OLIPOP’s Genesis: The Birth Of A Soda Revolution
Could soda be a health-conscious choice? This is the question that ultimately led to the founding of OLIPOP, a pioneering beverage company that surpassed $400 million in sales in 2024. Co-founders Ben Goodwin and David Lester envisioned a carbonated drink that preserved the nostalgic appeal of traditional sodas while incorporating prebiotics and plant-based ingredients to promote gut health.
Scaling from $1M a year to $1M a day, however, requires more than just product innovation. Rapid expansion could have easily overwhelmed OLIPOP’s financial infrastructure, leading to cash flow constraints, supply chain disruptions, and inefficient capital deployment. To ensure sustainable, scalable growth, OLIPOP turned to Propeller.
The Challenge
Disrupting a Giant Without Exploding Under Pressure
Creating a tasty, gut-friendly soda was no small task. The real kicker? Scaling it in a cutthroat market where big brands had been calling the shots for decades. OLIPOP needed to prove that a healthier alternative could not only compete but also dominate. The question remained: How do you scale a capital-intensive business in a fiercely competitive market without melting your financial systems?
The answer: One step at a time. Balance cost efficiency with scalability. Leverage experience to build only what’s necessary: robust enough to support growth without being overly complex. Have confidence that your systems will scale, but maintain the flexibility to iterate constantly. Focus on the 80/20 rule, optimizing what matters most while staying agile for what comes next.
OLIPOP partnered with Propeller to build flexible financial infrastructure that balanced affordability with risk mitigation, while delivering the flexibility to enable rapid, capital-efficient expansion.
The Partnership
Strategic Financial Leadership In Action
With a track record of success guiding high-growth startups, Propeller brought OLIPOP a battle-tested financial playbook engineered to turn early-stage challenges into scalable success. Anchored in great talent, data-driven decision-making, and operational discipline, Propeller’s systems and teams helped OLIPOP establish a future-ready financial foundation.
The Making of a Market Top Dog
OLIPOP’s Three-Phase Transformation
Propeller adapted to OLIPOP’s changing needs through a period of massive transformation, delivering peace-of-mind, thought-partnership, and consistent operational execution across an extremely broad range of challenges.
Phase 1: Building A Rock-Solid Financial Foundation
Before the brand could effectively scale, it needed a financial backbone as forward-thinking as its product. We built financial forecasting to inform fundraising, hiring, product, channel & geographic expansion and inventory and working capital planning. Professional-grade financial reporting tracked variances, refined planning assumptions, built investor confidence, and delivered early-warning alerts to mitigate the consequences of any under (or over) performance. The financial team offered more stage-specific wisdom and experience than any company at that stage could reasonably afford.
Phase 2: Growth Without The Growing Pains
As revenue surged from $1M per month to $1M per week, the stakes grew higher. Propeller supported OLIPOP’s pivoting its sales strategy toward direct-to-consumer channels during the COVID-19 outbreak, driving exceptional results. We provided due diligence through Series B and C fundraises. We advised on the hiring of OLIPOP’s first W2 finance leader (a VP) and realigned the Propeller team to ensure a seamless transition under new leadership. And we led the migration from QBO to NetSuite.
Phase 3: Optimizing And Scaling For The Long Haul
In 2022, OLIPOP reached several major milestones—$50M in both revenue and capital raised, along with the hiring of its first CFO. With the talent and resources to assume full control of its finance leadership, the company was entering a new phase of growth. We provided audit-ready solutions for general accounting, trade deductions management, and payroll support. We also provided interim leadership and surge support, stepping in as needed to cover team transitions, employee departures, seasonal spikes, and fundraising efforts, and ensuring operational continuity at critical moments.
Strategic Takeaways
Strategic discipline
Unlike many beverage startups that expand prematurely, OLIPOP focused on revenue quality over quantity. The company delayed entry into Amazon and convenience store distribution until existing channels were meeting performance expectations.
Adaptability & flexibility
As OLIPOP’s growth surged, its people, processes, and systems faced constant strain. Propeller’s support evolved alongside them, ensuring they remained agile through each growth phase.
Collective intelligence
Propeller’s data insights from working with hundreds of CPG companies provided OLIPOP with an unfair advantage.
Investment mindset
OLIPOP approached Propeller’s partnership as an investment, not an expense. Propeller’s systems and expertise delivered scalable, flexible growth without overextending resources.
