Allison Ellsworth did the normal things one does after a nearly two-billion-dollar exit, she said, referring to the May 2025 sale of Poppi to PepsiCo. She went on vacation, went to the doctor for the first time in ten years, and “actually started taking care of myself,” Ellsworth told BeautyMatter.
But then, she felt an itch. “I was like, ‘oh my gosh.’ I just missed the build. I missed the disruption. I missed the team and all those things,” she said.
A conversation with her husband Stephen, with whom she co-founded Poppi, led to the birth of beverage brand Jetty, which is launching on November 9. The Ellsworths invested $2.5 million of their own money to start the brand. “My husband [asked], ‘Would we ever do something again?’ So we started having that conversation…. I didn’t want to do something like: ‘Oh, the data says there's a white space … type of thing.’ And at the time, I was on a health journey.... Everyone's on GLP-1s, and I struggle drinking water. [My husband said] ‘You don't hydrate. You never drink water. I'll make you a product, because all the products out there are really extreme,’” she recalled.
Jetty is launching on November 9 in two formats: ready-to-mix powders and ready-to-drink bottles, both in five flavors, online at Amazon and Target, and in-store nationwide at 466 Whole Foods.
The Ellsworths saw the hydration category as only speaking to male athletes. “There's the LMNTs, the Liquid IVs of the world, but they're like 1,000 milligrams, 500 milligrams of sodium,” Allison said. A bottle of Jetty contains 100 mg of sodium, 310 mg of potassium, 100 mg of magnesium, B vitamins, and prebiotics, alongside 6 grams of sugar and 45 calories. Ellsworth is positioning Jetty as an “everyday” hydration brand, arguing that some higher-sodium competitors are better suited to endurance athletes—people “running a marathon”—than the average consumer. She called Jetty the “anti-hydration hydration company.” Endurance athletes, particularly heavy sweaters exercising for hours or in the heat, may need additional sodium to replace sweat loss, while routinely consuming excess sodium without those losses could raise blood pressure for regular people.
Dietitian Emily Hage told BeautyMatter that the hydration supplement market is overcrowded and the messaging often falls into one of two extremes: “Daily use for ‘optimal hydration’ or something reserved for serious athletes, when the reality is much more individual and situational.”
The data backs Hage up on the market size. Mintel estimates US retail sales of sports and performance drinks were at $20.1 billion in 2025 (up 9% versus 2024–25); it forecasts this category to grow 36% from 2025 to 2030, reaching $27.4 billion by 2030. In the Jetty press release, Stephen Ellsworth cited a stat from IG Transformation Partners, which called hydration a $13 billion category. “Consumers are leaving traditional sports drinks and looking for better-for-you ways to hydrate,” he said in the release, speaking to Jetty’s potential to capture some of these consumers.
Furthermore, electrolytes have increasingly moved beyond the gym and into the broader functional-beverage boom, as consumers increasingly seek drinks that deliver specific wellness benefits. According to Mintel, 60% of sports-drink buyers are nonathletes, while Circana found unit sales of sports-drink mixes rose nearly 20% in the year ending March 22, 2026.
This shift validates Jetty’s everyday-hydration premise, but it also makes the space increasingly competitive: Even Gatorade has shifted to courting non-athletes, all while new brands continue to crowd the category.
Allison Ellsworth cited the recent closure of Alex Cooper’s Unwell beverage as an example of a company that hadn’t focused correctly, or understood its consumer. “Unwell just went out of business because she didn't know what she was doing in [terms of] her core market and target market audience,” Ellsworth said. “She went after people that were hungover. I want my coffee, and I want my hydration,” she added, contrasting Jetty’s straightforward positioning with Cooper’s caffeinated formula.
Increasingly, brands are combining electrolytes with other supplementary ingredients, a trend Ellsworth deems unnecessary. “Consumers just want something simple and not overloaded with ingredients they don't understand. And I feel like we did a good job with that at Poppi as well,” she said.
Ellsworth envisions her target demographic as being Gen Z and millennials, particularly millennial mothers, because they “influence the household and create change.” She’s excited about fun, culture-first marketing strategies like the ones Poppi became known for. High-profile friends already want in. “I was FaceTiming Connor Wood [@fibula] literally last week, and he said, ‘I'm doing Dancing with the Stars. And the only option, when I walk into a store, is a Gatorade,’” Ellsworth explained. “[He said] ‘I don't wanna be seen drinking a Gatorade, it's not cool.’” Ellsworth said Wood asked when he could invest in Jetty—and he’s not the only one.
Wood’s request reflects a pattern, and a shift in how influencer marketing works nowadays. Ellsworth said Jetty contacted hundreds of influencers about receiving products or participating in its launch, only to find many wanted equity. “The number one response is, ‘Can I invest?’ Every call we get on, they want to invest. They trust us. They saw the exit,” she said. Eventually, she’d be interested in a “[cap] table of influencers,” but “I need to lock in some partnerships for launch,” Ellsworth laughed.
But they’ll have to wait—Jetty isn’t fundraising for the time being, though Ellsworth said eventually the brand will look to raise outside capital. “It’s strategic to raise,” she said, pointing not only to the financial benefits but also to the resources and relationships investors can provide.
Prior to launch, the brand debuted a mystery Instagram account (a tactic also used by Alix Earle’s Reale Actives to drum up pre-launch excitement) under the handle @whatisjetty. At press time, it had just over 9,000 followers, aided by Ellsworth’s own 124,000 reach on her Instagram account, which it has posted jointly with. “We want people to guess what it is. And build the hype. So we launched this week and gained like six or 7,000 followers on social with one post,” Ellsworth said in mid-October. Since then, however, Jetty has been spotted on Whole Foods shelves, so the cat is mostly out of the bag. Still, the brand has continued cultivating mystery—or at least conversation. One post placed Jetty’s wordmark on skincare bottles alongside the caption: “less than a week until we answer one question... what is jetty? 👀 all we can say after using these products is that we’re reallyyy loving our new glow ✨”
The pre-launch mailer, Ellsworth said, would play on this theme by including “face sprays and a lip gloss. We’re teasing that it's hydration without saying it,” she said.
Though the initial launch will focus on Amazon, Target, and Whole Foods, Jetty has already attracted significant retailer interest. Ellsworth noted in early October that Vito Antoci, Executive Vice President of luxury California grocer Erewhon, had initially told her if the product didn’t taste good, it wouldn’t make the cut. But “he literally texted me yesterday. He [had been] thinking of launching us in January, and he [said] ‘Can we get you guys in December? This is insane.’”
Walmart could be coming soon, too. Ellsworth said that the Senior Vice President of Pantry at Walmart follows her on social media. “She saw I was launching a new company, called my cell phone, and was like, ‘Why are you guys not in Walmart?’ I’m like, ‘Well, we haven’t sold a bottle yet. Give me a second.’”
It seems that, at least eventually, retail will certainly be a large part of Jetty’s growth strategy. “Every retailer is desperate for this innovation, which is so affirming that it’s the right product at the right time,” Ellsworth said.
Having built and sold Poppi, Jetty’s growth will happen on an accelerated timeline. “There's 12 or 13 of us, total. So between ops, innovation, sales, marketing, and HR, we are growing really fast.… We're going to skip the first two years of business,” she said, referencing the fact that the brand is executing a nationwide rollout at launch.
So, can Ellsworth build two hit beverage brands?
Jetty’s running start helps, but can’t guarantee a repeat of Poppi’s trajectory. The hydration category is crowded, and converting Ellsworth’s personal following, retailer relationships, and prospective creator-investors into repeat customers will be the more consequential test.
Still, Ellsworth believes the experience she and Stephen gained building Poppi gives Jetty an advantage few startups possess. “There are only a few people who know how to do beverage as well as we do,” she said. “We feel really confident that we can pull it off with all we know.”