Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth knows what you’re thinking: Why would she start another beverage brand after a wildly successful $1.95 billion exit last year? She jokes that she could have retired, but she saw a need her expertise could fill, and she wanted to disrupt the hydration market the same way Poppi redefined how people think of soda.
Meet Jetty, which makes its official debut today on its website, Amazon and Target, as well as in Whole Foods stores nationwide. It sells ready-to-drink bottles and ready-to-mix electrolyte powders, but it’s not a sports drink, and it’s not that sodium-heavy stuff made for athletes.
“When we started looking at it, we realized that hydration products are made for extremes. They’re for sports and they’re so intense — there was nothing for just simply living,” says Ellsworth, who is the brand’s co-founder and chief brand officer alongside Stephen Ellsworth, her husband, as co-founder and CEO. “We formulated Jetty as close to coconut water — nature’s hydration — as possible without that crazy coconut water taste.”
Right before it launched, I talked to Ellsworth about building Jetty, and the lessons she learned during her time at Poppi that she’s applying to running her new company. I also asked her about the products that keep her going throughout her very busy days.
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Jetty’s drinks and powders come in five flavors, and Ellsworth’s current favorite is orange mango. “We never had a mango flavor at Poppi, so it was one of the first flavors we formulated for Jetty,” she says. “Orange-flavored products can get really Emergen-C tasting — that’s exactly what I didn’t want. I wanted something fresh, tropical, chuggable and refreshing, which is what it is.”
While Ellsworth is excited for customers to finally drink Jetty, she’s equally looking forward to interacting with them online. She took big swings with Poppi to create engaging social media moments that made customers want to buy the products. She also never shied away from making Poppi a founder-led brand. You’ve probably seen her go viral on social media: To date, she has hundreds of thousands of followers across TikTok and Instagram.
With Jetty, Ellsworth is following a similar playbook, but she started amassing a loyal customer base before anyone got to try the drinks and powders. Prior to launch, customers began following the brand’s social media accounts and signing up for its SMS and email lists for a chance to win a J-Card, a.k.a. an American Express Black Card, but for Jetty.
“We had this really unique opportunity to market a product before its launch, and build hype behind it that you can only capture once,” says Ellswoth. “We saw all this data about how people want physical things, which led to the J-Card. It’s an actual card that we’re giving away a limited amount of per year, and people already signed up to get one. It will give them access to stuff nobody else has, like early access to product drops, pop ups, deals and swag. We’re looking at it as a way to build ride-or-die customers from the beginning because at the end of the day, they’re your community.”
To enter to win a J-Card, sign up for Jetty’s email and SMS list — the brand is randomly picking people on a rolling basis.
As a now two-time founder launching and promoting a brand-new business while raising three young sons, Ellsworth relies on a few key products to keep her going. “I’m very into beauty and longevity, especially with how much I’m traveling,” she says. “The TheraFace is such a hack, and I love when it gets cold for my under eyes. If I’m traveling and I’m up late, it’s the only thing that makes me look and feel better. A lot of times you have to freeze facial rollers before using them, but when I’m traveling, I obviously don’t have a freezer with me, so the TheraFace is so much easier and works better.”
“Yise from Molly Sims has these pads for your face that have transformed my skin,” says Ellsworth. “They’ve gotten rid of my acne and dark spots, and brightened my skin. I just started using them in the last two months, and I absolutely won’t leave the house without them now.”
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“I always need to have a good lip,” says Ellsworth. “I can have no makeup on, but I need to put on my Rhode Peptide Lip, and I have a Laura Mercier lip gloss that I love, too.”
“The one thing that I’m probably the most obsessed with is my Orion sleep system,” says Ellsworth. “It’s basically like an Oura Ring for your body. It’s a pad that goes on top of your mattress, and the temperature changes with your sleep cycle, so if you start to heat up, it cools down. It helps keep you in REM sleep longer, and then it measures your sleep score. When I’m traveling and I don’t have it, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night sweating and I’m like, I miss my Orion.”
Ellsworth’s favorite snack when she’s on the go? “I love Solely’s fruit jerky, because not only can I eat it, but my kids can eat it, too,” she says. “It’s real — you don’t feel like you’re eating gummies full of red dye 40.”
Ellsworth also reaches for Chomps to get some protein in, but there’s one thing she craves most of all. “For better or for worse, my favorite food in the entire world is a good salt and vinegar chip, like a Miss Vickie’s, and string cheese,” she says. “You’ve got your beef stick, cheese, fruit jerky and chips — that’s all your nutrients right there. It’s my girl dinner.”
Why trust NBC Selected?
I’m a reporter at NBC Selected who leads our Talking Shop series, interviewing people like Paris Hilton, Maureen Kelly, Lindsay Hubbard and Chase Crawford. To write this article, I talked to Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth about her new beverage brand, Jetty, how she built it and her other favorite products to rely on during busy days.
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