Allison Ellsworth Sold Poppi for $2 Billion. Here's What Happened Next.

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Terms apply. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by cash apps, bank partners. Bitcoin services provided by block ink brand. For additional information, see the bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast. This little kindergarten ran up to me. She hugged my legs. She's like, "Hi, mommy, Poppy, are you a billionaire?" Ellison Ellsworth founded Poppy, grew a whole following

around the brand, and then sold it to peps you for about $2 billion. But you know all that.

Today, she talks about parts of this story that you don't know. She really opens up about the

“emotional side of ending a chapter of your career. There's also a lot of loss that I think a lot of”

founders don't talk about. Advice for partners who have polar opposite money mindsets. You won't buy things if I buy things because he feels like he has to hold back because I'm spending within that creates resentment. And how to talk to your kids, not just about money, but about work. Nothing to the day. When we leave to go somewhere, they're not screaming crying as we're walking out. I know I'm doing good because my kids will say, "Hey,

mom, where are you going today? I'm like New York, they're going to come back. I'll be like Friday, they're like have fun." Like they're okay. I'm Nicole Lappin. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money review. Alison Ellsworth, welcome to Money Rehab. Thanks for having me. So excited to talk. You have been so open and honest and really helped a lot of entrepreneurs about your origin story, which I love so much,

but I would love to dig into what happened after you sold the company. Can you remember when the wire hit? Oh man, we're hitting hard right from the beginning of a test. You know, it's funny, what a lot of people don't know is obviously me, my husband, we were co-founders. And so half of

“equity of ours was in my name and half was in his name. And I'll never forget hitting refresh”

about every five minutes, then 20 minutes. It was just waiting all day for the bank account to change the number. We're like calling our financial advisor and then finally mine hit first and it was so funny that I got mine first and then his didn't hit for like two more hours later. Because I was just paying out people and I didn't know when the wire was going to come. And it was weird because it hit and then I got back to work. I was on zooms. It was a crazy day. We were having to go full integration

into the Pepsi system. And it's such a weird feeling to be like, okay, well, now what? So it was like anti-climactic. It was very, and not that I am not so blessed and that it didn't change my life, but I think what was really important was we still had a job to do and it came to like getting Poppy integrated and making sure the employees were good. But I remember me, my husband, we wanted to make a moment of it. And he was like, clear your calendar. Let's go to lunch and I was like,

I can't. So clear your afternoon. Let's go to yoga. He was like, I can't. And we ended up getting into a big fight. Like, why aren't we celebrating this? Why are we taking this moment? And the next morning, we both woke up. I'm like, that was the dumbest thing to get in a fight for. And we ended up finally clearing our schedule. We got some breakfast and went to a yoga class. A lot of people

probably saw the headline and the assume you have $2 billion in your bank account. I have a lot

of friends who have gone through other exits. And you know, through different raises, they'll have a smaller and smaller percentage of ownership. So while that headline number is really big, they just assume that you have that in your bank account. Yeah, everyone thinks we're like these make-and-make-a-billionaires. And it's so funny. One of my favorite things because you just said it was so public and it was. And I remember the next week I went to my kid's school and it's

kindergarten through fifth grade. And I'm pretty well known with in the school as Mommy Poppy. And this little kindergarten ran up to me. She hugged my legs. She's like, "Hi, Mommy Poppy, are you a billionaire?" Oh my god. Like, a kindergarten. So it's so interesting because it is so public with in it. And like having those conversations with my kids, it's a lot to navigate. And then there's a lot of joy.

“There's also a lot of loss that I think a lot of founders don't talk about. You exit.”

You're working toward something for nine years of your life. And then all of a sudden, you're like,

Or you don't like sell your house and tell where to put the couch. Or how to paint the walls. And you're here just to kind of vise. Give advice. And it's been an interesting transition.

“Once you get the money, you have to like go to work. Put the money to work.”

And how did you put it to work? Nobody's just good at investing overnight. And I would say we even made some really bad investments towards the beginning. They kind of like scared us a little too kind of like maybe that's not quite for us right now. Like what like a private investment.

One of our first investments, it was just like a fun one. It was $50,000 into a grocery

store chain called Fox Trot. They were out of Chicago. And I remember just being really excited. They were growing, you know, you see like the airwands of the world. And you're like, "Oh, it could be the next airwan." No, it went bankrupt. And we lost our money overnight. And it was like a really good lesson of I think it was within six months of investing in them. I've just like $50,000 gone overnight to be like, "Okay, there's a few things we want to look at here.

The founders, right? I think that's really important. How much is this founder willing to take advice?" Because most people don't start companies and they want to be told what to do. I was even that way. Like I didn't really want anyone to tell me what to do. My ego was really big. And so I look at the founder like, "Are they willing to like take my help?" At the end of the day, a lot of people don't want it. But I know I can give some good advice.

And then is it a good product that's kind of more proven? Is it, you know, something that

“people want or need? And then I think at the end of the day is at mass. Is it knee-shars at mass?”

And it's so funny because within that investment hit all those buckets, but it still went bankrupt. So kind of like scared us a little bit and knowing that, you know, not all investments good investment. We bring up so many interesting points that I don't think enough founders talk about. And the first one is that the skills of running any kind of piano, even a huge piano, or having a huge exit don't actually translate into personal finance or investing.

Did you find that there was like a learning curve and how much are you into the investment now? The beauty is my husband. He used to work at like Wells Fargo Financial. He like understands that world, but the problem for me is I'm not that interested in it until I was. And so I would say for the first eight months he was setting up the family office and getting all of the planning and like where we were doing it. And I was like kind of not paying attention because I was like,

oh, that's so boring. And then one day he was at a town I was trying to pay a bill and I didn't even know how to log into our credit cards. And I called my financial advisor and I was like,

“I think that we need to start having one on one weekly. It's just mean you and I need to learn”

that your husband without my husband. Just because I need to know what's going on with our money. I was kind of just like really nearly trusting and I trust my husband. I absolutely could have not been involved. But I was like, I actually feel like I need to know these things. So it kind of took me some time to get into it. And once I started learning about it, it was really fun. We now have weekly meetings, all three of us. I want to live well, blow my means. So I don't have to think about it.

Right? I think that's like the nice comfort that we wanted to be and we just didn't know. So it's been a lot of meetings up until this point now. I feel like we're in a really good groove. And it's kind of moved quarterly. But I think you do kind of have to act like your business more so than just, you know, trusting that it's doing what it should be. And so I love it. Well, you mentioned being under budget. You guys have a budget? We do. We put together a one-year

plan, a two-year plan, three-year, five-year, ten-year plan. And our financial advisors amazing.

You can model all of these out where you're living. Below your means, where you want, and then if you're spending way over. And you just look at it. Once again, like our budget within a business. And you look at these things and you're just readjusting. And so within it, we're just making sure that we're staying positive with I still have income coming in on my end as well. And not just living. People just love to get rich and spend all their money. And I just think that that's actually

crazy. I think anyone at any level has anxiety around money and the antidote for that is transparency. Just seeing your numbers, whatever they are. Because we make up so many stories in our head about what could happen or what they could be. You need purpose. You need values. You need friends. You need family. You need life that is rich and full, right? And I think that without purpose, it can create a lot of chaos. And so for me, I'm absolutely going to continue to work. We're already working

on our next project. And you'll have to tune in to find out soon. I can't wait to hear more. I always

say that money without meaning is just paper. And I think that really rings true. You can have all the money in the world. But if you don't have meaning, your purpose, what is it? Or something else that you brought up that I wanted to dig into that not a lot of founders talk about. We had the founder of Equinox on who talks about the depression she went into and she sold her company.

outcome in your depressed. Did you go through any of that? Yeah, and I think it's really common. But into the day we're all human beings. And with any goal that you're working on for so long for then there to be change, I mean, just think of like Olympic athletes. They're going,

they're going to the Olympics. They're four years over. They know they're never going to go out.

It's anybody working towards a goal, right? In the change now, it's okay to be depressed and it's

“okay to have that moment of sadness and change. But it's what you need to do to work through it.”

And so for me, I've always been very proactive and understanding that this is the moment in life that I feel this way right now. But like, what am I going to do about it? Because I don't like that feeling. And so I got an incredible business coach that focused on the future. And she worked with me and my husband because we were both going through change. And then what is our relationship look like post-exit, right? Because we were working towards one goal. And it was

to sell Poppy to create this generational brand, to revolutionize sort of the next generation. Now what are our goals? We've been on one goal. Now he has goals and I have goals. How do we work through those and have that common purpose? I absolutely cried. I absolutely got mad. I was sad. And I think those feelings are all completely normal. And it took me about I would say almost six or seven months to really kind of feel like myself again. And I think the biggest thing was

creating separation from Poppy that I intentionally did. So I missed the team immensely. I think that's been the hardest piece of the loss is like the collaboration and the team of it rather than just Poppy. It's the people. And so I had to intentionally pull back because I would find myself going into these moments I'd go into a brainstormer. I'd see them. And it bring up so many emotions. And so I think it's just like how you handle it. Now I can be around them and I'm like

cheering them on and I'm just so proud. But I had to do the work to get to that moment. Or how do you think about identity with your company? A lot of people talk about it. Like a baby

“or like a relationship. Did you have to separate your identity from Poppy too? Like if you look”

at your life as portfolio, how much of that is allocated to Poppy? Well it's so different on my end because of such the face of Poppy. And I feel like the culture piece and just everything about it. But I do know at the time that we sold it, the brand was standing on its own and it wasn't so heavily dependent on me to be successful. And I absolutely still advise. I was in the office two weeks ago creating content. I'm still here cheering them on or helping work through the team

and talking to people. And so I think I had to do that like separation to get my identity separated

from it. But I'm still always going to be known as the founder of Poppy. And I think celebrating

that is really amazing. Well allowing it to be on its own and living on its own. And I think that's more of like a me thing rather than like a Poppy thing. Poppy is going to be just fine without me. It's to me being like, oh my god, it's Poppy going to be okay without me. It's such an emotional roller coaster. So I think that I need to look at it through kindness and like joy versus sadness and like loss. And like that's a huge shift that I feel like I've kind of gotten to in the last

like three or four months. I've heard you talk about it and it's really important too that like it's okay to work that you don't have to have that balance necessarily. Or if you want it gray or if you want to be working because you love it great. So do you think it's necessarily bad to have your company wrapped up in your identity if you love that? I don't. I think that if you are not doing that nowadays, you're going to fall behind your competitor because let me

guess let me tell you they're doing it. So to be founder led to be digital first to be online

talking about your brand about you and connecting on authentic real human level. It's like crazy not to do that. But I will say everybody's doing it now. Those smart ones are doing it now.

“So you have to do that and and other things. What's the next thing that's going to be big?”

You know, we're all about low-fi, founder led, authentic, everyone talks about the word, authentic, constantly real content. That's just part of the job now. So what's next? I actually think that there's going to be a really big shift if someone can figure out long-form content on YouTube as a brand. It'll be breakout. How do you create a reality show within the office? How do you think differently on more highly produced content? We moved away

from it. But I feel like people are like bored with like, oh yeah, another founder in the office skipping through Whole Foods. Like back then I was like one of the only people doing it. Now everyone does it. So you have to do it and I'm excited to see what brand figures out what's next.

Poppy was creative. And culture moves so quick. So if you're trying to do what someone did five years ago, like you're going to get left behind. You're working on something new. I know you think about Poppy as like your first baby. You have three actual babies. I have one baby. I can't even think that I could love another human baby as much as I love my current baby. Do you think you could love your next business baby as much? It's really hard to even think about it because, you know,

I have three boys at home at four seven and nine and then I always wanted a girl. I was like,

well, I'd never got one so pop because like my girl. She was my fourth child. And now I just look at it. It's okay. She's off at college. I'm here to help, but she's the arriving. And then some day she's going to like have her own family and be in like every country and just

“arriving everywhere, right? So I think I can because that one I do have multiple kids and you can”

split your heart and love them fully and equally. But what I do know this time is just how much easier in certain ways. It'll be but so much harder in other ways because when I first started Poppy, I didn't know anything about the beverage industry. Now I know a lot. And so I'm going to be as willing to take those risks and do those things. That's the thing that like scares me the most. But I'm not worried about loving it. I think one big thing that I'm going to do

is bring in such an incredible team earlier. When we first started Poppy, it was like, I did everything.

My husband did everything. You do 38 jobs. You're trying to, you know, survive. It's that work life balance. Now I actually feel like I will still work as hard, but I don't have to because I know there's smarter people out there that can probably do better job than me killing myself. And so it's funny this time we actually started, like the first thing we did before we had a name or really anything was an org chart. We really looked at like, how do we professionalize this

business and bring in baller people to surround us? To allow us to maybe not have to be so exhausted

“all the time. And that's okay. Do you think that's what goes along with anyone's second act?”

Maybe operationalize more to delegate more. I mean, as we think about your second act, then I can't wait to hear more about it. What should people think about in that transition period before between the first and the second act? I think something that second time founders fall into is they grow too quick. Right. We can get easier meetings with the retailers, the manufacturers,

the ingredients, suppliers. The problem is if you grow too quick, you're not truly building

a grassroots brand. And you don't want to go so far and wide that you're just kind of everywhere. No one really knows the why they're eating, consuming your product. Right. So that's something that we're very hyper-focused with that I think sometimes second time founders just go everywhere really quick. And everyone's like, whoa, where is this showed up? It's everywhere. So I think also there's a huge problem with celebrity backed an influencer backed brands right now that it

works really good at the beginning, but then they don't know how to run a business. They don't know how to professionalize a business. And so what I love, what I can bring is I've kind of created my own brand for myself, but I've ran a business before. And so if we can combine that too, I think it'll be great. Also the pressure for like exit is not as intense, right? So we can have a little bit more fun. I absolutely would be remiss to say would not start another company not

exit. That's crazy to think that you wouldn't do that. Absolutely would, but it takes a little bit of the pressure off to allow us to do it right, build the brand correct, and kind of do it again. You don't have to bring on investors, but would you bring on? Yes, I think that's a great question. So absolutely we're going to sell fun probably for the first year. And that's really because we want to protect our equity through it. You want to have like a proven concept. We have so many

“people willing to give us money, but we want to be smart about the right time. But I do think you should”

take on investment, just the risks, any kind of, you know, possibility of something going wrong that is not all your money. But on top of it, it brings in other smart people to sit at the table with you with other resources that we might not have. So I think versus just taking on like friends and family money, which is what we did before, we might not have to do that. I think I would bring in like other creators or influencers or people that can really help load up culturally

and that can actually make impact. And they want to help versus, you know, I love my sister, my dad, they're our first investors of Poppy, but I'll let them invest to our family fund, but you know, you don't need that $20,000 check anymore. And so I think it's kind of fun. We can kind of control that narrative and kind of just like have fun and do it our way this time. Even though last time it was amazing, but you know what I mean. And you brought on a lot of

dad and that money that you gave back to them, which I don't think we talk about as much. When you are able to give meaningful money back to early investors, was that like, I mean, some of them didn't need it. Of course, like they got a return and that's so lovely and incredible and a great investment for them. But for some people, that return is life-changing. It was life-changing. You know, we talked about my sister who is our first investor.

She was able to, they're still doing a few things. She has like a side hustle. She's always been,

my family's very entrepreneurial. My dad's an entrepreneur my sister is, but she was able to have quite like her day job of like 14 years by her dream home, with her family in the town. So now she can like work on her side hustle full time too. And it is wildly becoming success when it's so fun to see that we gave that opportunity to do that. And on top of it, what I also think is really important is we gave everybody equity at Poppy.

And we change people's lives. I think we made over 44 people millionaires, which is so cool.

“I'll never forget the day when people were calling us crying that they bought houses,”

paid off their student loans, cars, you know, bought their mom a car. Like, real change, I think is really cool within it. And so I do remember the night we kind of got the sheet of the return on some of those early investors. I mean, Steven, I'm like calling them and telling them how much and we're crying. It is very emotional and it's pretty cool. Kind of see that happen. That is more than pretty cool. Can you tell us anything more about what

the next act is? Is it going to be in the food and beverage space? It's 100% going to be in CPG. It's what we know. Not ready to talk about it yet because we're still working through some stuff within how and when we're going to launch it. So it'll definitely not be this year. I remember watching, and I don't know if you've seen it Elizabeth Gilbert's, I think it's her second TED talk, where she talked about the pressure after E-pray Love came out and what it was

like and how scary it was to follow up such a big success. Do you feel any of that kind of pressure? Thank you for your second company. I do and it's almost scary and I think me and my husband look at each other almost daily. I'm like, are we really doing this again? And you're doing it together. We're doing it together. Yeah, we constantly look at each other. We're doing this again. We're doing this. Are we doing this again? We're doing this again. And it's like a daily thing of like, oh my gosh,

but things are really falling into place with it and it's really fun to kind of just see how much confidence everyone has in us. So why not do it? And I do think yeah, there's a lot of pressure,

but I also believe in myself. I've always been a pretty confident woman. And when I set myself

towards a goal, I'm going to do everything to get there and succeed. And I'm investing in myself. And I believe in myself. And it's funny because there was a shark on shark tank this season. And I started investing in other founders. And I gave a lot of my time to mentor other female founders and give back. And it's so funny because throughout all those processes, I just keep telling myself, like, I just want to do this again. Like, I love helping to mentoring, but like,

I miss operating. And so I think it's been a lot of affirming just thoughts and emotions throughout of it that I feel good about it. And when you guys look at each other, answers, yes, it's a go. And together, I would never do without my husband. We're so different. I think with any co-founder,

“you need to find someone that is opposite of you that can respect your lane. So he ran our innovation,”

supply chain, and I did like our creative and brand at Poppy. And so we do things very differently. And I just so respect what he does, because I can't do that. And he respects what I do. And he can't do that. And so when he gets in my lane and tries to pitch some fun, like marketing campaign on my honey, that's cute. Same thing. Well, can we make this? He's like, honey, don't worry about it.

Of course, you have always been the face of the brand, but I had emigrate on the show last week,

and I asked her if she gets different questions than her husband about the business. Like, do you hear questions that you like? Don't like. I don't know. You tell me about balance and being a female founder versus the questions that he gets asked in a business capacity. You know, I think everyone gets annoyed of the, do you have mom guilt? You know, they don't get that, but I don't, I just bother me necessarily so much, because I think that I have set such an

“incredible example for other females to be in my shoes. And sometimes you need to say those relatable”

things for them to be seen. So like, we do all have mom guilt when we're working, and that's okay. But it's also okay just to work and live in chaos and travel and work just as much as men, both can co-exist together. And so yes, absolutely, I wish people would stop asking women those

I didn't think I could do it. I couldn't have kids in a business, and I listened to you talking

“about that, and now I've started XYZ. So I think there's a little bit of a balance on on those”

questions, and it's always easier if it's coming from a female versus like a man on stage,

asking those questions. I also feel that feels a little bit achy, so I think it's just matters within the moment. But you know, work like balance, I don't think, I think it's like once again a buzzword, like the authentic and the real, I think if you're doing anything that you love and you're working eight hours a week and you're doing spreadsheets in the bedsheets after the kids go to bed spreadsheets in the bedsheets. I mean, oh, anyway, who doesn't put their kids to bed,

my work and I tell you work, you put a reality show on you poor glass, like they get in my sheets, get in my excel sheets. It's so true, right? Like everyone's working in bed after the kids go to bed. And I think that it's like, okay, to do that, and it's like chaos is fun, and it's, you can do it,

“or you can't, but if I'm here to tell you if you want to be successful, you do have to do that.”

I had a founder the other day, say to me, I close my computer at five o'clock and I saw an eye and I call plunge and I'm just really protecting my mental state right now. I was like, oh my gosh, when was your exit? And he was like, oh, I haven't had one yet. And I was like, yeah, no shit. Like, obviously you have it. Tell me you haven't had an exit without telling me you haven't had it. Literally, I was like, ah, yeah, scary. And it's just like, I love it. But I think it goes back to

if you're doing that. It's called passionate. If it's stressing you out, it's called stress. And you got to find your own journey within that. So no one's asked, even if he has dead gold. No, I don't, I don't think so, but I will say he would say yes. He feels way more guilty, being away from the kids than I do. And it has nothing to do with me versus him, but it's more so, I was the face of the company for the longest time for the last five years. He's been working

full time and actually at home more with the kids. And so he's really taken on this like, protect or roll with them. And so he has a little bit harder time leaving them than I do. Not that I don't love my kids, the same as him. But I do think this, it's an interesting balance that he's trying to work through. So he, I think has more dad guilt than I have mom's guilt. Yeah, you've also talked about how you and even have different approaches to money. Of course,

we're money rehab. So you've said that he leans more frugal and you like to spend and enjoy money. Do you compromise or how do you compromise or what's the conversation when you guys disagree on something? You know, honestly, I really feel like I made this money to at least half of its mind, but we're married, so all of its mind and all of its his. And because he's uncomfortable, spending money, let's say close, for example, he won't buy things if I buy things,

because he feels like he has to hold back because I'm spending with a net creates resentment. He should go be able to buy things as well. He's made the money. And so these are the conversations we're having is like, one does plus one doesn't equal to he's just like so black and white within it. And so I think it's just been really hard having and navigating those conversations and then having a conversation of those big one-time purchases that you were just so excited about post-exit.

Like buying jewelry or clothes or vacation that aren't going to be for everything's like, we are not going to go spend a month in Europe again this summer. Right. That was so expensive. We took 20 of our family and my mom and his parents and cousins and like all of these things, like that's a one-time cost like get over it, the cost of that. And he's really hard for him. And I think he's getting better now with time and seeing our spending over a year and understanding with our financial

advisor that we've never once gone over budget. And so I think he's starting to pull back what

is just like kind of it's just his nature. He's very frugal. So I kind of just have to buy stuff for him. I mean my husband and I we do like a scale. So when we disagree on something we say like how important is it to you. And so his I think that puts it into perspective and it quantifies it. So we disagree on something and I'm like how important is this to you? It's a seven to me. It's a four and it's like okay you win. You know that's smart. So I also feel like I don't. I don't know if you

've read the book like Dye was zero. No. I gave it to him. So it's basically like spend your money in your lifetime. Is that where you're planning to do? No. And it was funny. I just gave him the

“book because I was like I think you need to read just how other people think about money and that's”

not always about planning and financial futures and estate planning and like what would it be like

if you spent money. And it was an interesting I saw like a shift in him afterwards. Now I absolutely

I should leave so much to them that I didn't get to live the life that I worked hard for. So it's a conversation. It's a balance. It's also a conversation yearly that can change. You might have a great year. You might have a down year of the stock market was crap and you made really bad investments or you could have go you know three years from now we could have a

“couple of exits and some of our investments. So I think it's fluid and I think I'll get more comfortable”

as we sit into it over the next few years. I would say that the sweet spot is somewhere between thinking you're going to live forever and thinking you're going to die tomorrow. It sounds like you guys are on kind of both of them. I would be like if we died more like I genuinely would go have fun and just do whatever I want responsibly. If someone has a different mindset then they're partner and they're watching what advice would you give so that it doesn't cause tension.

I think conversate daily about it. I think it's like hey I want to buy this or I want to invest in this don't do it the day it needs to be done. Start that conversation if you can a month, two weeks, three weeks ahead of time. That time of people get really resistant to something that's not the idea. This is in life and this is in business and every day. If someone tells you something

and it wasn't your idea your first reaction is to say no. And I've learned that over time

with a lot of people people need time to process stuff so the more space and time and it's like hey I want to do this. I know I need to make decision in the next two weeks. You don't have to answer now. Just think about it and let's chat about it tomorrow. That can go so much further than I want to buy this and I'm going to and you have nothing to say. It can come across a very wrong. Yeah you're saying the same thing you're saying it differently or you're giving time. But it also

depends on the risk tolerance of the receiver, right? So you hearing that you might just say yes maybe your husband would need time? Correct. Yes. And a lot of people too are more risk-averse after they have kids. You went on Shark Tank when you were nine months pregnant. You've talked about it. Your family being feast or famine and sometimes your dad would have huge swings like millions of dollars. That millions of dollars down. Do you think some of your

girlessness came from that? Oh absolutely. I don't know. Like I sometimes like worry. Like if something's wrong with me because I just don't have that emotion of I just I literally could lose everything tomorrow and I just be happy as long as my family was there. And I think that would freak a lot of people out. That would freak my husband out and we'd

have to totally change. But I think the difference is as we have an incredible network. I would

work hard and I would build that wealth again. And that excites me so much. I love the build. I love the chaos. I love making money. And my dad to your point, he did make a lot of money. He's lost so money and he's built three businesses since and now he's retired. So I think I have seen that horrible swing to nothing to to the rebuild. And I think it's it's not a scary if you've

“seen it but you have to be built differently to handle it. Yeah. What gene do you not have?”

I don't know. My husband's like do you need like go to therapy to work there? I'm like what is there to work through it? I'm happy all the time. And when you think about how you want your kids to think about money, is that a different way than you grew up? So something that I think was really important and what I was raised with was I was always told yes. I was always loved.

Always loved. And we have incredible values and we're God fearing people. So we go to church every

week. We pray with our family. We study the Bible. And we have such a clear path to philanthropy. So I educate my kids on give back. We give back at our church. I show them what we do when it comes to give back. And I think that that's really important throughout this to create good humans is for them to guess they get to go on the vacation. But what else can we do to give back in the world? And it's been really fun throughout this process. My dad I said just retired. We've been able

to fund him going on over seven mission trips this year. And he's sitting pictures and he's building schools in Africa and Thailand and all of these places and I'm just like look what Papa's doing

“and next summer we're going to take them and do that. So I think as long as they're getting that”

groundingness in their lives as well as it's my money. It's not their money. Like we're very open with that. They have to do chores. They have to understand that like they don't get everything they want. But something that I think is really fun is we just recently opened up three fidelity investing accounts for our kids. And they were asking about it and I was on Tarketing as this whole thing. They're

advisor. Learn about it. Think about what stocks and what bonds and all of these things they want

to invest in. And it was so funny because they lost $65 last week and they were just like wait what just happened and I'm like yeah it's not so easy is it. So we're just having these conversations so I'm sure we'll fail along the way but as long as we're just like really open about it I think we'll create not horrible children hopefully. So how do you talk to them about money? Look they're

“very little for seven and nine. So I think you have to have those conversations at the level that they”

can understand and I also think not overly talking about money is important not everything has to be about it. I think it's about experience and give back and working hard. I mean me my husband's even are some of the hardest workers I know and I think that that's such a core value that if we can instill them they're like kids they're lazy you know we were at the baseball game this week and my middle child was like playing in the sand and I'm like pay attention. The balls coming

towards you like they're just kids so at the end of the day also just letting them be kids and not making them grow up so fast and all this pressure of life and you know we'll get there as as they get older age appropriate conversation but also like that kindergarten or who asked you

millionaire you know. So two different questions first how do you talk to your kids about money

“which we talked about and second it sounds the same but how do you talk to your kids about work?”

I think they see how hard we work one of the number one questions I get from the recently is why are you guys doing this again? Why are you working on? Why are you doing this again? And it goes back to that purpose piece of we like to work hard. Do you see this house that we're living in? It's not something that just comes by lightly and I do think it's them visually seeing us continue to work hard will and still hard workers but we're we're actually pretty tough on our

kids so they are have a strict like after school activities sports you know the piano is the homeworks of the world but I think normal see hard work and them just seeing by example but then

the day you never know like their kids are unpredictable so we're just gonna try to do our best.

You've heard some parents say it's important to tell their kids that they enjoy their work but then how do you do that without making them feel like you're choosing your work over them?

“Yeah I don't think you have to choose. I think you can have both and I think I was really”

big with Poppy. I mean I breastfed on zooms I brought my kids to all of our big events. I like allowed to do where we would be in New York for a pop-up I'd bring my kids they'd go to the pop-up they could see what we were doing and it would kind of like coexisted I think like family values within the company was really big and so I think that just that transparency and allowing them to ask those conversations I think the biggest hack that I've actually learned is when

your home you are present. I think a lot of working parents come home they've worked for five days on the road they've been at dinner meetings and early meetings and they come home and they're exhausted and they start yelling at their kids because they want them to go to bed instead of putting your phone down sitting with your kid on the couch popping popcorn and snuggling like you'd be so surprised how many working parents don't take time to be present with their children and I feel like

those micro moments that I'm extremely present with them makes up for me being on the road for five days and at the end of the day when we leave to go somewhere they're not screaming crying as we're walking out I know I'm doing good because my kids will say hey mom where are you going to damn like New York like when you come back I'll be like Friday and they're like have fun like they're okay right and so I think that just be present put your phone down hang out with your

kids when you are home and they'll be okay yeah be wherever you are it's hard because then you know the guilt can go both ways you're like oh I'm you know guilty I feel guilty that I'm not you know doing this spreadsheet and the sheets or you know I'm not doing this work thing that I need to and I'm here with my kid and vice versa I'm when I'm at work you know guilty that I'm not with my kid well it's funny because like you know we're talking about money and and wealth

I think what comes with that is I'm actually buying back a lot of my time just so I can't spend it with my kids and an example is I'm obsessed with cooking it's one of my favorite things to do in the entire world but recently we've brought in a chef to come in cook two to three times a week and I'm buying back my time of me cooking for two hours for the three nights I'm home a week to now I'm outside throwing the Baltic kids or playing Play Do or Painting and it's actually been

to buy back that time it's same with you know hiring a housekeeper or a nanny sometimes people look at that it's like a really bad thing like oh you have a nanny or you're not raising your kids actually look at a different of like we have a nanny to allow me to maybe do one on one things with my kids and so it's it's a big thing that I think we've made also part of our life it's like this buying back of time to allow us to kind of be more of a family unit yeah and you've talked about

the breastfeeding on Zoom and after a sick second kid going back two weeks after you gave birth

do you feel like you had to do that or is that something that you wanted to do I think success looks very different the early years of same mother beverage and Poppy and success now back then we had to do that there was no there was no choice right we see when it was working a second job we were could barely pay our mortgage we didn't know sometimes if we could buy groceries we sold our cars to buy bottles we were all in and so we had to do that then we don't have to do that

“now and that's the difference and so your success level of what you have to do at different stages”

it can change and it can evolve and I love that we did go through that because it just taught us just so much hard work in how willing and how passionate we were about Poppy and then you secured the bag which brings us to our games secure the bag that's so fun okay what's the best piece of money advice you've ever given someone else I think that if I'll all speak through an entrepreneurial lens go as long as possible without paying yourself if you're truly building a business really

higher other people surround yourself with other people that can take things off your plate now I know some people can't do that but for example post shark tank deal I actually still did

not pay myself almost the first six months of Poppy launching and when I did we started

me and my husband's starting salary for the first year Poppy was $50,000 I think some people take on investment pay themselves to really versus hiring someone else and getting stuff off your

“plate I mean so many people say pay yourself first I know I I think it's I think you have to”

pay yourself something so I started my company bootstrapped with my life savings and didn't want to pay myself and didn't for a while you can't go crazy but the bare minimum feels like you're putting your oxygen mask on first so my husband got a second job that he worked at nights and weekends for like two years paying our mortgage so yes you do need some kind of income but I do think don't put as much back into the business as you can and tell you can't so yes at some point you do

have to pay yourself to put food on the table on a roof over your head but if you can't or if you don't need to like goes along as possible okay have you ever felt embarrassed by your bank account balance in a good way or bad way I guess could be interpretive so I've always made a really good money I worked in oil and gas research and made good money working previous is turning poppy and then even in college I was like a hustler so I'd work my summers doing oil

and gas I would do work for service fires making like $2 to $300 a day like 19 years old in oil and

gas yeah oil and gas when I first stop I was on landmanned I was being like $500 a day so I've always

made good money I've never been embarrassed but what I was not good at was saving so I never saved a single dollar until I met Stephen so I was making like $200,000 a year and spending all of it so maybe more on that side of things but never buy the amount that was in the bank account but maybe not that I wasn't physically responsible okay is there something rich people buy that you think is ridiculous I'm 39 years old I feel very blessed to have some kind of wealth earlier on

“one cringey thing that I think is when you see like a 65 year old guy in Miami at a club like”

with girls and a table like I'm just like that is so gross and you know like those type of things like really give me the egg because one I I don't want to be at a club ever in Miami with like a bottle service unless I'm at a bachelor at party but I do think that they see the value and find people's time and people around them versus having true friendship and true relationships because I think people sometimes don't know how to act around people that don't have money like I

could care less of my friends have money and they can't do things and I'm just gonna do what they can do. Do you pay for your friends or have people asked you to borrow money post taxes? I think I felt like two people asked me for money I was actually surprised at how little that happened one that was a friend from college that asked me for $20,000 it was very awkward and we don't speak anymore and it was okay I hadn't really spoken to her in 10 years post college anyways

so you gave it to her I did not oh no but I did you like speak because she asked yeah I was weird

I would have that conversation I think giving back is important and and valuing people but it was

“like hey your rich give me 20 grand you know I think that that is like very weird and crude”

of like just asking like hey I need this money like that's it's just like oh like that's just

weird ask anybody that ever right but you would never a one different money I don't know if I

wouldn't I think at under the right circumstances if someone wants to invest in like their business or their dream or something I probably would it was like a good idea like why not give someone also a chance to live their dream if it's like a good idea if it's like a really bad idea they're like I want to make candles and I kind of been done before let's talk about this with let's get to talk about what we should let's work shopping exactly so we end all of our episodes by asking

our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank and investing tip I want to

get your thoughts actually on oil and gas because you worked in the space do you have investments? No oil I mean it's been wildly we looked at it post exit and like how we wanted to work in

“that but it is such a different world of you have to know it and you have to know the right”

resources and it's highly risky very capital intensive and it's yeah it's just very expensive I wouldn't say we wouldn't ever I think we're more interested in like if we want to do something to be like a real estate side of things but oil and gas I think I would but not right now but your oil and gas was not like you trading oil futures you were like landman I was a limit so I worked for seven years on the road like going out to the small teeny towns of like 3,000 people and I would

be negotiating with the landowners and the Indian reservations and the local just community on can we come in you work with like the water resource and the environmental stuff and it was just

like so fun so we basically would go into the courthouse and you'd open up the big books and you'd

go back to the 1800s when the United States gave the patent to that settler at the time and then you would just track it forward who owns the oil right to owns the land rights and so I live in these teeny towns for like two years and I remember me Steven our we lived in a motor home our first year of marriage and a town of 3,000 doing this together so but it makes good money and it was fun you could work like eight months out of the year and travel the rest of the time and so I look

“fondly on it but I didn't I wasn't passionate about that like that I think that's a good example”

of making good money without passion and so I know now working hard and having passion making money is way more fun do you see the show it's not true the show really like there's nothing no what do you mean no you're there's no explosions there's no drama nobody's like I will say something that is true with the show is like they do have like the worker places where all the workers are like living in like fargo north Dakota and like all of the motels like

they do take over the towns and do that type of stuff that all the drama that no there's no people like the money there's a lot of money yes yeah but I mean I worked on like the landman side I wasn't like the oil company getting the money so unfortunately