Here are 5 things they learned from Poppi, which they’ll use to grow Jetty.

After selling a company for $1.95 billion, what do you do next?

Here’s Allison Ellsworth’s answer: One year after selling Poppi to PepsiCo, she’s now back with a new brand — called Jetty. It calls itself a “literally everyday hydration” brand, which sells hydration powders and liquid beverages.

She and her husband Stephen, who she built Poppi with, are self-funding Jetty with a $2.5 million investment.

“My kids asked me, ‘Mom, why are you doing this again?’” says Ellsworth. “And I was like, ‘Because I want to. I’m really excited to build again.’ And I also think there’s something really important about showing my kids the work ethic of it all. We don’t want them to grow up and think, ‘Oh, we don’t have to work hard.’”

The Ellsworths will have their hard work cut out for them: They’re entering a crowded and declining category, and going up directly against juggernauts like Liquid I.V. and Gatorade.

Here are five things they learned from building Poppi, which Ellsworth says will help along their journey:

This may sound like counterintuitive advice: If you want to find a huge business opportunity, look where the market is most crowded.

Poppi originally began as a brand called Mother, and the Ellsworths pitched it as a health tonic that contained apple cider vinegar. This left them chasing a niche consumer in a small market. Then they scored a major investment on Shark Tank , rebranded as Poppi, and started competing inside the much larger and noisier soda category — just as sales of mainstream sodas were declining.

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