website, X, Instagram
 

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

What is Austin Next?

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower?

Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem.

As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.