For many entrepreneurs, building a unicorn means betting their own finances long before any massive payday is within sight. Poppi cofounder Allison Ellsworth became a mega-millionaire after selling her prebiotic soda brand to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion—but just one decade ago, she and her husband were maxing out credit cards to get the business off the ground.
“I remember the first time we realized we had a business,” Ellsworth recently told The Wall Street Journal. “We were at a farmer’s market. We had just bought a house, I was three months pregnant with my first kid, and I said ‘We need to go all in.’”
